A REASONABLE SERVICE.

A

SERMON

PEEACHED IN THE

COLLEGE CHURC

November 12, 1876.

PUBLISHED BT REQUEST.

BY S. P. LEEDS
PASTOR.

Mwvi-5"

A REASONABLE SERVICE.

A

SERMON

PREACHED IN THE

COLLEGE CHURCH
November 12, 1876.

PUBLISHED BT REQUEST.

BY S. P. LEEDS,

PA9TOE.

HANOVEB, X. H.
BOOK AND JOB PKES8 OF P. H. WHlTCOilB,
1876.

My Deab Sttjdent-Fkiends :
And under this name I include all who wear the green of old
Dartmouth, — I dedicate to you the following pages published at the
request of the " Christian Fraternity." I believe the positions taken
in them to be both true and important. As the reader will see, they
were written with no reference to publication, — and I am glad of that ;
yet I do not feel at liberty to make any important changes, but send
them out to do what service they may.
As you well know, my dear Friends, I have never been effusive to
wards you, and I will not begin to be so here. In after years, perhaps,
you will understand my deep regard for you, if you do not now. It
has been said of one whose memory we venerate, that God made him
childless that the whole nation might call him father ; perhaps, in
humbler strain, 1 may be allowed to think that, if He has made me
lonely, He would have me lean the more completely on my friends, and
among them, certainly, are you. As always yours, THE AUTHOR.
November, 1876.

A EEASONABLE SEEVICE.

Acts 27: 31. — "Paul said to the Centukion, and to the sol
diers, Except these "—the sailors—" abide in the ship, te cannot
BE SAVED."
And yet the sailors were not to save them, after all, but were needed
a little longer, " while the day was coming on," and to get the ship
nearer shore :
Vs. 43, 44. — "But the Centurion * * * commanded th at thet
which could swim should cast themselves into the sea, and
get to land ; and the best, some on boards, and some on broken
pieces of the ship. And so it came to pass, that thet escaped
all safe to land."
Paul said — " except these abide in the ship, ye cannot be
saved." These sailors— semi-barbarians, perhaps, from the rude
coast of Cilicia — were, in one aspect certainly, of lowlier grade
than the more favored soldiers of Rome and than their com
mander. But these last were dependent upon them. However
stout-hearted, however skillful on land, here, on shipboard, they
needed the services of those whom, perchance, they despised.
I. It is the way of many, especially of the Romish Church,
to depreciate the human reason. The Christian religion, we
are told and told truly, is eminently a religion of faith ; " the
Gospel is the power of God unto salvation to every one that
believeth." But it is not our reason with which the Bible con
trasts faith, hut our lower nature, our appetites and passions, —
in a word, our un-reason ; either this, or sight, is what the Bi
ble usually sets over against faith. " Prove all things," says the
Scripture ; and again — " be ready always to give an answer to
every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you."
The faith which the Romish Church demands, is often opposed
to reason ; it is a faith in authority and in the authority of that
Church ; your reason is to be submitted to what, at its very
best, is only the reason of other men, and what, largely, is other
men's conjectures and speculations and inferences and supersti
tions.; we are to believe the Pope infallible, for example, be-

