FOREIGN EXTRACTS. 321 



see where fire and Sword and desolation could most easily be car- 

 ried into the recesses of its national life : he had gone as a stranger, 

 but as a friend, to tell the Czar what were the riches of his vast 

 dominions ; to the inhabitants of Russia, how they might best turn 

 to account the natural blessings which a gracious Providence had 

 stored around them. As this seemed to him to be closely connected 

 with one special feature of this association, nothing in it had been 

 pleasanter to him, and he doubted not to others, than the sight of 

 so many foreigners, from every nation, gathered at this friendly 

 meeting : they seemed to be the deputies from all the civilized 

 world. And he was well convinced that there was great usefulness 

 in (his : the more the ties which bind society together are thus 

 laced and interwoven, the better. The more men come to under- 

 stand one another, the harder it is to divide and embitter them ; 

 and this on a smaller scale at home, as well as on a larger scale 

 with foreigners and strangers, was the work of this association. Its 

 very character was, for this very purpose, migratory, that it might 

 be the means of bringing together the lovers of science in all the 

 different centres of our widely scattered provincial life. In doing 

 this, moreover, it achieved another good ; for it thus tended to 

 foster and nourish up many a scattered seed of philosophy, which, 

 but for this care, would certainly have perished. Many who, from 

 poverty, or want of acquaintance with the scientific, hardly dared 

 to aspire to the ciiltivaiion of the science which they loved, were 

 thus found out of their homes by somebody, had their tastes con- 

 firmed, their views enlarged, and their love of science fixed ; as they 

 heard the words and saw the sights which were now around them, 

 and came to know the faces of these eminent philosophers, each 

 one's heart kindled within him, and throbbed with secret conscious- 

 ness that I too am a lover and follower of nature. And believing 

 that these good results did follow from the existence of this assso- 

 ciation, he (the Dean of Westminster) was ready to welcome it to 

 his own neighbourhood, although he was not ignorant of the re- 

 proaches to which it had been subjected. He need only say, that if 

 he believed those reproaches, it would receive no welcome from 

 him. He, with all whom he saw before him, would rather, far, be 

 ignorant utterly of every scientific fact or principle, than have the 

 simplicity of his faith in that which was dearer to him far than life 

 itself, assailed or shaken. But he denied the truth of those re- 

 proaches : here, happily, they had not been put forward. He indeed 

 must be a rash man who should dare to whisper, here at Cam- 

 bridge, that there was any hostility or opposition between science 

 and religion. Here, where the mighty Newton walked, reasoned 

 and discovered ; here, where he, qui ingenio genus humanum 

 superavit, yet bowed himself as a meek believer before the Lord 

 his God ; here at least such aspersions, we might trust, would not 

 be heard. But vented they had been elsewhere ; and they there- 

 fore deserved a passing word. Of those, then, who argued thus, 



