CHAPTER XIII. 



THE INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC SERIES. 



187 1. Age, so. 



For chronological and other reasons it is well 

 enough to begin our chapter with some extracts from 

 letters. 



New York, Jpril 21^ 1871. 



My dear Spencer : Things are going here furiously. 

 I have never known anything like it. Ten thousand De- 

 scent of Man have been printed, and I guess they are nearly 

 all gone. Five or six thousand of Lay Sermons have been 

 printed, while Mivart is reprinted and has fallen stillborn. 

 The progress of liberal thought is remarkable. Everybody 

 is asking for explanations. The clergy are in a flutter. 

 McCosh told them not to worry, as whatever might be 

 discovered he would find design in it and put God be- 

 hind it. 



Twenty-five clergymen of Brooklyn sent for me to meet 

 them of a Saturday night and tell them what they should 

 do to be saved. I told them they would find the way of 

 life in the Biology and in the Descent of Man. They said, 

 ''Very good," and asked me to come again at the next 

 meeting of the clerical club, to which I went and was again 

 handsomely resoluted. My warrant for attempting to en- 

 lighten these gentlemen is that they know nothing what- 

 ever about the subject, while I was in wonderfully sympa- 

 thetic nearness to them. I send you Every Saturday, with 



new illustrations of That Heathen Chinee, and inclose 



(266) 



