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haps quite in keeping with the immediate purpose for which we 

 meet here to-day ; yet, I think, called for by the temper of our 

 times, by the present aspect of science towards religion and 

 of religion towards science, and allowable, I should hope, on 

 the part of one who holds the office of a clergyman, besides 

 being President of the body he is addressing. 



I trust I have not said more than is acceptable to those 

 who Usten to me. I feel sure that none of us would wish to 

 stop the onward march of science. Stop it, indeed, we can- 

 not, any more than we can stop the advancing tide. And 

 why should we desire to do so ? Science is doing a mighty 

 work ; it may seem to be bearing down everything before it, 

 but it is a work for good, so long as science, as an instrument 

 of research, is legitimately used, and not overstrained in the 

 attempt to apply it to questions which are beyond its ken, 

 and with which it has no concern. 



Science, I say, is doing a great and good work. It is 

 clearing away the mists of ignorance, of prejudice, and super- 

 stition ; letting in light where men had been long groping 

 in darkness or lost in error ; revealing to us, from time to 

 time, in all their complicated relations, the wondrous workings 

 of that Supreme Intelligence, by whose wiU and power we 

 believe all things to have originally come forth ; opening up 

 new fields of knowledge, new sources of the highest intellec- 

 tual enjoyment utterly unknown to those who were before us ; 

 and no less adding daily to our home and bodily comforts, 

 guiding and quickening every art and invention by the help 

 of which man lives and is happy. 



Instead of desiring to arrest the progress of such a mighty 

 engine, let us rather welcome its advances, and at the same 

 time do what we can to further them. And this is the 

 duty which devolves upon the Members of this Club. We 

 have formed ourselves into a working body for the very pur- 

 pose of gathering from this particular neighbourhood whatever 



