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the faith of Christians, founded on tlie Holy Scriptures and the 

 Gospel, there is the slightest contradiction, or need be the slight- 

 est difficulty. But I do not call guesses Science, nor theories 

 Science, nor brilliant ethical discourses, though uttered by men 

 eminent for their attainments in scientific study and research, 

 Science. "V\^e must be exact in our definitions. The thoughts, 

 the fancies, the speculations, of men like Charles Dar-vvin and 

 Professor Tyndall, for example, may be utterly erroneous, while 

 their scientific acquirements are of the highest possible character. 

 Because their apprehension of Science is real, it does not follow 

 that their theories are sound : least of all should we be misled 

 into confounding their theories with the Science they have at- 

 tained to, and into dignifying all the imaginations of their fertile 

 brains with that appellation, which should be conferred only on 

 truths which are established beyond possibility of overthrow or 

 doubt. 



For my own pai-t nothing that I . have ever read, or searched 

 into, or traced, has invalidated to my mind, in any way, the 

 truth or the authority of the Holy Scriptures. To my mind all 

 histoiy, ethnography, and archaeology, rightly read, point to but 

 a short sojourn of man upon earth. All laws of evidence, all 

 study and experience of the constitution of man's mind, all sci- 

 entific estimates of probabilities, lead to the conclusion of the 

 truth of the claim of Cliristianity that a Revelation, or rather 

 that successive Revelations, have been made to man. Mr. Darwin 

 has put forth an elaborate theory of Development by Evolution. 

 To my mind the difficulties besetting the reception of it, in any 

 case, are enormous, but were they otherwise, it would still be 

 only a possible mode, which certain information on the subject, 

 derived from a trustworthy source, would either confirm, or set 

 aside, immediately and finally. Such certain information, de- 

 rived from such a source, Cliristians, without ignoring any real 

 scientific attainment, believe they have. Professor Tyndall has 

 laboured to promulgate a gospel of negation. I call it a gospel, 

 for, in a letter to me, speaking of the doctrines lie had enunci- 

 ated in hiH famous Belfast Address, and of those he had in his 

 mind to proclaim in succession to them, and whicli I presume 



