Now with respect to the secondary or more indirect modes, by which the Deity communicates himself to men, the author observes that "Nature, too, is a book written on both sides, within and without, in which the finger of God is clearly visible:--a species of Holy Writ, in a bodily form--a glorious panegyric, as it were, on God's omnipotence, expressed in the most vivid symbols. Together with these two great witnesses of the glory of the Creator, scripture, and nature--the voice of conscience is an inward revelation of God--the first index of those other two greater and more general sources of revealed truths; while History, by laying before our eyes the march of Divine Providence--a Providence whose loving agency is apparent as well in the lives of individuals as in the social career of nations--History, I say, constitutes the fourth revelation of God."[26] We have next to consider the conduct of Divine Providence in the education of the human race. How do we educate the boy? We first endeavour to awaken his sense--then we cultivate his soul, or his moral faculties; while at the same time, we aid the gradual unfolding of his understanding. It is so with the divine education of mankind. In the primitive revelation, indeed, the first man received the highest intellectual illumination; an illumination which, though at his fall it was obscured by sin, still shines with a shorn splendour through all the history and traditions of the primeval world. When, however, by the abuse he had made of his great intellectual powers, man was successively deprived of all those high gifts with which he had been originally endowed; when by the errors of idolatry, he had lapsed into a state of intellectual infancy; then it was necessary that his sense should first be awakened to divine things; and this was accomplished in the Mosaic revelation. But this revelation was only preparatory to another, destined to renovate the soul of humanity, and gradually illumine its intelligence. This regeneration of the moral faculties of man was achieved immediately and directly by Christianity; for, without this moral regeneration, any sudden illumination of the intellect would have been hurtful rather than beneficial to mankind. Under the benign influence of Christianity, the scientific enlightenment of the human mind has been wisely progressive; but it seems reserved for the last glorious ages of the triumphant church to witness the full meridian splendour of human intelligence. Then the great scheme of creation will be fulfilled; and the intellectual light, which played around the cradle, will brighten the last age, of humanity. Let us now proceed to consider Nature in herself, and in her relations to God, to the spiritual intelligences, and to man.