cause a majority of a certain convention or "Council" have so
decided. This is a faith unworthy of the name, and this is op
posed to reason. But the faith .which the Bible enjoins, being
a true faith, although it may be above reason sometimes, is nev
er opposed to it. It may sometimes confront reason, as two
opposite mountains face each other. But as these stand in har
monious relation — so that amidst the silence of a starry night
one may almost fancy that he hears them commune together of
the great Past and of the Earth beneath them, — so faith and
reason. Faith is sometimes opposed to reason-in^, i. e., to a mis
taken use or wrong results of the reason, but to reason itself
never. I am speaking not merely of facts, but of the usage of
Scripture. It is, I say again, " sight " — by which is generally
meant world-bounded views, — and self-seeking and passion, to
which the Bible characteristically opposes faith.
And to decry reason is to imperil faith itself. To deny the
use of the reasoning faculties in Religion, is like sawing off the
very limb of a tree, on which one is sitting. Appeal must be made
to these — not to these only, to conscience and moral affections
also, yet to these most certainly — if we" would lay the founda
tions of a faith worth the haviug. " Except these abide in the
ship, ye cannot be saved." Mournful proof of this is found in
Continental Europe, and perhaps in Italy to an eminent degree.
How terrible the results when vice usurps the robes of faith, and
in that garb denounces reason, — while, in the Scripture, it is
virtue transfigured into faith that denounces sin and unreasona
bleness. This is indeed to call evil good and good evil.
Most certainly we who are Protestants cannot afford to
disparage reason, while exalting Revelation and faith therein.
How do we know that we have a revelation but by the aid of
reason ? how do we weigh its " evidences," except in the scales
which reason holds ? How do we understand and interpret its
words, — how, in fine, do we apply its principles and maxims to
our own, personal experience, — but by the assistance of reason ?
Faith and reason must go hand in hand, — and " what God hath
joined together, let not man put asunder." While, as Archbish
op Whately observes, " Reason can never be better employed
than in deciding where her operations must be stopped," reason
generally cannot be better employed than in activity to that

point. Dr. Chalmers has well said, for substance, " If we are
not to be wise above what is written, we 'are to be wise up to
what is written."* For,
II. In the next place, the Christian Religion— we must
never forget— is preeminently a religion 'of Truth. Christ said
— said to Pilate, said to the world's representative, so to speak,
the first and only time He had to deal with a representative of
the great world outside of Jewry,—" To this end was I born,
and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear wit
ness unto the truth." The Gospel is not merely useful, it is
true ; and useful because true. Above all its benefits, and in
all, it is true. Could it, conceivably, be proved to be false, or
not proved to be true, let it go down. It ought to go down.
And farther — every one, iu becoming Christ's disciple, im
pliedly declares his loyalty henceforth to Truth. I know it is
not so-called intellectual truth to which, specifically, we pledge
ourselves when we become Christians. Our minds are absorbed
in something at once wider and deeper. For, Christian Truth
is, above all, Christ himself, the Absolute Truth and Infinite
Saviour, and He is greater than all ideas, — these, however grand,
*Tlie Church of Rome exalts, but exaggerates, one important prin
ciple which I have long thought too greatly overlooked by Protestants
generally,— the idea and fact of the Church of God on earth as a Body
that, in some special sense, has the Gospel in trust. It says, in effect.
— ' God has committed the Gospel to us, to tell it to mankind. Multi
tudes, adults as well as children, cannot read the Scriptures; and the
greater part of those that Can read, get, and practically must get, their
first ideas of it from us. In the Divine plan, the Bible does not hold
the exclusive place which Protestants claim for it; the Church existed
before the Bible,' — which is true but in part — the Old Testament is a
most important exception, 'the Church decided what books are canon
ical, — the Church holds a place side by side with tho Bible.' The errors
here are plain : Too much is made of the Church— as if it were claimed
for a guidepost that, because it points to Hanover, it is of equal impor
tance with Hanover; and then the Church is identified with that of
Rome; in very great degree, too, the Romish Church is identified with
its hierarchy, and this with the Pope. — If this theory, which excludes
all Protestants, must be rejected, must we not examine most carefully
before we accept it another which excludes almost all except English-
speaking peoples ? — as if there were no (Protestant) Church in Germany,
none in^Northern Europe, none indeed in any part of Continental Eu
rope nay, relatively none in the United States. — The true view of the
Church's function in this regard may be illustrated from Matthew 2:1-
6 ¦ the Church answers the wise men's question, but from the Script
ures : only, we must remember that the Church is not composed of
the "chief priests and scribes" alone, but of "laymen" as well. This,
Scriptural view pours no contempt upon the faculties of the human
mind.

