252 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 



to. Some are unwisely imitating the example of 

 Strauss, and they will experience a similar dis- 

 comfiture. The evolution theory will be tried by all 

 the facts that men of science are now assiduously 

 collecting, and if it fail to fit in with those facts, it 

 will have to give way to some better doctrine ; but 

 if it should be shown to present a satisfactory inter- 

 pretation of all the conditions involved, it will of 

 course take its place among the laws of nature ; 

 and Christianity will no more suffer from the es- 

 tablishment of a true theory of Creation than it 

 did from the establishment of the truth in re- 

 gard to the earth's revolution by Copernicus and 

 Galileo. But it is too soon to be flourishing so 

 incomplete an hypothesis as that of Darwin as 

 an argument against the immediate agency of 

 God in creation, especially as there are forms 

 of evolution which are held by many prominent 

 Christian scientists. 



Of true science, cultivated in the spirit for which 

 we contend, the Christian need have no fear. If 

 a few unimportant dogmas, whose only claim to 

 acceptance is that they were pronounced ex cathedra, 

 have not been able to survive the test of scientific 

 progress, then they deserved to die. Theological 

 statements which threaten to smother the truth 

 they were intended to protect are sure to perish 

 before advancing knowledge, and no one is poorer 

 for the loss. It is the glory of real science that 

 it fearlessly pushes aside all preconceived ideas ; 

 and, like the huge beast of the forest or jungle, 

 which tramples under foot the tangled brushwood 



