47 
Hera, however, our opponents may meet us with the 
objection that we are not free to enter into an unprejudiced 
discussion of these questions ; that we are already pledged to 
the issue; that we approach the questions debated as advo- 
cates rather than calm and dispassionate judges ; and, to a 
certain extent, I am willing to accept this issue. We are not 
prepared to abandon our faith as Christians ; we do not believe 
that it is necessary to assume the position of Deists, or, as the 
most advanced advocates of freedom of thought would have us, 
assume the position of Atheists, in order to discuss calmly and 
dispassionately the problems of philosophy or the laws and 
phenomena of the world of sense. As Christians, as honest 
believers in the Bible as a record of revealed truth, we know 
that, in the history both of modern philosophy and modern 
science, avowed Christians have taken no mean or insignificant 
place. I will go further, and say, that Christians have held 
the highest place as discoverers of the laws of nature, inter- 
preters of the phenomena of nature, and careful and honest 
observers of those facts upon which science is based. 
We have derived our faith in revealed religion neither from 
cold philosophical thought nor from the feeble inductions of 
science, but from the highest source of all truth — the 
revelation of God to mankind. We regard this faith as 
His gift, the gift of the Spirit of Truth ; and, when we know 
how distinguished Christians, who have held and do hold this 
faith, have been in the paths of philosophy and science, we 
ask why we should not investigate the pretensions of modern 
philosophers and modern professors of science when they call 
upon us, as lovers of truth, to abandon our faith. We believe 
that our honest investigations of these objections will tend to 
strengthen the faith of those who have not the time or do not 
possess the necessary scientific education to investigate such 
questions for themselves. 
If asked why the Victoria Institute should be founded for 
such investigations, I think I could give a very sufficient 
answer from my own experience. I know no other society or 
institution where such subjects could be discussed. 
A purely theological society would not feel competent to 
entertain the scientific side of the discussion. A purely 
scientific society would repudiate the theological aspect. Not 
long ago I had to address a theological meeting, composed 
entirely of clergymen, on the very subject of the supposed 
opposition between science and revelation. As a cultivator of 
some branches of science, I pointed out that the supposed 
facts on which the opposition was founded were no facts at all ; 
that they were crude hypotheses, raised without proof and 
