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Mesle^ IRaturalists' Society. 



1"^HE Annual Soiree was held as usual in the Centenary Hall, 

 London, late in December. During the evening there were 

 limelight lantern lectures of a popular scientific kind, and 

 exhibitions of electrical experiments, microscopes, spectroscopes, 

 and other objects of great interest. The first part of the pro- 

 ceedings included addresses by the Chairman, Mr. John Beau- 

 champ (who has ever been a kind and practical friend of the 

 Society), Dr. Dallinger, the distinguished President, and Rev. 

 John Scott Lidgett, M.A. 



Mr. Beauchamp reminded the audience that many good people 

 had been under the impression that religion would suffer if there 

 were much intercourse with the world or much study of the works 

 of nature. In very early times good men, for this reason, left 

 society and retired to a hermit life in the desert. When that kind 

 of life became intolerable, men built monasteries and retired 

 thither from the world. But after a time it was found that the 

 evils generated by the monastic life were greater than those to be 

 found in the busy world, and gradually the monasteries were 

 closed. At another time the study of literature and the classics 

 was said to be injurious to religion ; but gradually it was recognised 

 that, after all, learning was no hindrance to religion. In later 

 times it was thought to be harmful to engage largely in business ; 

 but this feeling, too, had disappeared. Lastly, politics were 

 forbidden. Some people still thought that religious men should 

 keep clear of politics, but happily that idea was passing away ; and 

 it was now generally held that it was the duty of a godly man to 

 interest himself in the right government of his country. Now 

 this Society had been founded to protest against the idea that 

 science and irreligion necessarily go together. 



Dr. Dallinger expressed his conviction that if John Wesley 

 were living he would be occupying the position of President of 

 this Society, for there was no subject in which John Wesley felt a 

 profounder interest than that of the laws of Nature ; and he 

 insisted that if we would understand Nature we must be simple 

 students at Nature's feet. It was easy to see that he realised the 

 true dignity of manhood. While he fully recognised the obli- 

 gations and necessities of the body, he was profoundly sensible 

 of the obligations and necessities of the mind ; and as he rose to 

 a perception of man's spiritual nature and the great Centre of the 

 universe and its source, he did not allow his })erception of the 

 human mind to be obscured by the perception of that which was 

 the higher part of it. This does not extinguish intellect, with its 



