10 ANNUAL ADDRESS, MDCCCLXX. 



the Christian Church, embodying though it does the 

 greatest mysteries and miracles, the incarnation and the 

 creation of the world by or through Christ, whichever the 

 preposition may mean. St. John tells us in fact what he 

 had heard, what he had seen with his eyes, what he had 

 looked upon, and his hands had handled, of the Word of 

 Life. The Mosaic account tells us of the creation by 

 God alone, the late appearance of man upon the earth, 

 the institution of the Sabbath gives us an explanation 

 of the existence of evil and the origin of nations and 

 languages. 



With all this science is not antagonistic, but rather 

 tallies. We perhaps may also say that we have 

 apparently a shadowing forth of geological epochs, and of 

 the succession of life in the account of the six days' work, 

 but here let us stop and leave the rest for time and 

 research to clear up. Where science and religion seem 

 to clash, I should say abide by what your senses and 

 your reason clearly show. So far you cannot go wrong ; 

 but it by no means follows that you must renounce 

 revelation ; only that you enquire whether its written 

 records necessarily imply what you have supposed, or 

 what it has generally been supposed that they imply. A 

 knowledge of natural history has strengthened my confidence 

 in the Bible and revelation in one simple and pleasing 

 manner. A doubt may flash across a man's mind, Were the 

 books of the Bible really written at the times and in the 

 countries when and where they profess to have been ? 

 On some points, and with respect to some plants or 

 animals, there may be obscurities, but upon the whole we 

 may say the books are in this respect genuine and 

 authentic : the natural objects described or mentioned, 

 animal or vegetable, even the diseases alluded to, both 



