that it is the gift of God.  So thought the old Jewish Prophets and Psalmists; and spoke of a breath of God, a vapour, a Spirit of God, which breathed life into all things.  It was but a figure of speech, of course:  but if a better one has yet been found, let the words in which it has been written or spoken be shewn to me.  For to me, at least, they are yet unknown.  I have read, as yet, no wiser words about the matter than those of the old Jewish sages, who told how, at the making of the world, the Spirit, or breath, of God moved on the face of the waters, quickening all things to life; or how God breathed into man’s nostrils the breath or spirit of life, and man became a living soul.

And in the same temper does that true philosopher and truly inspired Psalmist, who wrote the 139th Psalm, speak of the Spirit or breath of God.  He considers his own body:  how fearfully and wonderfully it is made; how God did see his substance, yet being imperfect; and in God’s book were all his members written, which day by day were fashioned, while as yet there was none of them.  “Thou,” he says, “O God, hast fashioned me behind and before, and laid Thine hand upon me.  Such knowledge is too wonderful and excellent for me; I cannot attain to it.”  “But,” he says to himself, “there is One Who has attained to it; Who does know; for He has done it all, and is doing it still:  and that is God and the Spirit of God.  Whither”—­he asks—­“shall I go then from God’s Spirit?  Whither shall I flee from God’s presence?” And so he sees by faith—­and by the highest reason likewise—­The Spirit of God, as a living, thinking, acting being, who quickens and shapes, and orders, not his mortal body merely, but all things; giving life, law, and form to all created things, from the heights of heaven to the depths of hell; and ready to lead him and hold him, if he took the wings of the morning and fled into the uttermost parts of the sea.

And so speaks again he who wrote the 104th Psalm, and the text which I have chosen.  To him, too, the mystery of death, and still more the mystery of life, could be explained only by faith in God, and in the Spirit of God.  If things died, it was because God took away their breath, and therefore they returned to their dust.  And if things lived, it was because the Spirit of God, breathed forth, and proceeding, from God, gave them life.  He pictured to himself, I dare to fancy, what we may picture to ourselves—­for such places have often been, and are now, in this world—­some new and barren land, even as the very gravel on which we stand was once, just risen from the icy sea, all waste and lifeless, without a growing weed, an insect, even a moss.  Then, gradually, seeds float thither across the sea, or are wafted by the winds, and grow; and after them come insects; then birds; then trees grow up; and larger animals arrive to feed beneath their shade; till the once barren land has become fertile and rich with life, and the face of the earth