80 GEOEGE JOHN EOMANES i878 



pondered on the final, ultimate mysteries, on ^ ' Grod, 

 Immortality, Duty,' he arrived very slowly, very 

 painfully, but very surely, at the Christian position. 



But these years were, to him and to many, years 

 of peculiar and of extraordinary difficulty. Eoughly 

 speaking, the time between 1860 and 1880 was a time 

 of great perplexity to those who wished to adhere to 

 the faith of Christendom. 



It is impossible to exaggerate the influence which 

 Mr. Darwin's great work has had on every depart- 

 ment of science, of literature, and also of art. 

 Thirty-six years have passed away since the pubhca- 

 tion of the ' Origin of Species,' and we have lived to 

 see that again tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in 

 illis. Now we see that a man can fully accept the 

 doctrine of evolution, and yet can also believe in a 

 personal God and in the doctrines which logically 

 follow on such a belief. But it was not so at first. 

 To many on both sides the new teaching seemed to 

 threaten destruction to Theism, at least to Theism as 

 understood either by Newman or by Martineau. 



Again, in philosophy Herbert Spencer seemed to 

 many to have constructed a lasting system of philo- 

 sophy, a system sufficient to account for all things in 

 heaven, in earth, and under the earth. And German 

 criticism seemed to many to be rapidly destroying 

 the credibility of the early documents of Christianity. 



Many a noble soul made shipwreck of its faith, 

 nor is this disaster wonderful. For popular theology 

 had made many unwise, many untenable claims, and 

 the ground had to be cleared before the battle could 

 be fought out on its real issues. There were some 

 who, amidst all the strife of tongues, kept their heads, 

 remembered bygone storms, and did not lose their 

 courage, their whole-heartedness, but they were few, 



1 Of. P. Myers's ' Essay on George Eliot,' Modern Essays, p. 269. 



