THE RELATION OP SCIENCE TO CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 119 



admiration, and my own experience fully confirms certain curious 

 phenomena Mr. Baylis has referred to. Science ought to take 

 cognisance of the manifestations of spiritual power whether evil or 

 good ; they are very real, and no one sees more of them than the 

 missionary. I am sure we are all deeply indebted to Mr. Baylis 

 for his admirable paper. 



The Secretary read the following communication from the 

 Hev. Canon DoDSON, Principal, S. Paul's Missionary College, 

 Burgh R.S.O., Lines. : — The subject is an interesting one, wide and 

 varied, and lies along a hitherto little-trodden path. I gather, from 

 the speaker's handling of it, that he intends the term "Science" to 

 be treated in a pretty comprehensive sense. 



1. I should like to emphasise what Mr. Baylis says (on p. 103 (c)) 

 about the warning suggested by the forward march of Western 

 scientific knowledge in the East, for it would be unsatisfactory work 

 to observe effects without drawing out what is their lesson. 

 Repeatedly I had it said to me in India by non-Christian students 

 of the College in which I formerly worked there, " I am no Hindu, 

 my studies of Physical Science here have made that impossible, but 

 I have nothing in place of my old belief." As nature abhors a 

 vacuum, we may feel sure that something will come in to fill that 

 void; and there lies an illustration of the "menace" to which 

 Mr. Baylis refers. If we are, and cannot help being, responsible 

 for this destructive process, we are surely no less bound to the 

 conduct of a constructive enterprise — to anticipate other construc- 

 tions; and surely the only constructive undertaking worth the 

 labour of the double work is that represented by Christian missionary 

 effort. Hence the present " decisive hour " in this direction. 



2. Whilst Science is thus dissolving ancient systematised creeds 

 amongst the more civilised non-Christian peoples of the East, other 

 departments of scientific research have — especially in recent years 

 — immensely enlightened, uplifted, and strengthened our Christian 

 knowledge. This of course, in spite of natural suspicion in earlier 

 days, but inevitable in the long run, since both Science and the 

 Christian system deal with the working of the same God. It seems 

 to me, e.g., that the amount we owe to scientific research for a truer 

 understanding of the Old Testament cannot be too gratefully 

 acknowledged, and because "of the Testament," therefore also 

 of the New ; this increase of truth means increased strength ; and 



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