THE AMERICAN-SC AN DIN AVIAN REVIEW 
349 
ages names most illustrious in the world of intellect as signal proof 
that the highest cultural development may be united with genuinely 
Christian principles ? 
Above the statue which has been raised in honor of Copernicus 
in his native city we may read the proud words: “He moved the earth, 
he fixed the sun and the firmament.” A more beautiful tribute, how¬ 
ever, to this giant in the world of science is the inscription underneath 
his picture in the church of the same city: “I ask not the grace that 
Paul received, nor the forgiveness that Peter found; only one thing is 
my humble prayer, that I may be given such mercy as Thou showed 
the thief on the cross.” I do not know whether these words were 
put on his tombstone by his own request, but at any rate they express 
the innermost thoughts of his soul. 
Let us take some names from our own century. Faraday, Liebig, 
Simpson, Edison, and Pasteur, breakers of new ground in the world 
of science, have all definitely confessed the value of the Christian prin¬ 
ciples to humanity, and some of them have even come forward as 
active defenders of the Christian faith against unbelief. 
Who does not know that the two most famous statesmen which 
the nineteenth century produced, Gladstone and Bismarck, different 
as they were in everything else, were yet alike in this one thing: again 
and again they voiced the most full-toned confession of Christian 
faith. 
When I have brought so many witnesses from the domain of 
intellectual achievement, prominent men in various fields of our civ¬ 
ilization, it is by no means my intention to suggest that the Christian 
faith needs the great men of science or politics to guarantee it. The 
guarantee of the truth of Christianity is not to be found in its agree¬ 
ment with the results of human research. It must bring its case before 
a higher judgment seat. The truth is that the human soul contains 
something more besides intellect. Deep forces within us seek nourish¬ 
ment, and knowledge does not give us what we are hungering for. 
He who has wandered in the desert till he is weary will say: “Give 
me a word about love, God’s love, which is stronger than death. I 
need a Saviour’s heart upon which I can lean and find rest.” The 
more our eyes are opened to that which stirs in the depths of the 
human soul, the more sensitive we become to the message of repent¬ 
ance, sin, and death, and the more deeply de we bend before the cross 
which God’s love has raised. It is life, human life, in all its wealth, 
in all its poverty, with all its proud victories, with all its unquenchable 
thirst and all its bitter grief, which needs Him who calls out to the 
struggling, doubting, seeking generation: “Come unto me, all ye that 
labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” 
