152 



On the other hand, let us not be over eager to deduce the know- 

 ledge of God from nature, lest while we fail to convince the 

 positive atheist, we put the Christian on the wrong track. For 

 the knowledge of God, so far as nature can suggest it, is, after 

 all, as Pascal simply yet finely expresses it, "barren and useless 

 without the knowledge of Christ/' 



The Chairman. — I am sure we all desire to return a cordial vote of 

 thanks to Dr. Irons for his able paper. 



Rev. J. Hill, D.D. — As to the subject of this admirable paper ; in the 

 first place, I think that we very much over-estimate Professor Tyndall, who 

 has acquired, as it were, a sort of factitious character. I grant that he is a 

 careful experimentalist in the particular subjects in which he has distin- 

 guished himself in the world of matter ; but in going beyond these, he is 

 altogether a mere trifler, and I think that our lecturer and the public at 

 large, for some reason for which I cannot account, have exalted a man who 

 is a skilful physicist, and a cautious dealer with matter, into a person 

 whose opinions are worthy of consideration upon points which he has not 

 mastered, and in reference to which he is, in reality, no authority whatever. 

 Professor Tyndall is not one of those who have advanced weighty and 

 valuable opinions on the science of the mind ; therefore, when he puts forth 

 theories about prayer being opposed to an invariable law, I would ask him, 

 whence comes the law of which he speaks, and is that law superior to the 

 Law Giver ? (Hear, hear.) It is in point of fact atheistic to suppose that a 

 law can exist which will counteract the power of Him who made that law. 

 Surely the Being who made the law has the power to abrogate it, and as He 

 has made a law for the regulation of matter, and has determined His own 

 mode of originating and governing the world, so can He alter and adapt the 

 laws He has made to suit His own great purposes. Altogether, if we merely 

 look at the natural world independently of the idea of revelation, we cannot 

 conceive that the Author of that world, the Creator of the ends of the earth, 

 should have laid down a law for the government of the world, and yet 

 should be unable to suspend that law. The theory Professor Tyndall would 

 lay down involves us in the idea of an irresistible necessity over all things. 

 Those who are familiar with Homer will remember that even the Jove of 

 the heathen was inferior to the destinies he was supposed to rule. So inade- 

 quate was their conception of the supreme power of the universe, that Jove 

 was actually represented as putting the results of human action into a scale 

 and weighing them in the balance of fate, in order to see how they would 

 turn. We, in these days, have no such low estimation of the Author and 

 Ruler of the universe, and we do not hold with the suggestion that the 

 Great Author of all things cannot control those things which He has created. 

 (Hear.) 



Mr. F. Wright. — May I be permitted to ask for a word or two of expla- 

 nation with regard to a point which, probably through my own fault, does 



