210 PROFESSOR THOMAS CONDON. from Yale College through this new fossil field, and a little later Professor LeConte of the University of California was introduced into the same John Day Valley. The latest scien- tific publications began to find their way into Mr. Condon's library in exchange for information and material freely given to eastern workers. The stimulus of all this stirring inter- course by exchange, correspondence, or personal conversation with some of the most learned men of the age, was a great boon. Life in the strength of his manhood was full of buoy- ancy and joy, a grand opportunity for usefulness. "It gave Mr. Condon real pleasure to sit down beside a rough block of sandstone with only the corner of one glisten- ing tooth in sight, to pick and chip and chisel until another tooth and part of the jaw were seen, to continue with careful skill until the beautiful agatized molars were laid bare, to work patiently on until there stood before him, no longer the shapeless mass of stone, but a fine fossil head to add its testi- mony to the record of the past. But it gave him greater pleasure still, to work with rough, unpolished human char- acter and discover the glint of gold hidden under the rougli exterior. The book of nature was indeed fascinating but did not appeal to him as did the work with men. He had the artist's eye for seeing the beautiful in character and the en- thusiasm of a sculptor for shaping rough, faulty human nature until its beauty reflected the Divine. "To many minds, these two lines of interest, the develop- ment of character and the study of nature, would seem in- congruous, but to him they were both God's truth, the one the preparation, the other the culmination of God's work. And yet, strange and unusual as is this combination of geologist and minister, it seemed exactly what was needed to equip one for usefulness thirty or forty years ago. For these were years of great stir in the scientific world. "The author of 'The Origin of Species' and 'The Descent of Man' had given his theory of evolution to the world. The grand truths developed by that galaxy of brilliant English writers, Spencer, Huxley, Tyndall, and others, had been seized by materialists who were calling upon all thinkers to discard the Bible as out of date because not in harmony with scientific thought. Christian ministers were not scientists and the prin- ciples of 'Higher Criticism,' if thought of at all, were con- sidered dan^eious heresies against which to warn their people. To Mr. Condon the theory of evolution presented to the human
