There is no conceivable way of accounting for this orderly world we live in but one or other of these two: Either an intelligent being created the world, or--_the paving stones made themselves_.
"Here are two hypotheses, of which the oldest is admitted to offer a full and consistent explanation of all the facts of science.

There can be no better cause for any given formation than that God created it so.
Men of science, however, allege that creation (out of nothing) is 'scientifically inconceivable;' but this is only throwing dust in our eyes; of course, science can not _verify_ it, neither can it verify any other theory of causation.

The question is whether reason can accept the fact, though science can not even imagine the process?
If not, there is nothing for us but the _eternity of matter_, for evolution itself has to face the very same difficulty when asked to account for its primal germ.
It is surely more conceivable that God created the first matter out of nothing, than that nothing evolved something out of itself, by an imminent law of its nature.

This point, however, our scientific men are sadly given to shirking.

They profess in general not to hold the eternity of matter, but they have nothing to suggest for its origin.
They accept it as the starting point of evolution, and decline to speculate on its cause.