ANNUAL ADDRESS. 
11 
Yet at all times, eight years ago, as to-day, there have been 
those, some of them leaders in science, some leaders in theology, 
who would have had the seal of final authority set upon the 
science of the day, in astronomy, geology, biology, Biblical 
criticism, archaeology, and each and all of the other sciences, 
and would have had the Church make it her own as the Church 
in Galileo’s day, had made her own the science of Ptolemy and 
Aristotle. There was some excuse for the Qualifiers of the 
Holy Office in 1616, in thinking that the Ptolemaic idea of the 
solar system was eternal truth. The evidence of men’s senses 
seemed to show them that the earth is solid and immovable ; 
the evidence of men’s senses seemed to show them that the sun 
and stars move round the earth every twenty-four hours, and that 
the sun has a further motion round the earth once every year. 
A great and elaborate science had been built upon this basis, 
which enabled the movements of the planets to be correctly 
foretold, and this theory had lasted without challenge for 
thousands of years. There is no excuse for any man repeating 
their mistake to-day, when science is progressing, that is to say, 
is changing, with a rapidity that has never been witnessed in 
the history of the world before. It is the glory of science that 
it does progress ; that is to say, it is the glory of science that it 
changes, that it is continually undergoing reconstruction, that, 
it continually requires restatement. 
Can the Holy Scriptures ever have been intended to teach us 
that which must always from its very nature he undergoing 
change ? Is it not manifest that they deal with something- 
very different ; that is to say, not with science, the relation of 
thing to thing, but with religion, the relation of man to God. 
And in religion we find that which is essential and eternal. 
The creed, given to Israel of old, still remains true : “ Hear, 0 
Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord”; and the practical 
application of that creed to conduct, requires neither recon- 
struction nor restatement : “ Thou shalt love the Lord thy God 
with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy 
mind, and with all thy strength ” : And “ Thou shalt love thy 
neighbour as thyself.” Science deals with fact, which is 
temporal ; religion deals with truth, which is eternal. 
In a very real sense, therefore, the Bible has nothing to tell 
us of science, and therefore, nothing to tell us of the science of 
astronomy. Let us reverse the question, and ask, “ What light 
has astronomy to throw upon the Bible ? ” This question we 
can treat from two points of view ; from the point of view of 
the astronomy of the times when the books of Holy Scripture 
