123 



It is not always easy to get at the truth. It calls for much 

 patience, much perseverance, along with fixed habits of close 

 observation and thought, to separate what is true from the 

 many deceptive appearances that present themselves to the 

 student of nature ; and when we have oft succeeded and 

 found what we were searching for, let me add, it needs 

 not a little humility of mind to believe that it is not 

 by any methods of science that we can get possession of 

 every truth which it is desirable for man to know in his 

 present state. 



Very necessary is it to remember this. For so grasping a 

 hold does modern science take of all the operations of the 

 human mind, whether directed to the phenomena of the 

 external world, or to its o^YD. inward reasonings, that some 

 would seem to think there can be no real knowledge 

 elsewhere than in the structure science has raised, none 

 which must not submit to her guidance, and be bound by 

 her laws. 



To this we do not assent. We believe that there are 

 higher tniths than any science can attain to — the truths of 

 Revelation — made known to us neither by the evidence of 

 our senses, nor by experience, nor by the mere exercise of our 

 reasoning faculties ; truths which are only spiritually dis- 

 cerned, and from which spring our best and surest hopes 

 of the improvement of our race. 



Men may argue as they will ; but by no words or logic can 

 they dislodge — I would say from our hearts, rather than our 

 minds — the confident assurance we feel of the reality of these 

 truths. They can never prove their non-existence, however 

 improbable to their own thinking. Science stops short of the 

 discovery of them, and we are in no way bound to listen to 

 her voice when she steps beyond the limits of the field 

 legitimately assigned to her. 



But while we repudiate the unwarranted conclusions at 



