116 THE LIGHT OF DAY 



to have written his last book, " Eecollections and 

 Letters," with, the thought of death ever present 

 with him, yet the gayety of it, the buoyancy and 

 sweetness, are remarkable. 



The atmosphere of our time is fast being cleared 

 of the fumes and deadly gases that arose during the 

 carboniferous age of theology. Eenan has been one 

 of the forces, with his divine gayety and serene rea- 

 son, that has helped dispel them. Professor Hux- 

 ley, in his recent volume of essays and discourses, 

 drives them before him like a gale from the moun- 

 tains. It would hardly seem possible for any self- 

 respecting theologian to again stand up for what is 

 called the historicity of the New Testament miracles. 

 Yet there be those who look upon all this with 

 uneasiness and distrust. 



" Is the spiritual sense decadent ? " asks one of 

 our current religious journals, meaning by the spir- 

 itual sense the faculty to discern the truth of the 

 current religious dogmas. The writer is forced to 

 the conclusion that this sense is weakening, but he 

 takes refuge in the thought that the objects of faith 

 are like the stars in the sky which the sun (science) 

 may obscure, but cannot blot out. It says the ag- 

 nosticism of Huxley and his kind is but the confes- 

 sion of a child that it cannot see by morning 

 light the moon which it saw at bedtime. The ar- 

 gument of the religious editor frankly admits that 

 there is light in the world, and that it is no tempo- 

 rary or uncertain rushlight either, but the light of 

 the real heavenly luminary itself. Sunlight is from 



