23 
fairly be made as to the meaning usually gathered from the 
scriptural statements. But what I wish to point out is, that 
W i/ m ? c ^ s anc ^ a ^eists have from time to time made 
a handle of scientific theories to cast discredit upon revelation 
there have also been many earnest men of science who have 
adopted the same scientific theories, but have not considered 
them incompatible with the revelations of Scripture. Verv 
numerous attempts were made by Hugh Miller and other 
eminent writers, to. reconcile the Scriptural statements with 
^eol^cy ^ SCien ^ c discovery or supposed discovery in 
But, unfortunately, in all these efforts, “the science” of the 
day was always apparently adopted with too much readiness, 
as i± it required no probable essential correction, while Scrip- 
ture alone was constantly tampered with, in order to get it to 
mean something different from what its plain language had 
previously seemed to imply. “ Science,” it may be said, was 
a owed to pass uncriticised ; while Scripture was ever being' 
subjected to fresh and far-fetched interpretations. But this 
^uld not, of course, go on. Professor Baden Powell, in 
Hitto s Cyclopaedia, m his article on “ Creation,” rejected the 
1st chapter of Genesis as “not being history;” and Mr C W 
Boodwin ridiculed all such “attempts to reconcile the Scrip- 
tures with science ” as “failures ;” and he, not without some 
good reason, pointed to “the trenchant way in which these 
theological geologists overthrow one another’s theories ” The 
nnschiet; however, it will thus be seen, had been done. Science 
had been taken on trust, the Scriptures had been sceptically 
handled ; all, it may be, with the best intention on the part of 
many, but not the less with fatal results — results not less fatal 
to true science than to religious faith. And we have to account 
for these results. The scientific, no less than the religious 
are interested in the inquiry. For what do we now find is the 
case . Vv e find that it is science that ought to have been more 
narrowly watched, and criticised; and that it would really have 
been to the credit of scientific men if they had applied to 
science somewhat of that vigilance to detect its possible 
errors, its contradictions, and fallacies, which has been freely 
enough and too exclusively exercised in our day upon the 
statements of the Scriptures, by those who have accepted 
without the least examination and with an almost absolute cre- 
dulity, often at second hand, all that has been passino’ for 
science upon the authority of a few names of great scientific 
repute. How, I venture to say, the explanation is not far to 
seek why science has thus “drifted” into contradictions and 
delusive theories and fallacies, which have become a scandal 
c 
