IV AN EPISCOPAL TRILOGY 129 



let us hear the Bishop of Bedford. After a 

 perfectly frank statement of the doctrine of 

 evolution and some of its obvious consequences, 

 that learned prelate pleads, with all earnestness, 

 against 



a hasty denunciation of what may be proved to have at least 

 some elements of truth in it, a contemptuous rejection of theories 

 which we may some day learn to accept as freely and with as 

 little sense of inconsistency with God's word as we now accept 

 the theory of the earth's motion round the sun, or the long 

 duration of the geological epochs (p. 28). 



I do not see that the most convinced evolutionist 

 could ask any one, whether cleric or layman, to say 

 more than this ; in fact, I do not think that any 

 one has a right to say more, with respect to any 

 question about which two opinions can be held, than 

 that his mind is perfectly open to the force of 

 evidence. 



There is another portion of the Bishop of Bed- 

 ford's sermon which I think will be warmly appre- 

 ciated by all honest and clear-headed men. He 

 repudiates the views of those who say that theology 

 and science 



occupy wholly different spheres, and need in no way intermeddle 

 with each other. They revolve, as it were, in different planes, 

 and so never meet. Thus we may pursue scientific studies with 

 the utmost freedom and, at the same time, may pay the most 

 reverent regard to theology, having no fears of collision, because 

 allowing no points of contact (p. 29). 



Surely every unsophisticated mind will heartily 



