Volume 1 	            Lawrence, Kansas    		December 1961	  	     Number 12

The Psalmist declared "The heavens declare the glory of God: and the firmament sheweth his handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge;" and in so stating he was bringing to the attention of his readers the fact that the evidences of God's existence was to be seen in the facts of nature to be found in the great universe. We know that the myriad's of pinpoints of light that deck the heavens at night are gigantic suns, stars, and planets, many of them millions of times larger than our home planet, the earth. The very existence of these unnumbered worlds, and their unchanging movements in their respective orbits can be explained only by admitting the existence of a great Creative power we call God. If that small time-keeper we call a watch is proof of an educated mind and skilled hands, then the existence of the great universe, including this world with its multiple forms of life, is likewise proof of the existence of an all-wise Creator.

In studying the diverse forms of life we find on earth, and the facts of nature in connection with such life, we are impressed by the fact that the instincts of many animals and birds can be accounted for only by admitting that they are provided with such instincts by the wisdom of God. Let us consider a few examples:

Birds have a homing instinct. The robin that nested at your door, goes south in the fall, but returns to its old nest in the spring. Just where do they obtain a traveler's "map" that unerringly guides them to their former abode? In September flocks of most of the birds fly south over thousands of miles of the ocean, but they never lose their way. Where do they get their calendar that reveals the time of migration, and the map that guides them in their flights? The homing pigeon, confused by strange sounds on a long journey in a closed box, circles for a moment when released, then heads unerringly for home. The bee finds its hive even while the wind, waving the grasses and trees, blots out every visible guide to its whereabouts.

The homing instinct is highly developed in man, but he has to supplant his meager equipment with such instruments of navigation as the compass and sextant. In the days of the horse and buggy, the driver might be confused on a stormy night but if he let "Old Dobbin" alone, the horse would keep to the road on the darkest night, and bring the master safely home.

The lens of your eye throws an image on the retina, and the muscles automatically adjust the lens to the perfect focus. This retina is composed of nine separate layers, all of which together are no thicker than thin paper. The innermost layer is made up of rods and cones which are said to number thirty million rods and three million cones. These are all arranged in perfect relation to each other, and to the lens, but, strangely enough, they turn their backs on the lens and look inward, not outward. If you could look out through the lens you would see your enemy upside down and right side left. That would be a bit confusing if you tried to defend yourself. So by some means (who will be foolish enough to say "blind chance?") nature knew what would happen, and before the eye could really see, made the correction, developing through the millions of nerve filament, leading to the brain, a complete adjustment, then raised the octave of perception from heat to light, this making the eye sensitive to color. We are thus seeing a colored picture right side up, a good optical provision. All the marvelous adjustments of lens, cones, rods, nerves, and all else must have occurred simultaneously, for before each of them was complete, sight was impossible? Just how could one necessary factor know and adjust itself to each of the requirements of the other? How could blind, unintelligent chance arrange this?

The honeybee workers make chambers of different sizes in the comb used for breeding. Small chambers are constructed for the workers, larger ones for the drones, and special ones for the prospective queens. The queen bee lays unfertilized eggs in the cells designed for males, but lays fertilized eggs in the proper chambers for the female workers and the possible queens. The workers, who are the modified females, having long anticipated the coming of the new generation, are prepared to furnish food for the young bees by chewing and pre-digesting honey and pollen. They discontinue the process of chewing and pre-digesting at a certain stage of development of the males and females, and then feed them only pollen and honey. The females so treated become the workers. Could anything less than divine intelligence arrange this?

For the females in the queen's chamber digested food is continued. The specifically digested food is continued. The specifically treated females develop into queen bees which alone produce fertile eggs. The process of reproduction involves special chambers, special eggs and the marvelous effect of the change of diet. All of this means: anticipation, discretion, and the application of the discovery of the effect of diet.

A part of the human ear is a series of some four thousand-minute, but complex arches graduated with exquisite regularity in size and shape. These may be said to resemble a musical instrument, and they seem adjusted to catch and transmit in some manner to the brain, every cadence of sound from the thunder to the whisper of the pines, and the exquisite blending of the tones and harmonizes of every instrument in the orchestra.