THE SOUTH-AFRICAN DIAMOND-MINES. 459 



church which may not stand, increase its membership, and become a 

 much more active power for good, if only it will abandon its super- 

 stitions. The clergy say that to do this is to abandon Christianity. 

 A great many of the laity do not think so. That is the issue. In the 

 absence of some effective counsel of reconciliation, more destructive 

 work will have to be done. Meanwhile, I cordially invite the clergy 

 to become scientists. If existing religious organizations are to be pre- 

 served, the scientific method must be unqualifiedly adopted and pros- 

 ecuted in the study and teaching of religion. By this method, ecclesi- 

 asticism may be transformed, and organized religion saved. Without 

 it, deterioration will go on till the ruin is complete. If the present 

 system of organized Christianity perish, however, the men who are 

 responsible for its destruction will be those officially in charge of its 

 interests ; who might have saved it if tbey would, but were not wise 

 in time ; who would not believe in the power of social forces ; who 

 refused to perceive the necessity of adaptation, the certainty and the 

 beneficence of change ; who had not faith in the God oftheir worship, 

 as he works in and through Nature ; and who would not allow their own 

 minds to awake from their dead selves and rise "to nobler verities." 



To conclude, now, these remarks upon religious education, let me 

 sum up what I conceive to be the scientific position. Religious truth 

 should be taught in schools and seminaries of learning as far as it is 

 a matter of scientific knowledge, but critically and not with the pur- 

 pose of promoting any religion. The utmost care should be taken to 

 present arguments for and against any statement of fact, or any infer- 

 ence, judicially and without the arts of persuasion. Doubt and in- 

 quiry should be favored and stimulated, not discouraged or repressed. 

 If this can be accomplished, it is desirable to have religion, as some- 

 thing to be studied in its relations to truth, to character and conduct, 

 taught in public and other schools. But if this method can not be 

 followed, then, until there is unanimity of opinion as to what is true 

 in religion, all teaching on the subject must be excluded from the pub- 

 lic schools. In other institutions effort should be made to introduce 

 and develop the scientific, the critical, the comparative method in this 

 sort of instruction, while every encouragement should be giv^n also 

 to the establishment of schools, colleges, and universities, where its 

 adoption and consistent practice shall be insured. 



THE SOUTH-AFRICAN DIAMOND-MINES. 



IT was a pleasant fancy of a writer in the " Cornhill Magazine," to 

 argue for the plausibility of the fairy-story of the princess from 

 whose pretty lips "fell diamonds, both in speaking and in sinking, and 

 even in silence," when she merely smiled. " For, consider," he says, 



