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Bible. It is not strange, therefore, that new subjects of con- 

 troversy should spring up, and new diflficulties meet us from 

 time to time, as we attempt a critical survey of the border-land 

 of Science and Revelation. 



After a somewhat minute examination of the whole question 

 I have been led to the conclusion that the alleged differences 

 between Science and Revelation are only apparent. They 

 originate mainly, on the one hand, from confounding the 

 theories of scientific men with the demonstrated facts of Science 

 itself; and, on the other hand, from a misunderstanding of 

 the real teachings of the Bible. There is what may be called 

 a traditional interpretation of certain portions of the early 

 books of the Bible, which does not agree with the results of 

 modern criticism; and we must be careful, in these days, to 

 distinguish what is merely traditional from what is now known 

 to be the real sense. I feel myself fully justified in affirming 

 that there is no real discrepancy between scientific facts 

 logically proved, and Bible teachings rightly interpreted. 



Much evil has arisen from parading the crude theories of 

 scientific men before the world, as if they were established 

 facts. We have, for example, the atomic theory of the old 

 philosophers, Leucippus, Democritus, and Lucretius, which 

 proposed to trace the origin of the universe — the stars in 

 their wondrous orbits, the delicate organisms of the vegetable 

 world in all their variety and surpassing beauty, animals of 

 every species, man himself with his genius, his culture, his 

 aspirations after immortality, — to trace all to a fortuitous con- 

 course of material atoms ; thus setting aside, by a stroke 

 of imagination, the idea of Creation and a Creator. It is 

 right to observe that physical Science in propounding such a 

 theory as this virtually contradicts itself, for its own principles 

 forbid it to entertain an inquiry into the origination of things. 

 It is concerned with the observation of material objects, and 

 its legitimate investigations continually suggest the existence 

 of some unseen power dominating matter, and of some super- 

 natural beginning of the universe of nature as it now exists. 



Then, again, we have theories of the origin of life, developed 

 with so much skill and ingenuity by Huxley and others, in 

 their exhaustive researches into the mysteries of protoplasm — 

 researches which, unfortunately, fail them just at the point 

 they wish to establish, namely, the evolution of life from dead 

 matter. Their own researches show, as far as they go, that 

 pure materialism has no sound philosophical basis. We have 

 also the theory of the origin of species from natural selection 

 and the survival of the fittest, propounded by Darwin, and 

 illustrated by a long series of observations and experiments. 



