48 
pedestal they affect to look down upon all faith in a living, 
personal God, and supernatural religion, as a superstition tha 
is waxing old, and ready to vanish away. Christian 
A severe moral conflict is thus forced on all Ohnstian 
believers. And in this strife, which cannot be [ avoided 
defensive attitude, a timid, apologetic tone, ill befits either A 
dignity of their cause or the strength of them position. 1 
can be no conflict between the genuine sense of God s messages 
to roankind, and the veal facte and autkent.c conclus.on 
of science. But false constructions of Scripture, on the one 
side, and the crude hypotheses or fanciful g^sswork of men 
of science, on the other, may and will contradict and clash 
while thev depart equally from the truth. It is now the 
fashion with many to assume that the risk of error is w ™ y 
on the side of Christian believers. Physical science as a whole 
including the newest and latest guesses of its students, has 
same infallibility claimed for it, which is claimed by the Yatica 
Council for the'Bishop of Borne. It lias been made a test, not 
only for interpretations of the Bible, but for the Bible itself 
which must be rejected and cast aside, wherever it differs from 
this new and later revelation, of which modern men of science 
are the self-appointed prophets. Religion, we are told, con 
simply of blind emotions about things unknowable whi e the 
students of nature have a rightful monopoly of knowledge, 
truth, and wisdom. - e .1 _ i.. vp 
It is our duty to sift these proud claims, and see f they have 
any warrant at all in the actual state of things This m need- 
ful in the interest of genuine science, no less than of Chris ; a 
faith. An inflated paper currency must be not less unsafe a 
mischievous in matters of science than m those of trade. Credu- 
lity is no monopoly of religious believers It may sometimes 
b I found even among the leaders of modern research 
among their disciples and admirers its recent giowth ha . 
tropical luxuriance, and is really almost prodigious. 
Physics and physiology have no doubt made great and leal 
progress in the last fifty years. But what, after all, is then 
nresent stage ? Do they form a complete, mature, and pei ec 
scheme of truth, a firm and lofty pedestal, from which their 
students may look out, unvexed themselves, like the gods o 
Epicurus, on the tossing waves and storms of ethical debate am 
religious controversy ? Are they not rather m a nebulous 
sta ° e where a solid nucleus of certain or nearly certain 
truth is encompassed and concealed by a copious mist of unex- 
plained phenomena, unproved guesses, and dim, hazy, floating 
speculations ? Does not a vast cloudland or dreamland enve- 
