Scientific Lectubes. 217 



lie Clmrch contrasts nobly with that of timid Protestants who wer» 

 filling England with shrieks and denunciations. Perhaps the most 

 singular attempt against geology was that made by a fine specimen 

 of the English Don, Dean Cockburn of York, to abuse its champions 

 out of the field. Without apparently the simplest elementary 

 knowledge of geology, he opened a battery of abuse. He gives it 

 to the world at large by pulpit and press ; he even inflicts it upon 

 leading statesmen by private letters. But these weapons did not 

 succeed. They were like Chinese gongs and dragon lanterns against 

 rifled cannon. Buckland, Pye Smith, Lyell, Silliman, Hitchcock, 

 Murchison, Agassiz, Dana, and a host of noble champions besides, 

 pressed on the battle for truth was won. And was it won merely 

 for men of science ? The wliole civilized world declares that it was 

 won for religion ; that thereby was infinitely increased the knovvdedge 

 of the power and goodness of God. 



Fears about Keligion. 

 And now, in concluding, I nfiglit allude to another battle-field in 

 our own land and time. I might show how an attempt to meet the great 

 want of this State for an institution providing scientific and modern 

 instruction has been met with loud outcries from many excellent men 

 who fear injury thereby to religion. I might picture to you the 

 strategy which has been used to keep earnest young men from an 

 institution which, it is declared, cannot be Christian because it is not 

 sectarian. I might lay before you wonderful lines of argument 

 which have been made to show the dangerous tendencies of a plan 

 wliicli gives to scientific studies the same weight as classical studies, 

 and which lays no less stress on modern history and literature than 

 on ancient history and literature. I might show how it has been 

 denounced from many pulpits, and in many sectarian journals, how 

 the most preposterous charges have been made and believed by good 

 men, how, the epithets of "godless," "infidel," "irreligious," 

 " unreligious," " atheistic," have been hurled against a body of 

 Christian trustees and professors earnestly devoted to building up 

 Christian civilization. I might show how, as the battle has waxed 

 hotter, the honored founder of the institution, a man who has devoted 

 the bulk of his fortune and all his efforts to building up such an 

 institution as the State needs, and whose life has been one of the 

 purest and noblest on American records, how the man has been 

 charged with," " swindling the colleges of the State," " self-seeking," 

 " corruption," " seeking to erect a monument to himself." 



