57 



that suggeded it survived, and the scientific study of the ponders 

 of Creation was found in powerful alliance with the very truths 

 it had been supposed to threaten. It entered into the very lan- 

 guage of religion ; it did more, it became a part of reUgious 

 thought, and practical devotion. It is one of the purest plea- 

 sures of a life devoted to scientific persuits, to mark, when once' 

 the true reading of a compUcated problem has been obtained, 

 how aU the difficulties which had previously blocked up the path 

 like piles of ruin, are one by one cleared away, not by being 

 destroyed, but by being harmonised and reduced to consistency 

 and order. Things which appeared hopelessly antagonistic, are 

 found necessary to the elucidation of each other, and to the 

 comprehension of the whole of which they form a part. And 

 thus from what seemed at one time a wild chaos of facts driven 

 about at random by each conflicting current of hypothesis, there 

 emerges at last that compact symmetry and simpUcity which we 

 recognise at once as truth. What inward misgiving is it that 

 makes us distrust or despair of this result in Theology ? If we 

 could look back to the occurrence of the first great mediaeval 

 discoveries in Geography, in Astronomy, even in Literature, we 

 should see convulsion of existing opinion, processes of mental 

 revolution, far greater, for many obvious causes, than any which 

 flcientfic discovery can cause to-day. Yet the pyramid which seem- 

 ed to many, perhaps most thinkers of that day, to be trembling 

 on its point readv to topple down upon the next generation, if 

 not their own, stiU rests upon its base ; and to the thinking of 

 most, even of the timid of our day, a good deal more firmly than 

 it did, as it depended on man's previous opinions and creeds. 

 The progress of physical discovery knows no respite, nor pity, for 

 the most persistent theological opposition, any more than the 

 blind forces of nature wiU pause in obedience to the will of man. 

 But in the progress of time he learns to harness to his own use 

 the very agencies at which his ignorance once trembled, and dis- 

 covers that Creation is in unison, not in opposition to his wants 

 and happiness, and was framed to be in subservient accordance 

 with that of which it appeared to threaten the very existence. 



