THE NATURAL VERSUS THE SUPERNATURAL. 5 



The mind that has fully opened to this perception no longer di- 

 vorces its faith from its reason, no longer rests in the idea of a dual- 

 ism in creation or opposition between God and the world, and can not 

 feel at ease until its religious belief is in harmony with its natural 

 knowledge. The two must not be at war. What we hope for, what 

 we aspire to, must be consistent with what we know. Faith and sci- 

 ence must, indeed, go hand in hand. The conception of religion as a 

 miraculous scheme for man's redemption interpolated into history, 

 God's original design with reference to man having miscarried, is en- 

 tirely undermined and overthrown by the perception of the unity and 

 consistency of creation as revealed by science. 



Who does not see that it adds vastly to the credibility of a doc- 

 trine or theory to find that it fits in with other things, that it is not an 

 exception or an isolated circumstance, but is in a line with facts and 

 principles of the truth of which we are already assured ? Suppose the 

 theory of Christianity, as popularly held, had something like the breadth 

 of application, or the same warrant and basis in the constitution of 

 things as has, say, the theory of evolution or the doctrine of the con- 

 servation of energy ; or suppose the dogma of vicarious atonement 

 pleased the mind and harmonized with our sense of the fitness of crea- 

 tion like the modern doctrine of embryology, namely, that embryology 

 is a repetition of past history, that every animal in its development 

 from the egg assumes successively, though briefly, all the forms through 

 which its ancestors have come in the course of the long stretch of geo- 

 logical ages, should we not all at once accept it as true ? Would there 

 ever have been any doubters and skeptics ? I think not. It is be- 

 cause these things have no such warrant and basis, no such agreement 

 with our perception of the order of the world, that doubters and skep- 

 tics exist ; it is because they break completely with all the rest of our 

 knowledge of creation. 



There is a very marked activity in the theological mind of to-day 

 which has for its end the bridging over of the gulf which exists be- 

 tween natural and what is called "revealed" truth. Half a dozen 

 recent works might be named of which this is the principal aim. 

 That eloquent preacher, Frederick W. Robinson, sought in one of his 

 sermons to give a natural basis to the dogma of vicarious sacrifice, 

 perhaps the most incredible dogma in the popular creed. See, says 

 the eloquent divine, how the mineral must decay before the vegetable 

 can grow ; how the vegetable must die before the animal can live ; 

 how the animal must perish before we can have roast beef for our din- 

 ner. The dove is stricken down by the hawk, the deer by the lion, the 

 winged fish falls into the jaws of the dolphin. " It is the solemn law 

 of vicarious sacrifice again " ; and so still higher. " The anguish of 

 the mother is the condition of the child's life." Every civilization is 

 founded upon the labors and sufferings of those who went before. 

 When this law of self-sacrifice is consciously obeyed it becomes the 



