EDITOR'S TABLE. 



409 



long enough to see the name of Herbert 

 Spencer received with applause in a 

 great religious convention of orthodox 

 people ; but, if the report of the London 

 "Times" can be trusted, this extraor- 

 dinary phenomenon has actually oc- 

 curred. That paper of October 10th 

 contains a report of the Church Con- 

 gress held this year at Swansea, and 

 presided over by the Bishop of St. Da- 

 vids, in which the question of " Internal 

 Church Unity " came up for discussion. 

 The Eeverend Professor Pritchard gave 

 an eloquent and powerful address on 

 the " Religious Benefits from Recent 

 Science and Research," in which the 

 doctrine of evolution was assumed as 

 true, and as in entire harmony with all 

 essential religious truth. He was fol- 

 lowed by the Reverend Professor Wat- 

 kins, of St. Augustine College, Canter- 

 bury, who spoke on the same subject. 

 He said : " The currents of higher re- 

 ligious thought in England were being 

 influenced by two main forces ; one was 

 the theory of evolution, the other com- 

 parative theology, or the so-called sci- 

 ence of religion itself. The theory of 

 evolution came to them with much of 

 the charm of novelty, and commended 

 itself as emphatically of British growth. 

 It was probable, indeed, that this in- 

 duction of inductions was but a step 

 to higher inductions. Still he felt sure 

 that, when the history of this century 

 came to be written from the standpoint 

 of the future, the name of Herbert 

 Spencer would be found in the very first 

 rank among English thinkers. [Cheers.] 

 In ultimate principles he differed from 

 Spencer toto ccelo, but he was therefore 

 the more anxious to acknowledge the 

 greatness of his work, and the philo- 

 sophical spirit in which it had been 

 conducted. [Hear, hear!]" 



It is a common remark that all tran- 

 sitions of belief are painful, and none 

 know better than intelligent mission- 

 aries how painful are transitions of re- 

 ligious belief. It matters little that the 

 change is from a lower to a higher faith ; 



violence is done to long-cherished ideas, 

 and there is a sense of bereavement 

 whatever the superiority of the new 

 creed. Those, therefore, who are in 

 the habit of having their morality gar- 

 nished with theology and are accus- 

 tomed to mix these conceptions and 

 their terminology, will naturally shrink 

 from the attempt to separate the ethics 

 and treat it merely as an independent 

 system of scientific principles. Such 

 devout people will naturally look upon 

 the "Data of Ethics" as a cheerless 

 book. They yearn for the blessed 

 words that have become polarized by 

 long and sacred association. The re- 

 viewer in "Harper's Monthly," after 

 giving a very fair account of the work, 

 closes by expressing this idea as fol- 

 lows : " The treatise is a model of con- 

 densed and lucid statement, and of sub- 

 tile reasoning, but the reader will be 

 struck by the inexpressible dreai-iness 

 of its tone, as if its author had vezi- 

 fied in his own experience the simile 

 of one of our greatest living poets, that 

 ' the setting of a great hope is hke the 

 setting of the sun — the brightness of 

 our life is gone.' " 



It is possible that the writer believed 

 what he here says, but it is more prob- 

 able, we must say, that he was merely 

 writing with the delicate caution thought 

 necessary under the circumstances. The 

 penalty of a " hundred thousand circu- 

 lation " is that writers must be solicit- 

 ous to reflect public sentiment rather 

 than to lead it, and the practical result 

 is that they generally ,/b??()w it afar off. 

 Our whole nation is ahead of this senti- 

 mental craving to keep things mixed 

 which ought to be separated. We 

 have separated the Church from the 

 state, with great distress to many, no 

 doubt, but with the most wholesome 

 consequences. We have secularized 

 our public instruction, and, although 

 there are still many who bemoan the 

 inexpressible dreariness of our godless 

 education, the good sense of the coun- 

 try has long since ceased to heed the 



