have seen at once that those drops of water are not more sacred than any others; and that any drops will constitute a rainbow as well as any others, provided that the conditions are fulfilled. Those conditions are:—that the sun shall shine on the drops; and that the observer shall look at them from such a point of view as to catch the reflection from the sun. It was of a glory and loveliness visible only on those conditions, and, on those conditions, visible equally to all people,—it was of this that the Lord said, "I do set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between Me and the earth... the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth." There comes an epoch in the life of each science when a fatal materialism seems to settle down on nature; perhaps almost every student of natural science passes through such a phase, each for himself; a materialism, not of the sensuous and pantheistic sort, but dreary and sceptical. The colours on the flowers are "only" the effect of vibrations on our eyes; the bloom on the plum is an "excretion;" the love (of birds and men) for their offspring is "a mere physical excitement of the nervous system." What has become of the glory and beauty which we, in our ignorant days, saw in all around us? "It never was there," we are tempted to think; "we only imagined it; we are wiser now; all the glory has resolved itself
