4 o 4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



at the price of reality/' Rev. Dr. Hatch, not only proves that a 

 majority of the rites of the Grecian mysteries have been trans- 

 ported into the Christian Church, but he also solemnly asserts 

 that the peculiar tendency of the Greek mind to speculate, de- 

 fine, and dogmatize led to the establishment of the orthodox faith. 

 The original meaning of dogmas are " simply personal convic- 

 tions," and, while the statement of one man's convictions may be 

 accepted by other men, still they never can be quite positive that 

 they fully grasp the meaning of the original framer. " The belief 

 that metaphysical theology is more than this, is the chief be- 

 quest of Greece to religious thought, and it has been a damnosa 

 hereditas. It has given to later Christianity that part of it which 

 is doomed to perish, but which yet, while it lives, holds the key 

 to the prison-house of many souls." 



SKETCH OF LEWIS MORRIS RUTHERFURD. 



AN" article by M. L. Niesten, published in the thirty-ninth 

 volume of the Monthly, showed how greatly science is 

 indebted to amateur astronomers ; that about half of the living 

 astronomers whose work had gained a footing in science were 

 amateurs; that many of the most important discoveries in the 

 heavens had been made by them ; and further, that " other labor- 

 ers than astronomers have assisted in the advance of the science 

 by furnishing amateurs easier means of examining the sky and 

 bringing the greatest exactness into their observations." An 

 eminent demonstration of the truth of M. Niesten's remark, and 

 of the value of the assistance which an amateur has been able 

 to render astronomy in both sides of the work as described by 

 him, is afforded by the subject of this sketch. Educated for the 

 legal profession, and having begun his career in it, he gave it up 

 for the more favored pursuit of astronomical observation; per- 

 fected instruments ; and performed the most essential part in 

 introducing and establishing the photographic method under 

 which the most rapid advances in the science are now made. 



Lewis Morris Rutherfurd was born at Morrisania, N. Y., 

 November 25, 1816, and died at his country home, Tranquillity, 

 N. J., May 30, 1892. He could trace a Scottish ancestry on his 

 father's side through seven hundred years. His grandfather, John 

 Rutherfurd, was a nephew of our Revolutionary major-general 

 William Alexander, or Lord Stirling, and was United States Sena- 

 tor from New Jersey from 1791 to 1798. His mother was a direct 

 descendant of Lewis Morris, one of the signers of the Declaration 

 of Independence. He entered the sophomore class of Williams 



