10 
of the Bridgewater Treatises, which, perhaps, marked the beginning of that 
controversy which reigned so many years between geological teaching 
and the traditional interpretation of the Mosaic narrative of Creation. 
Well, did the divines convince the geologists, or did the geologists convince 
the divines ? In my opinion, exactly the same thing as happened then will 
happen now in regard to the inquiries of modern science. The truths of 
God and the truths of nature must and will prevail. We should learn from 
these scientific discoveries the truth of those noble words of Richard Hooker, 
who says, “ God is one, yea, very oneness and mere unity,” consistent with 
Himself, in the endowments of man’s intellect and in the properties of that 
physical creation which is the right object of man’s reason and his faculties. 
There can be, there is, no contradiction, and no truths discoverable in one 
that are not reconcilable with the other. I would venture to remark that I 
think it is very much to be wished that certain phraseology which is 
commonly used, and is intended to convey a graphic expression of the views 
of one of two contending parties, should be employed as little as possible. 
When Sir John Herschel made use of an expression which has often been 
repeated, about the primordial atoms having every characteristic of 
‘manufactured articles,’ he had not, as I imagine, the smallest idea of the 
currency that phrase would obtain ; and when another scientific man, to 
mark his sense of the inadequacy and somewhat degrading character of the 
view he was opposing, characterised it as the ‘‘carpenter theory,” I am 
persuaded that he meant no irreverence. These phrases, repeated in senses 
far remote from the context, only serve to promote differences we should all 
desire to reconcile, and are unworthy of the dignity and gravity of the cause 
which it is the duty of all believers to plead. The armoury of truth contains 
many weapons, from the rapier of the master of physical science to the 
sledge-hammer of the master of dialectics : this society has never wanted 
champions to wield either ; and what is much to be desired, and is the 
special function of the Victoria Institute, is to summon, and enlist in its ranks, 
men eminent in every branch of intellectual pursuit, who, from their 
scientific attainments, are capable of meeting on their own level a 
comparatively few gifted minds who wander in darkness, solely, let us hope, 
because, and only so long as, they reject the Light of the world. (Hear, 
hear.) It is impossible not to feel a yearning desire that men of whose 
nobility of character we have the utmost consciousness,—whom it is 
impossible, in some instances, to know and not to love, and, in other 
instances, to know and not look up to and admire,-—should not 
continue to the end of life the victims of what we believe to be mortal 
errors,—errors from which everybody’s heart recoils, and as to which, I 
might almost say, the prayers of all Christian men should be addressed 
in the hope that the light, at first or at last, may reach their minds (hear, 
hear.) I, for one, persist in the belief that reach them it will. Still, I 
recognise this special function, this important duty, of providing champions 
of the first order to meet the Goliaths of intellectual combat. We also 
