353 



that Luther, with all his grand and massive faith and reverence for God's 

 Holy Word, at one time rejected the Second Epistle of St. James, as not to 

 be received with the rest of Scripture. 



Mr. Howard. — I hope that the ladies and gentlemen present will remem- 

 ber the small space into which I had to compress my remarks. That portion 

 of the paper which deals with Christian evidence only occupies two or three 

 pages, and it is impossible to say everything that one wants to say in so 

 small a space, without being susceptible of misinterpretation. The Chair- 

 man s remarks first claim my attention, because, from a little misunderstand- 

 ing of what I intended to say, he makes me hold opinions which are as far 

 as possible from those which I do hold. The Chairman thought that I 

 identified the Scriptures with the testimony. Now in writing that paper any 

 one will see that though I have not been able to explain sufficiently, from 

 want of space, I have pointed out some passages which show there is a 

 certain testimony in the Scriptures which we have to receive, and by our 

 reception or rejection of which our eternal state is regulated. " God so 

 loved the world, that He gave," and so forth. Now if we put the Scriptures 

 in place of the testimony, you will see at once that we should exclude Luther 

 from salvation, if we do not distinguish between canonical orthodoxy 

 and faith in Christ. There is in ray paper a desire to draw a very marked 

 diff'erence between the testimony which it is essential that a man should 

 believe in order to become a Christian, and other truths of Revelation, and 

 to leave out of sight various other matters, although they are in their place 

 extremely important ; such as the testimony of a man's own experience, and 

 the witness of the Church, which is immensely important and by no means to 

 be neglected. But how could I press all these things into two or three 

 pages ? I wished simply to call attention to what struck my own mind 

 very much, — the different groundwork on which we believe Christianity 

 to that on which we believe Science. In the first part of the paper 

 I have shown that the ground on which we believe the atomic theory 

 is the balance and weights — it is not a mere shadowy, indefinite 

 nothing at all, such as has been alluded to by Mr. Buckley, but it is 

 that which is capable of being weighed in a balance. Then, in the second 

 part, I take the question of motion, and I say that Professor Tyndall 

 established, in the first place, a mode of ascertaining the slightest opera- 

 tion of heat conceivable, and that on satisfactory ground he proved dis- 

 tinctly what he undertook to prove. Then, further, I ventured on still 

 more difficult ground — that of the luminiferous ether ; and beyond that 

 we may suppose that there is something still more difficult to grasp with 

 our reason. I have endeavoured, therefore, to present the diff*erent groundwork 

 of our belief in these different steps, if I may so speak ; beginning with that 

 which is more solid and substantial and ponderable, and gradually drawing 

 further and further from that which can be so easily proved to that which is 

 more difficult. I have sought to show that the belief in any of these various 

 things— the atomic theory, motion, and the luminiferous ether, will be 

 according to the previous training and preparation of the mind ; for that 



