332 PHILLIPS BROOKS. 



popular demand for eulogy been more insistent. The Librarian of 

 Harvard College reports the receipt of some twenty-five printed dis- 

 courses commemorative of him. If to these were to be added the 

 almost countless tributes scattered through the columns of newspapers 

 and the pages of periodicals, both at home and abroad, the aggregate 

 of spoken and written appreciation would be seen to be enormous. 



It will therefore better serve the present purpose if the account 

 be taken chiefly of the attitude held by Dr. Brooks towards the 

 particular interests of which the American Academy and other kindred 

 associations are representative. How did this theologian (for theo- 

 logian in a true sense he was, though preacher first of all) regard 

 natural science, more especially in its bearing upon religion ? 



Briefly characterized, his attitude towards the scientific movement 

 of the day was one of confident friendliness. While others were 

 discussing possible treaty relations between science and faith, he 

 always seemed to speak and act as if peace were already declared, 

 or rather had never been broken. An ardent theist, and for that 

 reason an assured optimist, he found it impossible to regard with sus- 

 picious dread any tidings of discovery that were evidently authentic. 



For new treasure, whencesoever brought, space must be found, he 

 argued, and if the present receptacles seemed inadecpiate, he was for 

 enlarging them. He was impatient of labored attempts accurately to 

 dovetail the postulates of theology with present day theories, cosmic, 

 anthropological, or what not, convinced as he was of the transitory 

 character of all such well meant adjustments. Even the analogies 

 which some popularizers of science are fond of tracing between the 

 natural and the spiritual worlds seemed to possess slight interest for 

 him, and in so far as in his preaching he drew at all upon the 

 resources of " the unseen universe," it was for purposes rather of 

 illustration than of argument that he did so. "I have so many 

 hundred sermons," he was once heard to exclaim, naming a large 

 number, " and I thank God that not one of them deals with the 

 relations of science and religion." 



That this reticence was in any measure due to intellectual timidity, 

 no one who had the privilege of knowing Phillips Brooks can for a 

 moment suppose. That it was a wise kind of silence, most of those 

 who are deeply conversant with the conditions of the question will 

 acknowledge. 



1893. W. R. Huntington. 



