(Hear, hear.) Indeed, this Society is becoming well known in all the four 
quarters of the globe, and we may congratulate ourselves that our hopes for 
it are being realised. Its importance is shown in many ways ; for instance, 
in India we see the natives drifting away from their old faith. Their 
old religion is slowly, very slowly, quitting them, and the question is, 
what they are to accept instead of it. They are willing to part with their old 
faith because of its want of suitableness to rational minds, but they must have 
something presented to them suitable to reasoning beings. We, of this 
Institute, say their alternative is very simple. They must either take refuge 
in scepticism, which will be most emphatically an atheistic scepticism, or they 
must, in someway or other, find a haven of refuge in the Christian Church. 
It must be one thing or the other. This Institute can, without the slightest 
narrow-mindedness or sectarianism, point out that the more rational way 
is belief in the truths of Christianity, instead of an acceptance of the 
unsatisfactory theories offered to them by the various forms of scepticism 
which even now have begun to show themselves among the natives of India. 
I think that this Institute may congratulate itself on having been marked 
out for a very important work, and I only trust that it will be able to go on 
with that work and prosper. (Hear, hear.) I have now to call on Mr. 
Blencowe to read his paper. 
The following paper was then read by the author : — 
THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION AS EXPOUNDED BY 
F. MAX MULLER IN THE (( EIBBERT LECTURE ” 
OF 1878, AND IN (( CHIPS FROM A GERMAN 
WORKSHOP, 1807.” By The Rev. G. Blencowe. 
T HE subject I have now to bring before you is the Science 
of Religion as expounded by Max Muller in his Hibbert 
Lecture and in his Chips from a German Workshop. In these 
books we have some of the results of many years'* labour by 
one of the most profound students of language, who has 
unveiled many of the mysteries of Grecian mythology, and 
dug up the roots of a kindred mythology among the Aryans 
of India. We are greatly indebted to their learned author 
for the enlargement of our field of view, and for the ability 
he has given us of beholding our ancient relations, not as 
