CHRISTIAN AGNOSTICISM. 85 



He wrote as follows in the pages of this Review a few years ago 

 (November, 1878) : " It is against the mythologic scenery, if I may 

 use the term, rather than against the life and substance of religion, 

 that Science enters her protest." But how, in the name of common 

 sense and charity, is religion — that special provision for bringing 

 strength to the feeble-minded, elevation to the lowly, and wisdom 

 to the ignorant — to be brought home to all mankind, without the 

 use of even coarse symbolism, which is as "relative" to the masses 

 for whom it is intended as scientific conceptions are to philosophers ? 

 In both cases the realities behind are most imj^erfectly represented ; 

 and a higher intelligence, if it were not loving as well as intelligent, 

 would certainly display impatience with Professor Tyndall's own 

 kindly effort a few pages further on, where he says, "How are we to 

 figure this molecular motion? Suppose the leaves to be shaken 

 from a birch-tree ; and, to fix the idea, suppose each leaf to repel and 

 attract," and so on. Is it not clear that the Professor is here doing 

 the very same thing, in order to bring science home (all honor to 

 him !) to the unlearned, which he refuses to the ministers of religion 

 when they try to bring home the Gospel to the poor? How can 

 such subtile ideas, such far-reaching thoughts, as those of theology 

 be brought home to the mass of mankind without the boldest use of 

 symbol and of figured speech ? How can that most precious result 

 of Christianity, a unity of general conceptions about mankind and 

 about the Great Unknown, be secured without a symbolism of the 

 very broadest and most striking kind ? Panoramas can not be painted 

 with stippling-brushes. Nor, indeed, does any sort of painter aim to 

 compete with the bald truthfulness of photography. He does not 

 imitate — he merely hints. He throws out things (pcovdv-a avvErolaiv. 

 He summons the imagination of the sjiectators themselves to his aid 

 and awakens their finer susceptibilities. And by this means a " pict- 

 ure," which is in itself the most unreal of all unrealities, becomes in 

 skillful hands a fruitful reality for good, perhaps, to a hundred gen- 

 erations. 



If, then, any scientific man does not for himself need rituals and 

 symbols, still let him remember how invaluable an aid these things 

 are to the mass of mankind. Let him reflect how the purest and 

 loftiest ideas of the Eternal lie enshrined within every form of Chris- 

 tian adoration, and how the most touching memories speak in every 

 Christian sacrament. Is it nothing, too, to be brought in contact 

 with the boundless gentleness and tolerance of Christ ; to hear such 

 words as " He that is able to receive it, let him receive it," and " He 

 that is not against us is on our side " ? Is it nothing to feel the sympa- 

 thy of such a devoted benefactor of Europe as St, Paul, and to accept 

 his judgment that "he who regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the 

 Lord ; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not 

 regard it " ? Nay, is it nothing to bow the knee in acknowledged 



