494 Edward Lhmigston Yoiimans. 



if not irreverent and presumptuous. Such were some of 

 the necessary obstacles which scientific men had to over- 

 come in their religious task of unfolding the divine truths 

 which the Creator had embodied in the constitution of the 

 world. But they had difficulties to encounter of another 

 kind. The crude primitive ideas, by which the powers 

 above Nature were supposed to be constantly interfering 

 with its operations, were borne down the current of tradi- 

 tion, and, conforming to the general beliefs, were systemat- 

 ically maintained and defended. The theologians who 

 claimed to be authorized expounders of the divine policy 

 insisted not only that breaks and interruptions of the 

 natural order occurred, but they maintained that it is in 

 these breaches of it that the Creator is to be most con- 

 spicuously and impressively seen. Holding that the nor- 

 mal phenomena are 'of small concern, while their ruptures 

 alone disclose divine intervention, they left it to the men 

 of science to work out the natural order to its complete- 

 ness, and to vindicate the Almighty, whose wisdom is wit- 

 nessed not in the violations but in the perfection of his 

 works. 



Certainly science has not been the enemy of religion in 

 this, but It is equally certain that theology has been the 

 adversary of science. It has been the business of theology 

 to defend accepted opinions, and it has been the business of 

 science to question them and arrive at new opinions. What 

 the general issue has been would seem obvious, but upon 

 this parties differ. Prof. Hitchcock, at the Tyndall banquet, 

 said : " It seems sometimes as though science and religion 

 had met in a very narrow path on a dizzy ridge, and were 

 interlocking their antlers in a struggle that must be fatal 

 to one or the other of them. If it comes to this, I think 

 history suggests that science, and not religion, must go 

 down the cliff." Prof. Huxley thinks differently. In his 

 Lay Sermons he remarks: '* It is true that if philosophers 



