The Religious Work of Science. 499 



Brown would have been ejected from such a convention by 

 explosive indignation, as leprous with heresy ; and if things 

 proceed at this rate, in twenty years more we shall expect 

 to see the whole Alliance rise to its feet in expression of 

 respect and gratitude when the names of Spencer and 

 Darwin are mentioned. I believe myself that evolution is 

 a grand objective truth of the universe, still much obscured 

 and beset with difficulties, but unmistakably outlined and 

 supported by a mass of evidence that preponderates over- 

 whelmingly. In a religious point of view it has but one 

 significance. Offering a grander conception of the cos- 

 mical order and a deeper insight into its wonderful workings 

 than had ever before been attained, it is the sublimest trib- 

 ute that the human mind has ever made to the glory of the 

 Divine Power to which it must be ascribed. With the ac- 

 ceptance of evolution the unworthy philosophy which has 

 sought to honour God by the derangements of his own 

 work comes to an end, and the argument passes into a new 

 phase. This we owe to science, and there is encouraging 

 evidence that theologians even of the orthodox stamp are 

 beginning to appreciate it and to be powerfully influenced 

 by it. Let me give an example of the large and enlightened 

 views which we now frequently hear from orthodox pulpits. 

 In a sermon preached before the British Association for 

 the Advancement of Science, in Edinburgh, 1871, the Rev. 

 Dr. Caird, now principal of Glasgow University, said : 

 " When God was so conceived as to place him outside of 

 Nature the tendency would be to seek the most significant 

 proof of his presence in interferences with her order, and 

 to regard the assertion of the absolute uniformity of her 

 processes as equivalent to a denial of Providence or the ex- 

 clusion of God." And there could be no question that a 

 false jealousy had often been entertained by sincere but 

 mistaken religionists with reference to the idea of natural 

 law and the ever-widening domain which science had won 



