Chauncey Giles

“ There was no more necessity for him to learn the principles of right than there is for a tree to learn how to grow, to put forth leaves, to cover itself with the beauty and glory of blossoms, and distil its blood into delicious fruit. There was no more necessity for man to learn how to get the greatest amount of the most precious good out of the conditions and means of life, than there is for the bee to learn how to build its cell and gather honey from the flowers to fill it. Unperverted love contains this power within itself. Man has lost it, and now he must be instructed by an outward way. ”

“ Nay, more, they are his affections and thoughts, embodied in material and objective forms. As a smile is the embodiment of a pleasant emotion, as the brightness which shines in the eye and illuminates the face when a new and beautiful thought is born in the intellect, so every plant and animal, and the light of the sun which reveals and glorifies the material world, is the embodiment of some affection, some thought or principle in the composition of the human mind. God reveals Himself to man in nature. He reveals man to Himself in nature. ”

“ It is as impossible to evolve knowledge from ignorance as it is to gain light from darkness. Knowledge upon any subject is enlarged and perfected by more knowledge. The supposition that ignorance or error can by any process of increase or development or evolution, become truth, is as absurd as the doctrine of the creation of the universe out of nothing. Improvement in the arts and industries and methods of business and mechanical appliances is not the evolution of any principle or force that was inherent in them. ”

“ There is another remarkable process constantly going on in our environment. It is being transferred from without to within us. The objects of the outward world become ideas in the inward world. The memory becomes our environment. Such is its amazing capacity that every object we have seen with its colors, form, relations to other objects, its size and qualities, and all the associations and circumstances connected with them, are gathered into the memory, and form the environment of thought and feeling. They gird us round and bound our existence, and constitute the field of all our activities. ”

“ We speak of a cold, frozen, icy, warm heart, of ardent affections, burning and fiery passions. All the qualities, activities, and relations of heat are employed to express the qualities, relations, and activities of love. But to see the correspondence between heat and love clearly we must have some true knowledge of the nature of love. When we understand that love is something more than a feeling or an emotion; when we know that it is the inmost and highest form of substance and power, we can see that the correspondence between heat and love runs through the universe. ”

“ Man has the power of loving. It is the inmost and highest faculty of his nature, which gives quality and efficiency to all others. It gives keenness to his intellect and alertness to every mental action. Love is the source of his freedom. It is his power to choose, to will, and to act. Within the limits of his knowledge and power he is as free to think, to will, and to act as the Lord Himself. The limit may be a small one, but that does not destroy its nature. Love is the power which draws human beings together, and the bond which holds them in serviceable relations. ”

“ We are led into the remote past where night and chaos reigned and asked to believe that by the conflict of the elements and "the fortuitous concourse of atoms," through ages of ages, the process of evolution began. We are led through an infinite labyrinth of attractions and repulsions, of conflicts and changes, of survivals and destructions, of hereditary tendencies, and we are asked to accept these as the origin and cause of life, when not one of these powers belong to matter. ”

“ Every new, idea or truth gained becomes a new vessel for the reception of more truth and a new means of gaining it. Every faculty of the mind becomes enlarged and strengthened, and gains a finer, a more delicate power, a keener sense, and a more comprehensive grasp by every truth learned and every affection exercised. Where, then, can we assign any limits to its capacity to receive life in the qualities of love and the forms of truth? ”

“ The Lord gives to every substance, every plant and animal, a form of its own. He gives it the power to be itself and not another. He individualizes. The perfection of every plant and animal and of every human being consists in its becoming more fully and distinctly itself. Grass is not evolved into wheat and forest trees. Its perfection consists in preserving its own form and improving its qualities. The perfection of a grape does not consist in becoming a peach, but a better grape. Its evolution does not consist in becoming something else, but in the perfection of its own qualities. ”

“ In one form or another they meet every material want. But this is not their only service. They minister to our pleasure and contribute to our human needs in manifold ways. They delight us with their beauty; they charm us with their variety; they awaken emotions of awe by their grandeur; they pique our curiosity and rouse us to action; they win our affections, and charm our fancy, and supply us with images which become the bases of knowledge and the materials of intelligence. ”

“ He still illuminates it with his light, and breathes into it the breath of physical life with his heat, and holds it in friendly conjunction with him in the powerful arms of his attraction So the infinite Father of intelligent being hold all His children in the embrace of His love, breaths into them the breath of life, and draws them into communion and conjunction with Him, as closely is they will voluntarily yield to His power, He is the vine and we are the branches. Is not the branch born of the vine, and does it not partake of its nature? ”

“ It is a body without a soul; and God, without a true knowledge of the functions of nature and of human life is but a formless, substanceless abstraction. Science needs theology to lift it above the low level and the narrow limits of the material world, the theatre of natural causes and effects. Theology needs the aid of science to bring it down from the abstract and formless to, the concrete, and give it body, form, substance, conceivable qualities and relations. ”

“ Why, then, should we admit the greater absurdity that there is any inherent self-derived power in rock or sand, or clay or mold, to form their substance into the infinitely more complex and delicate organisms of plant and animal, endow them with sensation and consciousness, give them the power to love, to know, to understand, and perform the various functions of a human being? ”

“ They are the forms in which those affections express themselves when they come down from the spiritual plane of being into the material. Therefore they perfectly represent them. They are the language of the soul in material forms. There is a most intimate connection between them, but a clear distinction. They are totally unlike, and yet the natural motion, form, tone is the perfect expression of the affection which caused it. A tear is not grief; a smile is not a pleasant affection; a blush is not shame; the clinched hand is not anger; laughter is not joy. ”

“ Love and intelligence constitute the Divine wisdom. They also constitute human wisdom. Love alone is not wisdom; truth alone is not wisdom. It is their union which constitutes wisdom. Therefore love seeks knowledge, woos it, and constantly strives to become married to it. These two faculties are the image and the likeness of God in man; and in the degree that man becomes them he is a child of God, and inherits the nature of his Divine Parent, and becomes the heir of all the riches and power and glory and blessedness he is capable of receiving. ”

“ I might speak of the use of animals to man for food, for clothing, to bear his burdens, to delight him with their beauty and affection animal. He has animal instincts, desires, passions, tastes, habits, powers, in a word, an animal nature. He possesses not merely the special faculties of one animal. The qualities of all animals are embodied in him. Plants and animals are special forms and qualities of life, all of which are combined in every human being. ”

“ Creation is not the evolution of matter. It is the evolution of the purposes or ends of the Divine love by means of material substances. The Lord created them for that purpose. Love is the only protoplasm. Matter is to the Creator as clay to the potter. He creates it, shapes it to His idea; He organizes it into forms adapted to the performance of His use. The essential and most potent factor in the creation of living forms is life itself. Life only can give life. Death cannot create life; inertia cannot give birth to power. The formless cannot create forms. ”