Practically it is an historical fact that all the great impulses given to humanity have been by men claiming divine guidance or inspiration, and professing to bring light and truth from the unseen world. It would be too much to say that all these prophets and reformers have been inspired of heaven; but scarcely too much to say that they have either received a message of God, or have been permitted to transmit to our world messages for weal or woe from powers without in subordination to him. Farther, we shall have reason in the sequel to see that in far back prehistoric times there must have been impulses given to mankind, and revelations made to them, as potent as those which have acted in later historic periods. In Holy Scripture the Word of God is represented as "enlightening every man;[3]" and with reference to our present subject we are told that "by faith we understand that the ages of the world were constituted by the Word of God, so that the visible things were not made of those which appear."[4] In other words, that the will of God has been active and operative as the sole cause throughout all ages of the world's creation and history, and that the visible universe is not a mere product of its own phenomena. We may call this faith, if we please, an intuition or instinct, a God-given gift, or a product of our own thought acting on evidence afforded by the outer world; but in any case it seems to be the sole possible solution of the mystery of origins. These points being premised, we are in a position to inquire as to the teaching of our own Holy Scriptures, and in this inquiry we can easily take along with them all other revelations, pretended or true, that deal with our subject.