broached in the tentative rather than the dogmatic form. If alarmists within the church would be at pains to know the author personally, they might find him a devout and reverent thinker, as much concerned for the honor of Christianity as themselves. Perhaps he has carefully considered the very points at which they stumble, and sees a way of justifying them to his Christian faith which has not occurred to his critics. Why should they stultify themselves by raising a false alarm? Very likely he only puts his views into the form of an inquiry at first, and leaves them at the tribunal of reason and common sense. Why need we, in our concern for the Bible, rush upon them frantically, or blow our trumpets for a warning, before those theories have won a sure foothold, even in the scientific or philosophical world? When they have passed over that frontier, coming safely out of every struggle, and surviving every attack on their proper ground, then it will be early enough for us to conclude whether or not our batteries should open upon them. Multitudes of them are overthrown and trodden down, while running the gantlet wholly outside of our domain; and if here and there one escapes, surviving the opposition of rival theories, and overcoming the severest scientific criticism, this fact should be taken as presumptive evidence that it comes to us, not as an enemy, but as a friend; for truth cannot be the foe of truth.

Error not always to be denounced.

it

Even where we detect grave signs of error,

may be wiser to seek fellowship than to withdraw it. It was Judaism that said, "Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred;" Christianity says, "Go into the world." Perhaps Luther was wrong in think

ye

ing that the Reformers could. do most for their cause by staying in the Papal church. Perhaps they are mistaken who think that the churches of New England lost ground by withdrawing from Arianism in Dr. Channing's time. But as long as the honor of Christ will permit, we should avoid driving any new error into an open declaration of war. It may be no more than the pet delusion of a few individuals, and, at the worst, will live only while they live, if let alone. By assailing it we provoke it to take positive ground; at once put its advocates out of the reach of our Christian influence; enable it to raise against us the cry of persecution, which will be sure to bring crowds of curious and sympathetic people to its support; and thus a party may be organized, through which its influence will be vastly widened, and prolonged far beyond the term of its natural life. A broad wisdom, gleaned from the fields. of history and experience, admonishes us to brand no man as a teacher of infidelity, till absolutely compelled to by our loyalty to Christ. Whoever does not insist on being the enemy of Revealed Religion, should be esteemed its friend.

Great harm was done to the cause of Christ, Mistake respecting Aswhen his church condemned, as of infidel ten- tronomy. dency, some of the earlier astronomical discoveries. We are amazed now, that the fathers of the church should make themselves a tribunal to judge the Copernican theory, and that they should proceed to condemn it, declaring it to be a damnable heresy. Not that Copernicus himself was thus condemned. Being one of the devoutest men of . his times, living amidst powerful friends who wisely guarded his reputation, and not publishing his great discovery till

just as he died, he escaped ecclesiastical censure. It was reserved for Galileo, his follower in the next century, to bear the Papal condemnation; by which his name has been lifted up, as an everlasting warning to theologians, not to make their own ignorance a throne of judgment, from which to hurl anathemas at the novelties of science and philosophy.

Treatment of

Yet that warning has not been always heeded. Geology. The blunder of those Romish doctors was repeated as late as the present century, when the theories of geologists began to challenge attention. How many students of the new science were thus repelled, from what they mistook as the narrowness and bigotry of Christianity, until they became open opposers of the church and its teachings, we shall know only in the day of the revelation of all things. It is not these denunciatory champions, who seem to be born with the scent of religious error in their nostrils, that Christianity needs. They do much harm to her sacred cause. Such men as Thomas Chalmers are the rather our examples. When the ministers of Scotland were beginning to raise their hue and cry against geology, he exclaimed, "This is a false alarm. The writings of Moses do not fix the antiquity of the globe. If they fix anything at all, it is only the antiquity of the species." These great words produced a revolution, and prevented a revolution. They were caught up, and shouted throughout the United Kingdom, till geologists saw they had no cause to rebel against the church, and the church saw she had no occasion for denouncing geology. It was this noble stand which made Chalmers the champion, at once, of both the new science and Christianity. From that time forth

geology was mainly a Christian science in Great Britain; whereas, but for that grand utterance and leadership, it would, from all that now appears, have speedily fallen into infidel hands.

respecting

I

At the present day there is a controversy, Caution going on in the scientific world, respecting Darwinisin. which the friends of Christianity need to beware. refer to the Darwinian theory of the origin of species through natural selection, which argues that all the animal races now on the earth have been developed out of one central mass of life; and its opposing theory, held by Agassiz among others, according to which there are many such centres, so distinct in the near past that even the races of men could not all have descended from a single pair. The nature of this controversy, and its attitude towards certain portions of the Bible, are thus stated by Professor Huxley: "The hypotheses respecting the origin of species which profess to stand on a scientific basis, and, as such, alone demand serious attention, are of two kinds. The one, the 'special creation' hypothesis, presumes every species to have originated from one or more stocks, these not being the result of the modification of any other form of living matter, or arising by natural agencies, but being produced, as such, by a supernatural creative act. The other, the so-called 'transmutation' hypothesis, considers that all existing species are the result of the modification of pre-existing species, and those of their predecessors, by agencies similar to those which, at the present day, produce varieties and races, and therefore in an altogether natural way; and it is a probable, though not a necessary consequence of this hypothesis, that all living beings have

1

arisen from a single stock. The doctrine of special creation owes its existence very largely to the supposed necessity of making science accord with the Hebrew cosmogony; but it is curious to observe that, as the doctrine is at present maintained by men of science, it is as hopelessly inconsistent with the Hebrew view as any other hypothesis." The relative merits of the two theories, as judged by our scriptural standards, are certainly well stated in the closing words of this paragraph, though Huxley is inexcusably reckless in assuming that he knows precisely what the Hebrew view, as he calls it, was. It is plain that those who adhere to the common interpretation. of the first of Genesis must reject both these theories. When they applaud Agassiz for some hard blow given to Darwin, they ought not to forget that Agassiz is no champion of theirs, but quite as hostile to them as his opponent. And are we yet sure that either of them is hostile to the inspired record, so much as to what translators and interpreters have made that record say? One or the other of the two theories may be destined to prevail; and we can ́afford to wait undisturbed, while the battle goes forward in the outer court of science, not taking up our weapons till either "special creation," or "transmutation," having been declared victor there, shall assail the sanctuary of our religious faith. Why should we excommunicate zoology, even after its own friends are at peace, so long as it is sure that our sacred philology has yet a great deal to learn? If it becomes the settled creed of the scientific world, as few anticipate, I suspect, that the races of men sprang from

1 Lay Sermons and Addresses (Appleton & Co., New York, 1871), pp. 279, 280.