314 THE STORY OP THE EARTH AND MAN. 



sense and right feeling of the community taking a 

 firm hold of the matter, and insisting on the or- 

 ganization and extension of the higher scientific 

 education, as well as that of a more elementary 

 character, under the management of able and sane 

 men. Yet even if not so counteracted, present follies 

 will pass away, and a new and better state of natural 

 science will arise in the future, by its own internal 

 development. Science cannot long successfully isolate 

 itself from God. Its life lies in the fact that it is the 

 exponent of the plans and works of the great Creative 

 Will. It must, in spite of itself, serve His purposes, 

 by dispelling blighting ignorance and superstition, 

 by lighting the way to successive triumphs of human 

 ski 1 ! over the powers of nature, and by guarding men 

 from the evils that flow from infringement of natural 

 laws. And it cannot fail, as it approaches nearer to 

 the boundaries of that which may be known by finite 

 minds, to be humbled by the contemplation of the 

 infinite, and to recognise therein that intelligence of 

 which the human mind is but the image and shadow. 



It may be that theologians also are needed who shall 

 be fit to take the place of Moses to our generation, in 

 teaching it again the very elements of natural theo- 

 logy; but let them not look upon science as a cold 

 and godless demon, holding forth to the world a 

 poisoned cup cunningly compounded of truth and 

 falsehood; but rather as the natural ally and as- 

 sociate of the gospel of salvation. The matter is so 

 put in one of those visions which close the canon of 



