4o8 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



which form so large a part of the 

 record, it is not because those ages 

 were not in possession of a well-es- 

 tablished and firmly believed theol- 

 ogy; it is not because any modern 

 scientific views had arisen to weaken 

 the sense of the sacredness of hu- 

 man life. It was simply and pure- 

 ly because a very inferior degree of 

 sacredness all theoretical reasons 

 to the contrary notwithstanding 

 was in reality attached to human 

 life. Men's minds had not then been 

 expanded and enlarged, nor had 

 their sympathies been quickened, as 

 they have been since knowledge be- 

 gan to grow by leaps and bounds. 

 Certain theological doctrines, more- 

 over, which then universally pre- 

 vailed, had a direct tendency to 

 deaden sympathy and pervert all 

 natural standards of right and 

 wrong ; we refer especially to that 

 conception of hell which was the 

 fundamental motive of all persecu- 

 tions for heresy and witchcraft. The 

 sum of human misery which must 

 be attributed to this one cause baf- 

 fles calculation. On the other hand, 

 no fact in history is more over- 

 whelmingly attested than that an in- 

 crease in humanity has accompanied, 

 and continues to accompany, a re- 

 laxation of the rigors of theological 

 belief. 



In that whimsical book, The 

 Green Carnation, there is a parson 

 introduced who, on the word science 

 being mentioned, immediately re- 

 marks, " Indeed, I have no opinion 

 of science." Our bishop, however, 

 is not content with having " no opin- 

 ion of science " ; he goes further and 

 has " no opinion," or, to be more ac- 

 curate, a shockingly bad opinion, of 

 Nature. Let us listen to this episco- 

 pal teacher : " There is nothing sa- 

 cred in Nature. Certainly she treats 

 life with very scant reverence, be it 

 vegetable or animal. Nature's forces 

 ruthlessly trample out and trample 



down life in all its forms. She is 

 the bloodiest-handed of all murder- 

 ers. She ravens in beak and claw." 

 A little while ago it was Prof. James 

 who was describing Nature as a har- 

 lot; to-day the Bishop of Mississippi 

 finds that the most appropriate epi- 

 thet he can bestow on it is "the 

 bloodiest-handed of all mvirderers." 

 What says Matthew Arnold ? 



" And patiently exact. 

 This universal God, 

 Alike to any act. 



Proceeds at any nod, 

 And quietly declaims the curses of himself." 



The Harvard professor curses in 

 the interest of his pessimism; the di- 

 vine, in the interest of his theology ; 

 and neither seems in the least alive 

 to the humor of the situation. 

 While they curse, the sun shines and 

 the wind blows, the great processes 

 of Nature go on, and the drama of 

 human destiny develops itself just 

 as if there was no such thing in the 

 world as a pessimistic professor or a 

 damnatory divine. Nature does not 

 ask any one to admire or belaud her. 

 She has given, or the power behind 

 her has given, to countless tribes a 

 share in what we call life. She 

 guarantees nothing save the perma- 

 nence of law ; but she has set in 

 operation certain principles of devel- 

 opment which, in the case of man, 

 have carried him, under favoring 

 circumstances, to a high degree of 

 eminence over the rest of the cre- 

 ation. Man thus finds himself pos- 

 sessed of self-consciousness and the 

 power of adapting means to ends, of 

 reading the secrets of Nature, and 

 greatly increasing his resources for 

 happiness and progress. At what 

 point in man's evolution from " the 

 primeval slime " which the bishop 

 so dislikes to think about though 

 the scriptural " dust " would only re- 

 quire a little moistening to make a 

 fair article of slime at what point, 

 we say, of man's evolution the social 