6
are at best but rays from His Divinity. But, impliedly, as I
have said, we are devoted as Christians to all truth, and, in so
far as the Gospel has an especially intellectual side, to intellect
ual truth ; to all truth, I say, — although we may not be able to
appreciate it, ourselves, we are glad to hear of every advance
made in the domain of knowledge.
In Religion, not more than elsewhere, for that cannot be^
but as much as elsewhere, we accept the statement that " The
question, ' what is true ? ' ought to stand at the threshold of
every inquiry ; " *md the warning that " If the question, ' what
is true?' be asked only in the second place, it is likejy to re
ceive a very different answer from what it would if it had been
asked in the first place j " and also the farther warning from the
same source (Archbishop Whately), that, if I remember it right
ly, " He who begins by preferring Christianity to truth wdl end by
preferring his sect to Christianity." To be sure, religious truth
does not consist in mere ideas, as I have already said, and the love
of truth does not consist mainly in admiration of these, nor the
pursuit of truth mainly in searching after these ; for there is a
desire for knowledge which is but one kind of curiosity. No
religious acquisitions that puff up vanity or pride, or that do
not take us nearer to God, deserve the name of Truth. Be
cause one has admired the exterior of St. Peter's, has looked
upon its statue-crowned colonnades or its upspringing fountains,
he has not of necessity stood at the shrine within. A friend
told me once that he had been in Asia — in Syria — yes, in Pales
tine. " Then you could say, ' My feet have stood within thy
gates, 0 Jerusalem ' ? " 1 said : " No, we were not allowed to
enter." Many a man misses Truth by i-esting in its shadows.
Ideas, only, are his. He has ' contracted the habit of seizing
hold of all things by their intellectual side,' so that ' each gain
of his mind is a loss to his soul,' and ' ever learning, he is never
able to come to the knowledge of the Truth? He does not ad
vance in Charity ; of Humility, he knows nothing. And while
" the question ' What is true ? ' ought to stand at the threshold
of every religious inquiry," Humility must ask that question in
order to learn the Truth.
It is because of facts of this kind that some truth-loving
Christians start back, at first, at the suggestion that Christiani-

ty itself is not to be preferred to Truth. They know Him Who
is true, and they are in Him That is true* and they rejoice in
His words — for in these they have not only gained comfort but
they have "purified their souls in obeying" them; and they
have found by sad experience how empty to this end is all other
truth — that it is only as husks to solid food. And yet, as they
will say when once they understand the case — " Except these
abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved." Paul and his Roman
friends were not, indeed, to be saved by the sailors, but the sail
ors were necessary. Paul and his friends must yet commit
themselves to the sea, and get to land as best they could — trust
ing in God — " some by swimming, and the rest, some on boards,
and some on broken pieces of the ship " : And so every man
that is to be saved at last, must put himself into the Lord's
hands, as these men did when they went down into the sea ; he
is to be saved by something else than his reason — it will disap
point him if he trusts in it. Yet he is not to despise it, but to
use it as he can. It is not the only faculty in us that appre
hends religious truth, but it is one part of our nature and must
be used rightly.
As disciples of Christ, then, I repeat, we are to be devo
tees of Truth. We are to do nothing to discourage investiga
tion. We know as Paul said sublimely " we can do nothing
against the truth but for the truth." And we wish to do noth
ing against the truth. Let it be known ; let all realms of knowl
edge be explored, and all give of their treasure to His glory on
" Whose head are many crowns " — the crown of knowledge as
well as that of power.
III. Only, let me add — Only, when men pursue Truth, we
ask this of them, that they be thorough. We ask — we urge —
we insist that they go through with the subject, This dabbling
in knowledge — this reading a little here and a little there, es
pecially in publications meant to be entertaining rather than in
structive — this glancing at everything and scrutinizing nothing
— is unworthy of one who boasts of using his reason, and of
any one who sets out to investigate. Let him find out what the
proofs of Christianity are,— if that be the question in hand.
Let him contemplate the probabilities of a revelation from
Heaven, and then the evidences that a revelation has been giv-

