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1 882.] Charles Darwin : a Farewell Offering. 
of Natural History that the probability of his end was dis- 
missed as too painful to contemplate. We may, indeed, say 
to each other that his life-task was accomplished — that the 
doCtrine of Evolution is, in its broad outlines, accepted by 
almost all men who are intellectually and morally capable 
of judging, and there but remains for his successors the 
easier though honourable task of working out in detail what 
the Great Master had planned. 
Such consolations, however, seem at present almost 
cynical. We could all have wished that he might live on 
to enjoy the triumph he had won; to see the Church and 
the World yoke themselves side by side, as is their wont, to 
the chariot of success ; to witness his former opponents 
feasting on their own words, and, best of all, to give to his 
followers those wise and kindly words of encouragement, of 
advice, or of caution, which will be remembered by many a 
student, and which no man living is equally competent and 
entitled to offer. 
It is certainly cheering to note that much of the ill-will 
felt and the abuse uttered against the mighty dead has faded 
away. The “ Origin of Species ” is no longer classed in the 
Index Expurgatorius of the Church of Rome, which, by the 
way, has never formally condemned the doCtrine of Evolu- 
tion, and which will probably be the first of the great reli- 
gious bodies to conclude a peace with the New Natural 
History. M. l’Abbe Moigno (“ Cosmos les Mondes,” April 
15th, 1882, p. 580) even complains that the Academy of 
Sciences had closed its doors so long against “ la grande, la 
noble figure de Darwin, parceque le systeme de l’Evolution 
n’etait pas assez orthodoxe.”* Nay, we witness a strange 
sight : theologians and anti-theologians are respectively 
claiming the illustrious departed as one of themselves in a 
manner that recalls the mediaeval legends of wars waged 
between angels and demons over the remains of some emi- 
nent saint. Says Canon Farrar, in a sermon preached on 
April 30th, in Westminster Abbey, “ As a boy Darwin had 
been under the influence of deeply religious impressions, and 
there was evidence that he never lost those impressions.” 
The preacher found in all the writings of the great natu- 
ralist “ no word irreconcilable with faith in Christianity ” 
Very similar is the contention of Canon Liddon. 
On the other hand, Dr. E. B. Aveling insists that “ no 
one knows the truth in this matter who calls the Charles 
. * This was a mere pretext on the part of the Academy. I susped that the 
jealousy of certain of its most adtive members was the cause of the delav in 
recognising Darwin’s merit. J 
