EDITOR'S TABLE. 



107 



created. The Church took issue with 

 this spirit of free thought, which it 

 sought to repress by violence wherever 

 and as long as it had the power, and 

 which it still seeks to extinguish hy the 

 force of its claim to represent divine 

 authority. It is still as vicegerent of 

 God upon earth that the Pope inter- 

 poses to stop the circulation of scien- 

 tific books, and continues his warfare 

 with the tendency to independent in- 

 quiry. 



We cannot but remark how greatly 

 the papal government mistakes the 

 times, and how utterly it fails to re- 

 alize the change that has taken place 

 since the sixteenth century. The time 

 has come when books are not to be 

 forbidden but answered, and the policy 

 of interdiction by the Vatican author- 

 ities is so futile that it becomes nothing- 

 short of a blunder. Dr. Draper's vol- 

 ume has been put under ban because it 

 is pervading all Europe two editions 

 having been called for even in ultra- 

 Catholic Spain. Publicly thus to mark 

 a book for religious outlawry is simply 

 to give to it a prodigious advertise- 

 ment. Where before it had one reader 

 it will now have ten. Men will get it, 

 determined to find out for themselves 

 in what its offense consists ; and women 

 will do as Eve did taste simply be- 

 cause it is a forbidden thing. The only 

 way to overcome the objectionable ten- 

 dencies of any work is to point them 

 out ; and the only way to deal with its 

 arguments is to refute them. To sup- 

 press such books in our time is out of 

 the question ; and if, in this special in- 

 stance, there are among the highly-edu- 

 cated ecclesiastics in Eome none who 

 can do this, the inference is that the 

 book is unanswerable. We have, cer- 

 tainly, no complaint to make of the 

 course adopted by the theological au- 

 thorities at Eome, and must, at any 

 rate, give them credit for consistency ; 

 but they forget that the world has 

 changed a good deal since the Inquisi- 

 tion was established. 



AS BEG A BBS BISHOP COXE. 



It is a great mistake to suppose that 

 bigotry and intolerance are altogether 

 confined to the Vatican ; we have ex- 

 cellent illustrations of this temper much 

 nearer home. While the Pope at Eome 

 is commanding the faithful not to ad- 

 mit Dr. Draper's book into their libra- 

 ries, Bishop Coxe, the little pontiff of 

 Western New York, is warning the good 

 Christians of Buffalo not to let Prof. 

 Huxley come into their houses ; while 

 both potentates put their intolerant 

 action on the same ground of divine 

 authorization. One would think that 

 in the nineteenth century, in an en- 

 lightened American city, in the year 

 of the nation's centennial, in the midst 

 of a presidential campaign, and at a 

 large convocation of the scientists of 

 this and foreign countries, Buffalo 

 Christians might have been left to 

 their own good sense and good taste 

 to entertain whom they pleased. More- 

 over, Prof. Huxley was the guest of 

 the American Scientific Association, 

 which was itself the guest of the city, 

 and this should have been sufficient to 

 protect him from insult from such a 

 quarter. It is well that the bishop's 

 type of Christianity does not prevail 

 in Buffalo, as, otherwise, the obnoxious 

 foreigner might have been left in the 

 streets to starve. 



Some of the Buffalo papers, hold- 

 ing the bishop's utterance in regard to 

 Huxley to be nothing less than a public 

 affront and a disgrace to the town, 

 made it rather warm for him, and so 

 he has followed up the original man- 

 date by a defense of it in subsequent 

 letters to his organ, " The Orbit." The 

 faithful were admonished to withhold 

 their hospitalities from Prof. Huxley, 

 because he is an atheist. The bishop 

 charges him with "scientific atheism" 

 whatever that may mean and refers 

 to his admonition to his flock for " im- 

 porting atheism into their families under 

 color of science." He also accuses Prof. 



