THE MUSEUM. 



179 



tation of Genesis received any support 

 from natural science. But it is as well 

 to do one's work thoroughly while one 

 is about it, and I think it may be ad- 

 visable to point out that the facts, as 

 the}' are at present known, not only re- 

 fute Mr. Gladstone's interpretations of 

 Genesis in detail, but are opposed to 

 the central idea on which it is based. "I 



It has often been urged, and not 

 without good ground of support, that 

 those few leaders in Genesis who rec- 

 ognize the Mosaic account of creation, 

 are not so in their hearts. The same 

 has frequently been said of Mr. Glad- 

 stone, for with the facts at command it 

 seems certainly difficult to understand 

 how any enlightened person can do so; 

 and yet we find that Dr. Dana, and also 

 Dr. Guyot, both Americans, and both 

 posing as reconcilers, according to an 

 English authority. 



And Mr. "Whiting will find that if he 

 will get the " Inquirer's Te.xt-book, " 

 (by the same publishers before men- 

 tioned) a whole list of men, great in 

 science and theology, who only echo 

 Prof. Huxley's words. And for every 

 well read man, who has the courage 

 to let his opinions be known, we may 

 rest assured that there is quite a 

 dozen, who, from various causes, think 

 it best to keep their individual opinions 

 close. 



To show how this feeling works, let 

 anyone make a close scrutiny of many 

 large booksellers stores and he will find 

 that books bearing on Agnosticism are 

 kept out of sight, orm the background. 

 A bookseller once told me that if some 

 of his customers knew he kept certain 

 books they would not come near his 

 place again, and this is the way truth 

 is stifled. 



t yaiue book. Page 50. 



There is no doubt but what the 

 deeper the research and knowledge of 

 geology is extended, the deeper the 

 chasm is between Genesis and science. 

 For instance, at the time Prof. Huxley 

 wrote his articles in the Quarterly Re- 

 view, he bas.d part of his argument on 

 the discovery of a solitary insect's wing 

 in the Silurian rocks. In January, of 

 this year, was found in a limestone 

 quarry at Maguoketa, Iowa, a very 

 er feet insect; antenna, wings, legs, 

 etc., just as perfect as when it alighted 

 on the ooze, millions of years ago, in 

 the Silurian period. 



It's comparatively easy to get a 

 manual of Geology, and quote a lot of 

 facts which belong to that science, but 

 with Mr. Whiting, he seems to make 

 "the wish the father to the thought," 

 so fully, that he loses sight of his 

 goal and only disproves what he started 

 out to prove, and evidently wishes to 

 prove. 



I well remember my own feelings. 

 I, at one time, fully believed in the 

 cosmogony of Genesis, and wished to 

 attend a lecture on geology, by Prof. 

 Morley, of Birmingham, Eng. , and he 

 well knowing my religious opinions, 

 advised me not to go to the lecture, 

 for he says the two won't mix anyway. 

 But I went to the lecture, and there I 

 got my first idea of the Ice Age in 

 Ouarternary Times. 



Our friend seems so serious that I 

 am somewhat sorry to break in on his 

 religious convictions, and his dreams 

 of satisfaction, on the j auction of the 

 two unmixable parts of our ideas, as I 

 well remember my own feelings, and 

 certainly do not condemn him or any 

 one else for thinking as he does, but 

 my hearty advice is, search for the 

 truth, with a mind quite free from the 



