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high distinctions and manifest qualifications of your other Vice-Presidents, 
I can say this much, that I do not yield to them in my devoted adherence 
to the written Word of God ; and it is in my hopes that our Institute may 
and will accomplish its noble mission, — that of showing that the Book cf 
Nature is not a contradiction to the Book of Grace. I shall trouble you 
with a few words on the present attitude of Science towards Religion, and 
on the duty of our Institute in the present conjuncture 
There was a time, perhaps, when Religion was afraid of 
Science, and reviled it ; because Science restrained the 
enormous power which Religion claimed over the intellect of 
its votaries, and the vast demands it made on their belief. 
When the X07 iki) Xarpua of St. Paul was made to consist in the 
entire submission of body, soul, and spirit to an ecclesiastical 
superior, we cannot be surprised that Science occasionally 
pointed out that infallibility could not be presumed to extend 
to the region of material facts, or the laws logically deduced 
from an observation of those facts. And so Science was 
abused and condemned by Religion. 
Things are altered now. Nous avons change tout cela. 
Religion and its advocates are now sometimes censured (to 
use no harder term), because the teachers of Faith call atten- 
tion to, and decline to accept, the hasty generalizations, 
and still more hasty inferences, of the followers of positive 
science. It is a very curious fact that a particular branch of 
study, which in past times was objected to by those whom I 
may call the Religionists, is now deprecated by the adherents 
of Science. The opponents of religious freedom in bygone 
days set their faces strongly against the study of Greek. It 
is a curious coincidence that so many of the opposite school 
in the present day declaim against the study of the same 
language as a needless and unprofitable waste of time. I shall 
not weary you with attempts to give a reason for this coin- 
cidence, though I believe one could be given. It is enough for 
me to call your attention to the fact, that whereas in past times 
the clergy opposed and reviled Science, it is now the men of 
science who — rightly or wrongly — oppose, and sometimes 
speak harshly of, the clergy. 
But why should this be ? Why cannot Faith and Induction 
coexist in the same mind ? Why cannot the teachers of that 
which must be proved, and the teachers of that which must 
be believed, go on harmoniously in their grand task of uttering, 
though it be in a different key, the praises of the one Cre- 
ator? The work of our Institute is to mediate between the 
two : to show that Science, if really scientific, cannot be 
