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was sinful not to believe the earth a flat plain and the sky 

 a crystalline dome resting over it down to Darwin's De- 

 scent of Man, this has been the history of nearly every 

 great scientific discovery. There are eminent Christian 

 scholars who accept the doctrine of evolution, and oth- 

 ers who like Dr. McCosh and Dr. Peabody think Chris- 

 tianity has no vital interest in the question. In view of 

 the fact that Christianity has survived the failure of in- 

 fallible bulls to banish comets and abolish the heliocen- 

 tric theory, and to arrest nearly every great advance made 

 by science in our knowledge of the laws of nature, it 

 is not unreasonable to think that it may continue to exist 

 whether Darwinianism finally takes rank with the law of 

 gravitation, or is consigned, as many visionary hypotheses 

 have been, to the great lumber rooms of the past. Writ- 

 ing of Agassiz sixteen years ago, Whipple said that he 

 "overcame a temptation, rather than yielded to one, when 

 he broke through the technical limitations of his science 

 and passed from laws to ideas, and from ideas to God. 

 The fear of rousing theological prejudice is not the kind 

 of fear a man of science is now in most danger of regard- 

 ing. He is more tempted to yield to that refined form 

 of cowardice which makes him apprehensive of offending 

 the prejudices of his order. A theological leaning in his 

 scientific speculations is likely to expose him to the sus- 

 picions of his peers in science and withdraw from him the 

 signs of that subtle free-masonry by which leading minds 

 recognize each other." " There is nothing," said Mon- 

 taigne, " that I fear so much as fear. ' The higher kind of 

 courage implied in this Agassiz had. In the instance 

 heretofore referred to, he w T as. as one of his friends said, 

 " honored with a howl of execration from that large body 

 of persons who suppose that religion is only safe when it 

 is under the guardianship of ignorance and unreason." 

 Later the howls changed to cheers and he was proclaimed 

 the " welcome ally of zealous and narrow minded theo- 

 logians." Had he accepted Darwinism, his fame prob- 

 ably would have been greater with that class of people 

 who claim to be " advanced thinkers," especially in the 