8
en ; let him read the Bible and know its contents and under
stand its aim and learn its methods — there is no evidence for
the Bible like the Bible and its right use. Let him be thorough.
Let him be in earnest. Again : We urge that in religion as
elsewhere he be reverent, as befits the investigation of any great
system. If it be Mohammedanism, if it be Buddhism, let him
be reverent as becomes one who weighs the labors of long gen
erations of gifted men and surveys the faith of millions. How
unworthy is frivolity, how small is pride, in the presence of the
Jewish Lawgiver and St. Paul, of Athanasius and Jerome and
Augustine, of Bernard and Anselm, of Luther and Calvin, — of
the great host of mighty men inferior to these alone, who with
these rule the ages from their urns. And apart from its
disciples, Christianity itself may well indeed be contemplated
with profound reverence. Its achievements, its still progress
ive triumphs, how wonderful !
" O where are Kings and Empires now,
Of old that went and came ?
But, Lord, Thy Church is praying yet,
A thousand years the same:"
He that does not feel that, and is not awed by it into reverence
and humility, should cease to talk of his reason ; it is just there
that he lacks.
Only one more thing — we urge that he investigate practi
cally, — I mean, in order to diseover duty. I have already ad
verted to a desire for knowledge, which is but another kind of
curiosity. There is no promise to such a spirit, either in the
Bible, or in the nature of things ; it may lead to Truth, and it
may not. In Religion, not in it alone but in it most certainly,
Truth stands in the same relation to Life — spiritual Life as the
Holy place in the old temple stood to the Most Holy, or as in the
Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem to-day the small outer apartment
does to the inner which contains the tomb of Christ. Enter
the vast structure which surrounds these. There are chapels
about you, — as there are spheres of mere ideas in the human
mind ; there are shrines at hand,— as there may be generous
and even noble sentiments in the unrenewed heart. Near by be
neath the same roof, is the great church edifice, belonging to

the Greeks, with its majestic worship and its grand music; so
Philosophy has its magnificent dwelling-place. Not far away,
is that of the Latins, — and so Law too has its home. But
would you enter that outer chapel of which I have spoken, you
must take it in your way to the Chapel within where once the
Lord lay, and where He rose: And so, to learn Truth, real
Truth, we must seek for Duty or Life. For, in Religion Truth
is practical ; in the profoundest sense, yet in the most intense
sense, practical. That is a wonderfully wise saying of Vinet :
" The Gospel only admits the speculative element under the ti
tle of support and auxiliary to the practical. Not only, as you
may easily conceive, is no dogma passive, but the exposition of
the dogma stops short precisely, I might almost say abruptly, at
the point where the practical, thoroughly satisfied, would have
nothing to gain from any ulterior development." And that
was a very wise act, in the circumstances, on the part of an
American divine who replied to one that came to him and said
" I am a skeptic and I want you to prove to me that the Bible
is true," — " Do you believe in the existence of a God?" "Oh
yes, I am not an atheist." " Well, do you believe that you have
treated God as you ought ? Have you respected His authority ?
Have you loved him ? Have you done that which you thought
would please Him, and with the design to please Him ? Don't
yon admit that you ought to love Him and ought to worship
Him and ought to obey Him according to the best light you
have ? " " Oh yes, I admit all this." " But have you done so ?' '
" Why, no, I cannot say that I have." " Well, then, why should
I give you farther information, and farther light, if you will not
do your duty and obey the light you already have? Now,'
when yon will make up your mind to live up to your convic
tions, — to repent of your neglect thus far, and to please God
just as well as you know how the rest ,of your life, I will try to
show you that the Bible is from God. Until then, it is of no
use for me to do any such thing." He replied—" I do not
know but that is fair," and went away. The next morning he
came again, and exclaimed^-" God has wrought a miracle!''
The man had done as he was counseled, and then he soon be
came a Christian. For, if any one wishes to do God's will, if
that is his object,— and not knowledge in general, but knowl-

