NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 729 



not yet ended. The bitterness of the Abbe* Hamard in France 

 has been carried to similar and even greater extremes among sun- 

 dry Protestant bodies in Europe and America. The simple truth 

 of history makes it a necessity, unpleasant though it be, to chroni- 

 cle two typical examples in our own land and time. 



In the year 1875 a leader in American industrial enterprise 

 created at the capital of a Southern State a university which bore 

 his name. It was given into the hands of one of the religious 

 sects most powerful in that region, and a Bishop of that sect be- 

 came its President. To its chair of Geology was called Alexan- 

 der Winchell, a scholar who had already won eminence as a 

 teacher and writer in that field, a professor greatly beloved and 

 respected in the two universities with which he had been con- 

 nected, and a member of the sect which the institution of learning 

 above referred to represented. 



But his relations to this Southern institution were destined to 

 be brief. That his lectures at the Vanderbilt University were 

 learned, attractive, and stimulating even his enemies were forced 

 to admit ; but he was soon found to believe that there had been 

 men earlier than the period assigned to Adam, and even that all 

 the human race are not descended from Adam. His effort in this 

 was to reconcile science and Scripture, and he was now treated by a 

 Methodist Episcopal Bishop in Tennessee just as, two centuries be- 

 fore, La Peyrere had been treated for a similar effort by a Roman 

 Catholic Vicar-General in Belgium. The publication of a series 

 of articles on the subject, contributed by the professor to a North- 

 ern religious newspaper at its own request, brought matters to a 

 climax, for, the articles having fallen under the notice of the lead- 

 ing Southwestern organ of the denomination controlling the Van- 

 derbilt University, the result was a most bitter denunciation of 

 Prof. Winchell and of his views. Shortly afterward the professor 

 was told by Bishop McTyeire that " our people are of the opinion 

 that such views are contrary to the plan of redemption," and was 

 requested by the bishop to quietly resign his chair. To this the 

 professor made the fitting reply : " If the board of trustees have 

 the manliness to dismiss me for cause, and declare the cause, I 

 prefer that they should do it ; no power on earth could persuade 

 me to decline." 



" We do not propose," said the bishop, with quite gratuitous 

 suggestiveness, " to treat you as the Inquisition treated Galileo." 



" But what you propose is the same thing," rejoined Dr. Win- 

 chell. " It is ecclesiastical proscription for an opinion which must 

 be settled by scientific evidence." 



Twenty-four hours later Dr. Winchell was informed that his 

 chair had been abolished, and its duties, with its salary, added to 

 those of a colleague ; the public were given to understand that 



