want of what the animal has died—­what has gone out of it—­they cannot tell.  No man can tell; for that is invisible, and not to be discovered by the senses.  They are therefore forced to explain death by theories, which may be true, or false:  but which are after all not death itself, but their own thoughts about death put into their own words.  Death no man can see:  but only the phenomena and effects of death; and still more, life no man can see:  but only the phenomena and effects of life.

For if we cannot tell what death is, still more we cannot tell what life is.  How life begins; how it organizes each living thing according to its kind; and makes it grow; how it gives it the power of feeding on other things, and keeping up its own body thereby:  of this all experiments tell us as yet nothing.  Experiment gives us, here again, the phenomena—­the visible effects.  But the causes it sees not, and cannot see.

This is not a matter to be discussed here.  But this I say, that scientific men, in the last generation or two, have learnt, to their great honour, and to the great good of mankind—­everything, or almost everything, about it—­except the thing itself; and that, below all facts, below all experiments, below all that the eye or brain of man can discover, lies always a something nameless, invisible, imponderable, yet seemingly omnipresent and omnipotent; retreating before the man of science deeper and deeper, the deeper he delves:  namely, the life, which shapes and makes all phenomena, and all facts.  Scientific men are becoming more and more aware of this unknown force, I had almost said, ready to worship it.  More and more the noblest minded of them are becoming engrossed with that truly miraculous element in nature which is always escaping them, though they cannot escape it.  How should they escape it?  Was it not written of old—­Whither shall I go from Thy presence? and whither shall I flee from Thy Spirit?

What then can we know of this same life, which is so precious in most men’s eyes?

My friends, it was once said—­That man’s instinct was in all unknown matters to take refuge in God.  The words were meant as a sneer.  I, as a Christian, glory in them; and ask, Where else should man take refuge, save in God?  When man sees anything—­as he must see hundreds of things—­which he cannot account for; things mysterious, and seemingly beyond the power of his mind to explain:  what safer, what wiser word can he say than—­This is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?  God understands it:  though I do not.  Be it what it may, it is a work of God.  From God it comes:  by God it is ruled and ordered.  That at least I know:  and let that be enough for me.  And so we may say of life.  When we are awed, and all but terrified, by the unfathomable mystery of life, we can at least take refuge in God.  And if we be wise, we shall take refuge in God.  Whatever we can or cannot know about it, this we know;