10
edgo in particular of God's will and of what God Would have
himself do, — and to do that will, — he shall know of the doc
trine. I have urged, this morning, devotion to Truth, and, to this
end, the right and earnest use of our reason, — not for a mo
ment forgetting — insisting, rather — that reason is not the only
instrument for the acquisition of Truth, but that candor, con
scientiousness and moral earnestness are also necessary. Yet
these, I apprehend, form the atmosphere in which reason safely
works rather than instruments to gain Truth. Even while Ave
reverently and dutifully read God's word, or listen to the voices
or watch the lives of His children, reason is busy in one or an
other office — as in receiving testimony or in arguing on proper
occasion. Faith, as has been well said (by Dr. Thos. Arnold),
is " reason leaning upon God " : Or, more exactly — faith, in its
purely intellectual aspect, is reason receiving His testimony, and
in its spiritual or complete operation, is reason, conscience, af
fection — all, receiving that testimony and receiving Christ — the
word written and the Word Incarnate. Whatever else we have,
we must have the services of our rational powers too. " Except
these abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved."
I think we gain valuable and perhaps indispensable light from
the course of thought we have been pursuing this morning, on
our proper treatment of a subject which now for several years
has commanded much attention but which has been brought
before thoughtful men with renewed interest by recent events
— I refer to the late visit and lectures of a distinguished man
of science from England. On the great achievements of Sci
ence, or its great claims — some of these alarming to many
and startling, if not alarming, to all Christians, I need not
dwell. I speak now only of our proper deportment towards it.
First, then, I urge candor — that candor which becomes all
lovers of knowledge but which is eminently demanded of Chris
tian men, that candor indeed which we are constantly demand
ing of others in their investigations of Christianity. Next, I
urge more than candor,— a deep interest in all that learned men
accomplish ; not that interest which springs from anxiety only,
but from a hearty love of truth. And let us express that inter-

11
e"st with all heartiness, not as having Esau's hands but Jacob's
voice, and so failing of Jacob's success ; let us say what we
have to say, in right earnest. For, let us believe — yes, in FaitKs
name, let us deem that there is no realm of knowledge which
does not belong to our Lord, and which shall not yet bring its
gift in some way to Him and to His kingdom : Perhaps in some
cases it will be a negative way — in the removal of errors — rath
er than a positive, but it will be none the less real. The living
creatures in the Apocalypse, — " the four beasts," as they are
called, — symbols of creative or natural forces though they be,
join with the rest in praises to the Lamb ; and even seem to
speak as if they too had been redeemed, and fitly, for " the whole
creation groaneth and travaileth together in pain until now "
and " waits " for a consummated " redemption."
And let us not be troubled by some .extravagances even.
Every great movement of mind is liable to such. Those of us
who have studied Theology, know that the same thing has pre
vailed there. In that grandest department of human knowl
edge there has often been a stretching of facts to make them
meet as one might stretch breadths of cloth which are too scanty,
or a drawing of inferences from inadequate premises. With a
few moments' thought I could match perhaps every prominent
name in the scientific world from religious history, and discover
the same mental characteristics which, in either case, have de
termined the man's style of thinking. When I am told of
something on that side which strikes me as extreme, I recall the
treatise of good Nicholas Amsdorf, of three centuries ago, who
in his zeal for justification by faith maintained that "Good works
are hurtful to salvation " : This was " the doctrine of St. Paul
and St, Luther." When I am assured on that hand that the
doctrine of Evolution — to which, in at least one phase, I see
no objection, if it be only proved — is as certainly true as the
law of Gravitation, I remember good men who, some of them,
are sure that Infant Baptism is as plainly taught in the New
Testament as any other truth — as if there were no divine pro
portion in Scripture, and some of whom are as sure that it is not
taught there at all as they are of their own salvation. In either
case, I am willing to learn ; and meantime I think the more
highly of those men who in certain matters philosophic or the-

