THE SOURCE AND MANIFESTATION OF LIFE.
By William Covert
THERE is a potent, animating principle which gives individuality and energy to all organic things—a power that causes their mechanism to perform various appointed functions. This vitalizing, moving force is called life. Where is it generated? How does it operate? For what purpose are its wonders performed? Is it self-originated, or does it spring from an almighty source? Does it direct its own operations, or is its work guided by an invisible hand? Human research has not yet found a limit to the theme of life. The latest discoveries of science have not availed to give us full information. Nor is it presumed that this treatise will measure all its heights or fathom its depths. As man is the central figure in the field of this study, the lens through which the reader is to look will be focused upon him. Yet man has many satellites, such as plants in the vegetable kingdom, and creatures of a lower order in the animal domain, which will also appear in the field of vision, in proportion to the light that may be thrown upon them. In the inspired writings the shepherd-king of Israel makes the inquiry in these words: "When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained; what is man, that Thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that Thou visitest him?" Ps. 8:3, 4. When the psalmist thought upon the vastness and glory of God's work in ten thousand constellations, and then considered the perversity of the human heart, manifest in sin, he marveled at the love which continues to reveal itself in behalf of the human race. Its mysteries are as marvelous to-day as when David led the flocks of Jesse over Judah's hills, or when he sat at eventide upon the mountain top to watch the heavens in their glory. The Bible account of man's origin says: "The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." Gen. 2:7. Of His own life, the Lord gave man form and vitality. David, in writing of the great Source of all things, said, "With Thee is the fountain of life." Ps. 36:9. It has pleased the Lord to reveal this life in a multitude of forms; but from the beginning it has operated through seed prepared for a specific purpose. Since the completion of creation, not a single instance of life's being produced except from the seed of a parent, has ever been known. The power possessed by created beings of reproducing their kind is traceable directly to the Creator. All things, in both the animal and the vegetable kingdoms, are to bring forth after their kind. Julian Cutler, while thinking on this subject, composed the following lines:— "Isn't it wonderful when you think
How the creeping grasses grow,
High on the mountain's rocky brink,
In the valley down below?
A common thing is a grass blade small,
Crushed by the feet that pass—
But all the dwarfs and giants tall,
Working till doomsday shadows fall,
Can't make a blade of grass.
"Isn't it wonderful when you think
How a little seed asleep,
Out of the earth new life will drink,
And cheerfully upward will creep?
A seed, we say, is a simple thing,
The germ of a flower or weed—
But all earth's workmen laboring,
With all the help that wealth can bring,
Never can make a seed.
"Isn't it wonderful when you think
How the wild bird sings his song,
Weaving melodies link by link
The whole sweet summer long?
Commonplace is a bird always—
Everywhere seen and heard—
But all the engines of earth, I say,
Working on till judgment-day,
Never could make a bird.
"Isn't it wonderful when you think
How a little baby grows,
From his big, round eyes that wink and blink,
Down to his tiny toes?
Common thing is a baby tho—
All play the baby's part—
But all the whirling wheels that go,
Flying round while the ages flow,
Can't make a baby's heart."
The patriarch Job, in the midst of his greatest affliction, still possessed confidence in God as the Lifegiver; and, therefore, he said, "The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life." Job 33:4. The humbled prophet knew that as the Almighty had given him life, He would bring good out of the affliction he was suffering. The testimony of Moses and Job as to the origin of man makes it clear that he was brought into being by a direct miracle of creation. His material form was produced from the dust by the immediate brooding of God's Spirit over it. The life he received was imparted by the vitalizing breath of the Creator, making him a child of God by a direct and designed miracle.3 God has made men because He wants them. The world has been formed and the universe set in motion by the Creator for His own glory. The manner of His work, and the things He did, are revealed in His written Word, the Bible. The works are everywhere visible; man is in touch with them through all his senses; and so he can not avoid responsibility. All things are spread out before him as an aggregation of facts, and he needs no theory or speculation to prove that they exist; they can not be accounted for as coming by mere chance. Should he not take delight in believing that God, through love and wise design, has created all things, and especially him, for a definite purpose?