Intelligence that directs and superintends all! Because _you_ cannot
annihilate matter, nor conceive of its annihilation in the infinitessimal
compass of _your_ brain, is that any reason why Infinite power and
intelligence may not have spoken it into existence at _His_ sovereign and
commanding will? If man would presumptuously press towards the threshold
of the Infinite, let him do it reverently, and with humility of spirit,
and not as one "that vaunteth himself of strength," or "multiplieth words
without knowledge."

But let us examine the Bible Genesis a little further in this direction.
It is said in the second verse of the first chapter that "the spirit of
God moved upon the face of the waters," that is, upon the face of the
abyss--the chaotic mass at creation--the earth "without form and void."

What is here meant by "the spirit of God," is that life-giving breath or
power of God which operates (continuously operates) _to impart life to
inanimate nature._[6] From the connection in which it here stands it means
this, as in other connections it means the power which operates
(continuously operates) to produce whatever is noble and good (God-like)
in man. There is no implication in the text that this life-giving
principle or power was suspended in the act of creation. On the contrary,
there is abundant evidence in nature to show that it is just as operative
now as it was in the beginning. One of the definitions given by Professor
Gibbs of this spirit is, "that which operates throughout inanimate
nature," not that which once operated, and then forever ceased its
operations. And Professor Gibbs no doubt meant by "nature," in this
connection, not only all the physical phenomena she presents, but the
aggregate or sum total of all her phenomena, whether active or passive,
animate or inanimate, embracing the world of matter or the world of
mind.[7] "All are but parts of one stupendous whole,"--not a part nature,