12
ological, can say like a scientific friend of mine — " I am greatly
impressed with the scantiness of our real knowledge."
Again, — let us not be in haste — as one has well put it — to
bring the ark of God into the field, and to put the immortal, in
dispensable, saving truths of the Gospel at hazard (in some
men's minds at least) for the sake of what, after all, may be
mistaken interpretations of Scripture. God once suffered His
ark to he taken and for a season lost !
But now, on the other hand, because we love Truth, we
shall be slow to adopt new theories that seriously disturb what
we have supposed to be^, well-established, whether in Theology
or in other directions : That is, we shall wish those theories
proved. And in some cases,rjthoughtful men, although they be
not specifically devoted to scientific pursuits, will consider them
selves capable of judging of the proof, or of necessary parts of
it. Every one knows how helpful, sometimes, is the opinion of
an intelligent man of another calling, in questions of his own.
The rules of Logic, inductive and deductive both, are the mo
nopoly of no profession. To say this, is not to forget that each
profession or calling has its own valuable possessions of thought
and ways of thinking, in which none who are not specially trained
can fully share : As Dr. Carpenter said before the British Asso
ciation in 1872, — " some things are ' self-evident ' to men of cul
ture (as in Science, Geology especially), which men whose train
ing has lain in a different direction, do not apprehend as such."
And yet, in one of Mr. Tyndall's latest conversations with Sir
David Brewster, Sir David — certainly an authority on the sub
ject — prononced " absurd," i. e., "self-evident" in the reverse
drection (or, its denial self-evident), a certain thing which is
now a fuundamental part of the accepted theory of light ; so
that what is self-evident to a man in his own department, even,
is not necessarily so.*
*On the occasion above referred to, Dr. Carpenter said — (after re
marking that, "even in that strong assurance " we hear of the exist
ence and the universality of the law of gravitation, "we are required by
our examination of the basis on which it rests, to admit a reserve of the
possibility of something different — a reserve which we may well believe
that Newton himself must have entertained," — how modest is true Sci
ence and how modest ought it to be I) — "A most valuable lesson as to
the allowance we ought always to make for the unknown possibilities
of nature is taught us by a familiar phenomenon. Next to the law of
the universal attraction of masses of matter, there is none that has a

13
Nay, farther ; we are told in the chapter containing the
text that before the voyage which ended so disastrously, St.
Paul warned the Centurion against it. « Nevertheless, the Cen
turion believed the master and the owner of the ship more than
those things, which were spoken by Paul " ; very naturally — it
seemed likely that they would know more about their own bus
iness than he. And yet he was right. He had had, perhaps, a
more serviceable experience in such matters so far as they bore
on the question then in hand than their's, — he was no stranger
to the sea. So it may prove that this old Bible, albeit its
great and its all-comprehensive function is to teach Religion
may have some things to tell— a.t certain points— that Science
itself may find it worth its while to listen to. History, cer
tainly, has found it so.
At all events we will not believe the Bible and Natural Sci
ence hostile to each other while such things occur as occurred not
long since in doubting Italy, in the city of Turin. One of the pre-
fessors in the University there joined the Protestant Church in
that place, having been led to faith by ' recognizing the won
derful agreement of the Bible and Science.'
And in any case we will remember — on the one hand, that
knowledge is not all of Life,-. — and on the other, that " the words
of the Lord are pure words, as silver tried in a furnace of earth,
purified seven times." They are pure words ; and they exhort
us to purity. The counsel in one of the last addresses of a
man who, four years ago, was a candidate for the highest office
in our land, is worthy of remembrance : Let us " proffer a ge
nial and gracious hospitality to whatever is nobly new, yet hold
fast and from time to time assert the grand old truths — in the
firm assurance that no discoveries in science, no advances in
wider range than that of the expansion of bodies by heat. Excluding
water and one or two other substances, the fact of such expansion
might be said to be invariable. Supposing these exceptions to be un
known, the law would be universal in its range. But it comes to be dis
covered that water, while conforming to it in its expansion from 39 1-2
degrees upward to its boiling point, as also, when it passes into steam,
to the special law of expansion of vapor, is exceptional in its expan
sion also from 39 1-2 downward to its freezing point; and of this fail
ure in the universality in the law, no rationale can be given." (Sea-
water, on the other hand, ' continues to contract from 39 1-2 downward
to Us freezing-point, just as it does with reduction of temperature at
higher ranges.') May not other laws— that of Evolution, e. g„—have im
portant exceptions ?

