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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. How 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 my paper a desire to draw a very marked 
difference 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 different 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 
