And, last, for those who doubt his faith in God And man's immortal destiny, there remains The granite monument of his own great work, That dark cathedral of man's intellect, The vast "Principia," pointing to the skies, Wherein our intellectual king proclaimed The task of science,--through this wilderness Of Time and Space and false appearances, To make the path straight from effect to cause, Until we come to that First Cause of all, The Power, above, beyond the blind machine, The Primal Power, the originating Power, Which cannot be mechanical. He affirmed it With absolute certainty. Whence arises all This order, this unbroken chain of law, This human will, this death-defying love? Whence, but from some divine transcendent Power, Not less, but infinitely more than these, Because it is their Fountain and their Guide. Fools in their hearts have said, "Whence comes this Power, Why throw the riddle back this one stage more?" And Newton, from a height above all worlds Answered and answers still: "This universe Exists, and by that one impossible fact Declares itself a miracle; postulates An infinite Power within itself, a Whole Greater than any part, a Unity Sustaining all, binding all worlds in one. This is the mystery, palpable here and now. 'Tis not the lack of links within the chain From cause to cause, but that the chain exists. That's the unfathomable mystery, The one unquestioned miracle that we _know_, Implying every attribute of God, The ultimate, absolute, omnipresent Power, In its own being, deep and high as heaven. But men still trace the greater to the less, Account for soul with flesh and dreams with dust, Forgetting in their manifold world the One, In whom for every splendour shining here Abides an equal power behind the veil. Was the eye contrived by blindly moving atoms, Or the still-listening ear fulfilled with music By forces without knowledge of sweet sounds? Are nerves and brain so sensitively fashioned That they convey these pictures of the world Into the very substance of our life, While That from which we came, the Power that made us, Is drowned in blank unconsciousness of all? Does it not from the things we know appear That there exists a Being, incorporeal, Living, intelligent, who in infinite space, As in His infinite sensory, perceives Things in themselves, by His immediate presence Everywhere? Of which things, we see no more Than images only, flashed through nerves and brain To our small sensories? What is all science then But pure religion, seeking everywhere The true commandments, and through many forms The eternal power that binds all worlds in one? It is man's age-long struggle to draw near His Maker, learn His thoughts, discern His law,-- A boundless task, in whose infinitude, As in the unfolding light and law of love. Abides our hope, and our eternal joy. I know not how my work may seem to others--" So wrote our mightiest mind--"But to myself