14
human knowledge, can ever invalidate or belittle the Golden
Rule, and no conclusion of philosophy ever equal in importance
that simple affirmation of the Judean peasant who long ago per
ceived and proclaimed that God is love." But more profound
are Vinet's words : " you must keep your heart in safety ; you
must reserve within you certain principles that no discussion
has the right to infringe or even to agitate. Whatever may
happen as to the rest, and whatever the issue of the discussion,
so much remains irrevocably acquired by your conscience : God
is God; I must live for Him ; love Him above everything; do
His will, His whole will, and mothing but His will. — This is
true, this is necessary ; all that contradicts or weakens it is nec
essarily false ; if these immutable truths are not a touchstone
to discover truth, they will serve as a touchstone to reveal
error." Suffer, then, this final word — while we need have no fear
that the speculations of philosophers will ever " evict God from
His universe," we must take care that neither these nor any
thing else are allowed to evict Him from our hearts. This is
the prime danger, so far as there is any, from these things that
so loudly claim our- attention, — the same danger that meets us
everywhere ; they may so fix our minds on second causes and
lesser things as that at length a kind of spiritual numbness may
be our state. God save us — by affliction if need be, yes by sore'
calamity even — God save us from ever forgetting or neglecting
Him who is the supreme Truth and the only Salvation of the
soul!

saidin the la^£* Jf, H°Pportun^ to add something to what I have
™«r Shnnl A«?f ? f Sermon Every lover of Truth, I earnestly re-
fleldV A, 3 ll f h?fty symPathy witai our co-workers in scientific
them' ait t 7m ^l ^ "iT t0 g0 on in their instigations. Let
tS us all the facts, and, too, all the legitimate inferences from
frnl^wtlT ?uPPiess nothing that is true for fear of coming
ZliwT n ^ Scripture : nor be too anxious to reconcile their dis-
K,,?wi <<^ey are' ^ey may easily make a muddle of Religion
H ,W S, f 'u fT'?g -(as Bacon says' "not merely fantlsti-
ol l?l w ?P V bu* heietlcal religion." Give us the /acis-the really as-
cei tamed facts. Of course, our scientific friends should not be hasty-
-that indeed were unscientific; of course, they should be cautious; of
course, they should be reverential. And as suggested in the Sermon,
let them not be impatient of the questions of unscientific men— of men
who perhaps have noted such statements from authorities in Science as
that quoted on page 12. But let them not shrink from plain duty. They
can bring us nothing to disturb our, faith more than was the patri
arch s when, to all appearance, the very word of God was set against
that word. ' Go, sacrifice thy son— that son of whom I have promised
that he should be the ancestor of a great nation.' God will take care
of His word. The great thing for us is, with His all-surrounding aid,
to take care of ourselves— by humility, fidelity, and faith.— That many
scientific men are not disciples of Christ, is doubtless true ; wheth
er the proportion be larger than that of any other profession except— I
trust I may say— the Ministry, is doubtful. That there is, except to
faith, a quite alarming drift in scientific thought, as represented by
some very prominent men, is also true. But whether that drift be as
general as supposed by many, I am not sure. Not very long since it
was reported from Germany, that while " there is no department of sci
entific activity that is not represented by at least one, and sometimes
by several magazines," " some sided more or less with Darwin, but I
do not know of any one of these publications that is avowedly in his
favor"— so that a new magazine was to be established for this purpose.
Prof. Haeckel, even, says that" the majority, and among it some biolo
gists of the first class, are still of opinion that the problem of the origin
of species has only been reopened by Darwin, but by no means solved."
Mr. Darwin has not been admitted into the French Academy of Sci
ence, as our countryman Prof. Dana has been, and he is excluded on
the ground of his theories. In England itself, not overybody is run
away with as Mr. Huxley seems to be since Prof. Marsh's discourses.
Prof. Dana says, or at least he said in 1871, — " that Evolution took
place wholly without special supernatural agency is not believed even
by Wallace, one of the two originators and most earnest advocates of
the theory of natural selection, for he excepts man from the general
series." But, in any case, it is by no means clear that the general sci
entific drift is any worse than the drift of Republicanism at the begin
ning of this century, even in this country, when the new President was
reported a skeptic and infidelity greatly prevailed and threatened to
sweep over the land.
1 say these things to encourage the timid, and to (Ks-courage those
who badly wish to be infidels: I could wish it were in my power at
once to strengthen in religious faith and to incite to renewed zeal in
their scientific activity that large company of men of strong moral ear
nestness who have been aptly compared to the two troubled disciples
going to Emmaus after the death of their Lord. —
But before I close this note, let me emphasize the blessed Bible—
the Book, the only Book, as Sir Walter Scott said in his dying hours—

