LETTERS FROM MEN OF SCIENCE 



but an humble desire to learn the truth, to be taught by 

 Nature, to read the deeds and the will of God in His works, 

 what do minor discrepancies in the reading of both Bible 

 and Nature import ! As often as I am thus or in any other 

 way brought nearer to you I lament that I do not live 

 nearer to you, and have not more frequent opportunities 

 of conversing with you. It is but lately I had a conversa- 

 tion with Pierce upon the mistaken pretensions of theo- 

 logians to understand aright God, as Creator, without 

 studying His works, when I incidentally remarked I 

 should not wonder if the day would come when they 

 would profess pantheistic views about creation, and it 

 would become our task to show them the immediate 

 intervention of the Deity not only in the great tvork of 

 creation, but in the interrupted providential government 

 of the material as well as the moral world. I had then 

 no idea that the case was so near at hand, and I am 

 happy that you have so promptly met it." 



One correspondent says: <;< Humboldt stoutly main- 

 tained to a friend of mine last summer that it was not 

 safe for a man to pursue geology in the United States, 

 for fear of falling within the ban of the Church. He was 

 not so far out of the way." Another, a distinguished 

 Professor of Physics, and a Southerner, says : 



" I do not know how it is with the clergymen of New 

 England, but can testify that to the south of Connecti- 

 cut, very many, probably the majority of, Protestant 

 divines have only crude notions of the relation of geol- 

 ogy to Scripture, and many denounce that branch of 

 science and its followers as infidel. Such a state of 

 things can awaken only painful emotions, and every effort 

 to enlighten these generally most worthy men deserves 

 success and reward." 



To the credit of the Andover theologian, Rev. Dr. E. 

 A. Park, then editor of the Bibliotheca, it may be added 

 that he welcomed Dana's articles, and suggested to him 

 to write a few prefatory lines in order to awaken the 

 interest of theological students. 



