THE SOLAR S YS TEAL IN A BLA ZE. 4 7 



ological doctrine. Scientific evidence is of such a nature 

 as always to command the respect and the assent of the 

 bulk of reasoning men. If this hypothesis is sustained by 

 scientific evidence, it is the duty of the Christian world to 

 embrace it and convert it to their own uses. To do other- 

 wise is to earn the contempt of those who are really on the 

 side of truth. If it is not sustained by scientific evidence, 

 it behooves the Christian world to overthrow it from sci- 

 entific data. Such data ought not to be monopolized by 

 secular learning. Science belongs peculiarly to Christian- 

 ity, and Christianity is in duty bound to assert her claim. 

 If she can use science to overthrow a false and dangerous 

 position, she is derelict to neglect the opportunity; and all 

 her denunciation will not atone for the error. 



But this hypothesis, whether it represent the true history 

 of cosmical matter or not, has no tendency to remove the 

 Deity from creation. This has been admitted by Whewell, 

 Buchanan, and all others who have been crowded to a 

 response. This objection is founded in short-sightedness 

 and a failure to appreciate the case. The hypothesis sim- 

 ply assumes that the Creator has brought worlds into exist- 

 ence by the use of secondary causes, precisely as he brings 

 a tree into existence. Does any one hesitate to admit that 

 an oak has undergone a slow and regular " development" — 

 or that the delta of the Mississippi is undergoing "devel- 

 opment" — or that the cone of Vesuvius is undergoing "de- 

 velopment?" If it appear to intellects of the loftiest and 

 broadest grasp that the Creator has evolved the solar sys- 

 tem according to a method, and by the use of natural laws, 

 exactly as he evolves a tree from the germ in the seed, 

 why do we charge atheism in the on.e case and not in the 

 other? The only difference between the cases is that the 

 one attributes to Deity a vaster scope of intelligence and 

 power than the other — and in doing this it concedes to 



