IV 



AN EPISCOPAL TRILOGY 

 [1887] 



IF there is any truth in the old adage that a 

 burnt child dreads the fire, I ought to be very 

 loath to touch a sermon, while the memory of what 

 befell me on a recent occasion, possibly not yet 

 forgotten by the readers of the Nineteenth Century, 

 is uneffaced. But I suppose that even the distin- 

 guished censor of that unheard-of audacity to 

 which not even the newspaper report of a sermon 

 is sacred, can hardly regard a man of science as 

 either indelicate or presumptuous, if he ventures 

 to offer some comments upon three discourses, 

 specially addressed to the great assemblage of 

 men of science which recently gathered at 

 Manchester, by three bishops of the State Church. 

 On my return to England not long ago, I found a 

 pamphlet l containing a version, which I presume 



1 The Advance of Science. Three sermons preached in Man- 

 chester Cathedral on Sunday, September 4, 1887, during the 



