The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-09-17
SOLITARY COMMUNINGS
BY THE REV. JOSEPH DUFFY.
T HERE is harmony in nature tha

HERE is harmony in nature that Is exceedingly grandi it sounds
 forth from earth, and sea. and sky. Artists have listened to it and, taking II as the ideal of their most ambitious eHorts' have vainly endeavored to por- tray It. Scientists have worn their lives away in search of the keynote to it's songs. Numerical harmony is but it's faintest echo, whilst the most perfect melody can give us only a slight con- ceptlon of it's perfection. Biologists hear It In the heaving of the earth's vast bosom; physicists in the light, and heat and motion that surround us on all sides. In the clouds that gather above us, and in the storms that sweep over us; and as- tronomers catch it's glimmer in the ray of light that reaches them from the remotest star
 This harmony is the unceasing hymn of order which rises from the universe like the voice of devotion giving to its Gre ator His glory and His praise.
 It is an old argument-old indeed as that first moment when the world, per- feet in every portion, was launched forth from the almight hand of it's maker; 1t is moreover an argument put forward by God himself in the construction of the universe and consequently as we might expect the most profound philosopher may examine with microscopic penetra- tion into It's every minutest detail with out the possibility of finding a flaw, Yes, never did child portray the countenance and lineaments of it's parents with the same perfection of face and figure with which this great Kosmos bears upon 1t the stamp of a Creator with infinite powers and perfections, and we may con clude with the learned Lacodaire: "Un- der all circumstance, however depraved mans will may be, he is in necessary relation with the idea of God; do what he Wth, the idea of God occurs to him, despite of him. It pervaces the world; it's spectre stands before us, it has eyes and hands and a mouth; we may say to 1t, no; we may say to 1t, away; but in saying to it, no, we reply to it's word; in saying to It, away. we reply to its pres- ence. Negation affirms, and repulsion at tests. We take the trouble of denying only thing which exists we repel only what opens our door wholly or partly and troubles our repose with an importu- nate visage. We drive away only what has entered in. And if we deny God, it is because He lives in the world; if we repel Him, 1t is because He is present; if we drive Him away, it is because He has entered in. And this life, this pres ence, this entry of God into humanity proves that He is; for if He is not, whence this possession of humanity by the idea of Him."
 But to place the matter upon a few stronger grounds. We find the vatican council issuing it's anathema against those who would assert that man cannot attain to a certain knowledge of the one true God from created things by the natural light of reason. See Can. II, De. Rev.
 God In the Soul.
 There Is, however another world In which the power of God is no less mani fest, His presence less felt, less continu- ous or less conspicuous and that is the soul of man. Let us listen to the voice of reason proclaiming the dictates of this supernatural order. It tells us in no doubting or uncertain words that man is a wayfarer on the earth; that the be-all and the end-all of his existence is not here below, but that the term of his journey is a spirit land-a land beyond the grave, to which he must tend with all his might and main that he must allow nothing to thwart him or divert him from his course that whilst he Is on his way, nothing is good save that which helps him thther: that nothing can his soul, knowing and loving the true and the good; finally, that If he falls, he alone Is responsible for the failure.
 To set forth another incontrovertible principle. Since the same Creator, who