v MR. DARWIN'S CRITICS 149 



day : " Liberality in religion I do not mean 

 tender and generous allowances for the mis- 

 takes of others is only unfaithfulness to truth." l 

 And, with the same qualification, I venture 

 to paraphrase the Bishop's dictum : " Eccle- 

 siasticism in science is only unfaithfulness to 

 truth." 



Elijah's great question, " Will you serve God or 

 Baal? Choose ye," is uttered audibly enough in 

 the ears of every one of us as we come to man- 

 hood. Let every man who tries to answer it 

 seriously ask himself whether he can be satisfied 

 with the Baal of authority, and with all the good 

 things his worshippers are promised in this world 

 and the next. If he can, let him, if he be so 

 inclined, amuse himself with such scientific imple- 

 ments as authority tells him are safe and will not 

 cut his fingers ; but let him not imagine he is, or 

 can be, both a true son of the Church and a loyal 

 soldier of science. 



And, on the other hand, if the blind acceptance 

 of authority appears to him in its true colours, as 

 mere private judgment in excelsis, and if he have 

 the courage to stand alone, face to face with the 

 abyss of the eternal and unknowable, let him be 

 content, once for all, not only to renounce the good 

 things promised by "Infallibility," but even to 

 bear the bad things which it prophesies ; content 



1 Charge at the Diocesan Synod of Brechin. Scotsman, Sept. 

 14, 1871. 



