ROCKS, STORMS, AND PERIL -1868 -1874 423 



in the city where I had formerly resided, and in the church 

 which some of my family attended. I took no notice of the 

 charge, and pursued the even tenor of my way; but the 

 press took it up, and it recoiled upon the man who made it. 



Perhaps the most comical of these attacks was one made 

 by a clergyman of some repute before the Presbyterian 

 Synod at Auburn in western New York. This gentleman, 

 having attended one or two of the lectures by Agassiz 

 before our scientific students, immediately rushed off to 

 this meeting of his brethren, and insisted that the great 

 naturalist was &quot; preaching atheism and Darwinism&quot; at the 

 university. He seemed about to make a decided impres 

 sion, when there arose a very dear old friend of mine, the 

 Rev. Dr. Sherman Canfield, pastor of the First Presby 

 terian Church in Syracuse, who, fortunately, was a scholar 

 abreast of current questions. Dr. Canfield quietly re 

 marked that he was amazed to learn that Agassiz had, in 

 so short a time, become an atheist, and not less astonished 

 to hear that he had been converted to Darwinism; that 

 up to that moment he had considered Agassiz a deeply 

 religious man, and also the foremost possibly, indeed, 

 the last great opponent of the Darwinian hypothesis. He 

 therefore suggested that the resolution denouncing Cor 

 nell University brought in by his reverend brother be 

 laid on the table to await further investigation. It was 

 thus disposed of, and, in that region at least, it was never 

 heard of more. Pleasing is it to me to chronicle the fact 

 that, at Dr. Canfield s death, he left to the university a 

 very important part of his library. 



From another denominational college came an attack 

 on Goldwin Smith. One of its professors published, in 

 the Protestant Episcopal &quot;Gospel Messenger,&quot; an attack 

 upon the university for calling into its faculty a &quot;West 

 minster Reviewer&quot;; the fact being that Goldwin Smith 

 was at that time a member of the Church of England, 

 and had never written for the &quot;Westminster Review&quot; 

 save in reply to one of its articles. So, too, when there 

 were sculptured on the stone seat which he had ordered 



