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REV. CANON MACCULLOCH, ON THE DESCENT 



Archdeacon Potter, being invited by the Chairman to speak, 

 said that he wished to congratulate the writer of the paper on the 

 spirit, so manifest all through his paper, of a desire to know the 

 truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. 



As regards derivation of l)eliefs, sometimes they seemed to be 

 taken from earlier religions ; l^ut in many cases, notably in the case 

 of Egypt and Babylon, as compared with Judaeism and Christianity, 

 the same ideas seem to have arisen spontaneously in the minds of 

 people belonging to different ages and different religions. Man, 

 when he reaches, in the process of evolution, the stage of deep 

 thinking on the problems of life and death, eternity, origin of 

 life, etc., explains these mysteries to himself in terms of his present 

 knowledge. Revelation, which the speaker believed to be a process 

 always going on where beings made in God's image exist, does not 

 convey absolute knowledge on problems like that before us to-day. 

 It concerns itself wholly with matters which directly affect the 

 moral and spiritual life of man. The other questions as to where 

 heaven is, or what the intermediate state is like, or where the soul 

 goes before the judgment, are ones where man's own desire to 

 know, and his interpretation of the few facts at hand lead him to 

 lay down beliefs. Men's minds often run in the same groove, hence 

 the agreement between the doctrines of different religions. With 

 the larger hope expressed in the latter part of the paper, the 

 Archdeacon entirely sympathised. How forgiveness should be 

 limited, in the case of an eternal 1)eing, to an infinitesimally short 

 period of his existence, and that by the decree of an all-just and 

 loving God, he could not understand. 



Rev. John Tuckwell, M.R.A.S. : Mr. President, while cordially 

 thanking the writer of the paper for bringing this important subject 

 before us, I must frankly confess that I cannot altogether agree with 

 all the paper contains. In the first place the source of Comparative 

 Religions may apply very reasonably to those religions which have 

 degenerated from that early faith, which if Scripture is to be 

 believed, was known to man in the first ages of human history, but 

 cannot apply to that Faith which is a matter of revelation direct 

 from God. 



In the next place I cannot agree with the manner in which the 

 writer appears to waive aside the interpretation of Scripture upon 

 this subject. To me it appears that the truth lies entirely there. 



