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TH E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
March 1926
THE G IL LIA M S SE R V IC E , N EW YORK
Scene at the Sacred Ganges R iver, Benares, India graphic (presentation In m ln la tu r, o f the teem ing m illions o f this land o f darkness and superstition. 8 eVklni*ln ^ ^ n In Its tu r ^ d waters fo r that clsanslng from sln w llc h Christ alone can give, they throng Its busy hanks Tn a tragic auest fo r peace o f heart. May the "Macedonian cry o f this needy land give potency to the last com - mission o f our Lord, and press us out in ever increasing earnestness that the “ people who walk In darkness may see the g rea t light.
to its working. Prayer is of no use, you must submit to the fixed order.” If this view of miracles be sound and sensible it knocks away the prop from the main objection urged against mir acles. Sceptical persons say: “ I can’t believe that God would first make laws for nature and Bet them in motion, and then qp on and violate His own laws. What would be the use of making them, if He himself would break them or so easily suspend or set them aside?” We meet the objector on the very threshold, and honestly dispute his position. Is a miracle a violation of the laws of nature, or is it only such an interfbtence with the established course 6 f things, as infallibly shows us the presence and the action of a sup ernatural power? I have a watch here— when wound up it runs straight forward until it needs winding. By a fixed law, in conform ity with the very structure of the time piece, its hands move only in one direction, while they move at all. Yet, when I find that it is too fast I move the hands backward; I inter rupt the usual movement, but I violate no law. The watch could not have turned back its own hands and corrected itself, but a superior intelligence interferes for a proper end. Have t suspended or violated any law? or have I sim ply brought a new law to bear which, though not in ordin ary operation, is entirely consistent with the laws which govern the movements of the watch? As I examine more minutely into the structure of this delicate piece of mechan ism, I observe a remarkable fact: the maker of this watch has made provision for Just such a reversal o f that law, by which both minute and hour hands move only forward. He has provided for a backward movement, when the intel ligent owner chooses, without any interference with this exquisite arrangement: while I turn back the hands I dis turb no wheel, and there is not even one tick the less: and yet, left to itself, the hands of that watch never could change their direction of movement. Who is competent to
mechanical law, is reversed. We do not bring the resur rection of LazaruB down to the level of the resurrection of one who, after apparent death from drowning, is brought to life. Our object is to show that, in our ordinary expe rience, the will o f an intelligent being arrests and reverses the action of mechanical law, proving the presence of a superior agency, without any violation of the real order of nature. And may not a miracle simply be, on a scale suited to the grandeur of God’s activity, the will of an infi nite intelligence, arresting and reversing the action of mechanical law, proving the presence of a superior and supreme being. Dr. William M. Taylor has happily illustrated the consis tency of miracles with the uniformity of law by a reference to the Holly system of waterworks. The engine, which fur nishes the pressure for the water supply, is so arranged that the demand regulates the supply. According to the rapidity of the discharge at the hydrant, is the rapidity with which the pumping engine works. Then, when a Are in the town subjects the apparatus to a very unusual tax, a signal in the engine room, acting automatically, causes the engineer to gear on some reserve power, always ready for use; and so, even in an emergency, there is provision for ample supply. And yet all this is a mere triumph of mechanics. Now let the ordinary working of the machinery represent the com mon course of nature; and the intelligent, personal inter vention of the engineer, in an exigency, the personal inter position of the sovereign of the universe in the crises of affairs; and you have almost an analogy, refuting the objec tion on a scientific basis. Lacordalre, in his conferences, finely satirizes this modern scientific doctrine of the helplessness of God. A woman cries out from the slums of Paris for light and help. God answers, “ I would gladly help you but I cannot. I have established a fixed order of things and I have limited myself
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