26 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 



thought, that rare scientific accompHshment is so often united 

 to an uncertainty of Christian faith. We do not understand it, 

 we are mute in the presence of it and we are distressed in the 

 conviction of it. Just before closing I cannot in this connection 

 forbear to speak of Thomas Henry Huxley, the great English 

 apostle of evolution, with whom it grew late and dark in the 

 year 1895. He was not an astronomer in the narrow sense, but 

 a philosopher of the highest tj'pe as a physicist. Time forbids 

 to speak of his greatness as a scholar, scientist and man of cul- 

 ture. He was moreover what scientific men are not always, 

 yea, indeed, very seldom are — a master hand in the use of the 

 English language, a forceful platform speaker, gifted with an 

 elegant diction. His thoroughness as a student is illustrated by 

 one of his maxims — " know a thing directly and do not assume 

 that you know more of it by knowing around it." But a 

 strange sadness oppresses one reflecting upon his death, not only 

 because he died, but because he died as he did. Those who 

 wrote his epitaph understood him best, or at least thought the}- 

 did, and this is what they wrote : 



" And if there be no meeting past the grave, 

 If all is darkness, silence, yet 'tis rest ; 

 Be not afraid, ye waiting hearts that weep, 

 For God still giveth His beloved sleep. 

 And if an endless sleep He wills, so best." 



" Sleep " — I recognize a christian metaphor — "And if an 

 endless sleep," — why " endless ".'' Is that the end of all evolu- 

 tionary philosophy.? Does the summit of human glory and 

 scholarly renown, wide as the world, crash into such a pit of 

 dark despair.? I stand appalled. Let me turn from this sad, 

 sad dirge to that glorious requiem sung by the last Laureate 

 for himself : 



" Sunset and evening star. 

 And one clear call for me, 

 And may there be no moaning of the bar 

 AVhen I pvit out to sea. 



