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different that the cases in which there could be any room for 
an apparent conflict of conclusions are comparatively rare, 
touching only the outer borders. They may arise from 
mistakes on either side respecting the evidence on which the 
supposed conclusions are based. The man of science may 
over-estimate the evidence on which his supposed conclusion 
is founded, and may regard some ingenious working hypo- 
thesis with the confidence due only to a well-established 
theory. The student of revelation may forget how much the 
working of his own mind is involved in the deduction of 
conclusions from the materials before him, and may accord- 
ingly transfer to that which is human, and, as such, liable to 
error, the reverence which he feels to be due to all that comes 
from the Author of that revelation. 
Let me refer to an example or two. The opposition to the 
Copernican System on the ground of its supposed contradic- 
tion of a passage in the Book of Psalms, belongs to times long 
gone by. But it is well within the memory of the present 
generation how geologists were looked on as semi-infidels, 
because, resting on the clear evidence which their science 
afforded of the antiquity of the earth, and of the succession 
of animal life upon it, they ventured to call in question the 
correctness of an opinion that the earth was created and 
furnished, or at least brought into its present condition from 
a previous state of chaos, in six literal days of twenty-four 
hours, and that to disbelieve this was tantamount to rejecting 
revelation altogether. The progress of knowledge has pretty 
well dispelled this notion as well as the other, and I doubt 
if any theologians at the present day think that the cause of 
religion has suffered in consequence. 
Let me turn now to the other side. A subject which is 
exciting a great deal of interest at the present day is what is 
called evolution. Some think that we must make our choice 
between evolution and revelation ; others think that there is 
no inconsistency between the two. 
Suppose that we are in a lead mine, and contemplate the 
crystals of galena, fluor spar, &c., with which the cavities in 
the mine are lined. The question may occur to our minds, 
How came thqy there ? Were they created as they stand, or 
did they grow by natural laws out of a previous condition in 
which they were not there ? A person who knew absolutely 
nothing of natural science might, perhaps, say that they were 
created. But one who was better informed would know that 
crystallisation is a process going on constantly in the chemical 
laboratory, and in some cases observed to be taking place in 
nature, even at the present day, without any intervention on 
