when the range of seeing puts the size of an atom at less than one two-hundred-and-twenty-four-thousandth of an inch, and when the range of thinking puts it at less than one six-millionth of an inch, many prefer to consider an atom as a center of force and not as a material entity at all.  But, amid uncertainties, this is certain, that the forces of the visible worlds are extraneous.  They come out of the invisible.  They are all also returning to the invisible; that is what light is doing in space, previously referred to.  This incredibly high-class energy is not banking up coal in the celestial ether as it did on the earth, but is returning to the quick, mobile forces of the invisible worlds.  One thing more is certain, that the origin of all the forces of the invisible is in personality; for the atom, it is agreed, bears all the marks of being a manufactured article.  Different-sized shot could not have greater uniformity of structure and constitution.  And their whole behavior shows that they are controlled by an admirable wisdom past finding out.

That these forces exist and are necessarily active there are three proofs.  Worlds have been made, not of things and forces that do appear.  They were abundantly displayed in the physical miracles of Christ and others; and these forces, independently of the physical miracles at various times, have continuously helped men.

(1) Concerning the first fact—­that worlds have been made—­nothing need be said except that these forces, being personal, cannot be supposed to be exhausted, and hence creations can go on continuously.  We are assured that they do.  And the personal element more and more relates itself to personalities.  “I go to prepare a place for you,” to fit up a mansion according to tastes, needs, and enjoyments of the future occupant.

(2) This is the place to assert, not to prove, that this visible world has always been subject to the forces of the invisible world.  It does not matter whether these forces are personal or personally directed.  Its waters divide, gravitation at that point being overcome; they harden for a path, or bodies are levitated; they burn by a fire as fierce as that which plays between two electric poles.  These forces are not the ordinary endowments of matter; they step out of the realm of the greater invisible, execute their mission, and, like an angel’s sudden appearance, disappear.  Who knows how frequently they come?  We, for whose sake all nature stands “and stars their courses move,” may need more frequent motherly attentions than the infant knows of.  They will not be lacking, even if not sufficiently evident to the infant to be cried for.  “Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.”