LIFE OF FLOWER 171 



granted. The work has, however, a very considerable 

 amount of interest as illustrating a number of instances 

 of the manner in which uncivilised nations modify and 

 mutilate various parts of the body for the sake of what 

 they are pleased to regard as ornament, or fashion ; 

 and is therefore a valuable contribution to ethnology. 



The address delivered by Flower at the meeting 

 of the Church Congress, held at Reading in 1883, 

 on the bearing of recent scientific advances on the 

 Christian faith, has likewise been alluded to in the first 

 chapter. It will therefore suffice here to quote a 

 portion of the concluding paragraph, which demonstrates 

 that nothing among modern discoveries had served to 

 shake in the very slightest degree the author's profound 

 belief in all the essential truths of the faith of his 

 forefathers. 



" Science," he observes, " has thrown some light, little 

 enough at present, but ever increasing, and for which 

 we should all be thankful, upon the processes or methods 

 by which the world in which we dwell has been 

 brought into its present condition. The wonder and 

 mystery of Creation remain as wonderful and mysterious 

 as before. Of the origin of the whole, science tells us 

 nothing. It is still as impossible as ever to conceive 

 that such a world, governed by laws, the operations of 

 which have led to such mighty results, and are attended 

 by such future promise, could have originated without 

 the intervention of some power external to itself. If 

 the succession of small miracles, supposed to regulate 

 the operations of nature, no longer satisfies us, have we 

 not substituted for them one of immeasurable greatness 

 and grandeur ? " 



