58 



A heatlien writer tells us that the first Mariner wag 

 deemed guilty of impiety. We know, from much more recent 

 history, that the first man who used the Telescope, the first man 

 who drew Lightning from the clouds, nay, the first man who 

 dared to raise the wind artificially to winnow his wheat, was 

 thought little better than an Atheist. But nobody now considers 

 Christanity in danger from Lord Eosse's ten-foot Reflector, from 

 the Electric Telegraph, or from Hornsby's Corn Dressing Machine 

 with its internal hurricane almost enough to blow a man's head 

 off. 



In this age, as well as in those before it, we mistake the 

 discordance with our own readings and opinions for opposition to 

 Christian Truth. We mistake the ideas we have associated with 

 our religious views, for religion itself. Time, the greatest of 

 revolutionists, insensibly corrects the error, and supplies the re- 

 conciliation better than any argument. In matters of science it 

 is far better to keep the work separate at first, to let each investi- 

 gator go on in his own track, undisturbed by perpetual challenge 

 of disagreement with received opinions. The Chinese foot does 

 not become more symmetrical by the attempt to restrain it with- 

 in the shoe that fitted its infancy ; and the Study of Nature 

 if left unconfined will best preserve the symmetry of Truth 

 while the proportions of human Thought are enlarged. 



«-<r<5s^^(5JkS>'t)<£>o-j 