16
as worthy of all reverence and faith. I remember that those scientific
men who came from the East " because they had seen the star " of the
Redeemer found the final answer to their quest in the written word
of God—" for thus it is written— In Bethlehem," etc. Even to the two
disciples just mentioned, the Master " expounded " the Scriptures, be
fore He revealed Himself. And I cannot but think that if learned and
unlearned alike were to fix their attention on what both the wise men
of the East and the disciples of Palestine were directed to, it would
help them greatly,— I mean the Bible's predictive words concern
ing Christ and His kingdom. There are certain facts in this case,
which can be verified, and from which the inference is irresisti
ble, and on which the Gospel partly rests. Am I wrong in. think
ing that I have observed a frequent tendency among scientific men
to mingle metaphysical thought and speculation with their work?
In the opening address by Mr. Tyndall before the British Association
of Science we have— in a word— Democritus, the old philosopher of Ab-
dera. In the same Address, " his vision is prolonged backward across
the boundary of the experimental evidence." For myself, I make no
complaint at all of this, if— of course I mean— metaphysics be rightly
used. Only let it be understood what is going on. Let men say, ' So
much is distinctively Physics, aid so much is Metaphysics.' Let us
remember, too, that Christianity claims, at least, to rest on facts, and
largely on historical facts. " That which we have seen and heard, de
clare we unto you." (1 John 1:3.) Are these asserted facts, real
facts? Among other things— is or is there not such a chapter in the
Bible as the fifty-third of Isaiah? Was or was it not certainly written
centuries before Christ came ? Does or does it not apply to Him and
to Him alone? And a subsidiary but a helpful question — did or did not
the early Jews, though perplexed by it, apply it to the expected Messiah,
until converts were so extensively made by it to Christianity that they
sought out another interpretation? These — and they are but speci
mens — are questions of fact. And it is with facts preeminently, we
have always been assured, that Natural Science has to deal. If these
questions be answered affirmatively, it need hardly be indicated that
the question of Miracles possible and ac.tual and the question of the
Supernatural and of the intervention of that Supernatural in the affairs
of men, are settled also. But at all events, (as I have said of Science,
so I say of Religion,) let us have the facts, be their bearings what
they may !
And then it will plainly appear that,, whatever else is or is not
true, the Gospel is. That is not on trial; we have no more reason to
be disturbed by each fresh discovery in whatever direction, than has
the child of virtuous parents " passed into the skies " to be disturbed
at the news that some old letter of father or mother has been found.

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