truders, have always come from a class of men who are peculiarly unfitted by education to see the bearing of modern investigation. The Church should be eager to receive the discoveries of investigators of the strange and wonderful works of the Creator, with confidence that all can and must be reconciled with revealed religion. We see very little of this eager, receptive condition among ministers. On the contrary, the occupants of the pulpits immediately assume a fretful condition of indignation. They bristle at the very mention of the doctrine of evolution, of prehistoric man, and the theories of the antiquity of the world.
The address of Prof. Tyndall has been criticised from a hundred pulpits. If carefully read, it will not be found to afford material for the wave of indignation which has swept over the religious world. The address was evidently inspired by an indignant feeling of protest against religious dictation in science, which was tinctured also by a certain want of reverence characteristic of many scientific men. This deficiency in reverence is to be lamented, but the attitude of an investigator is generally one of irreverence. Prof. Tyndall is quick to perceive the scientific questions which are to be fashionable, so to speak, among the general public. He early saw the tide of interest which was setting toward the ice-formations of Switzerland. He led the general public to appreciate the doctrine of the conservation of force by his admirable treatise on "Heat as a Mode of Motion." He is the pioneer in the modern style of popular scientific lectures, which gives to beauty of experimental illustration a lucid yet imaginative diction. No less ready has he been to perceive the coming ferment in religious matters; and he has dashed gallantly into the combat with a certain Celtic fire, leaving perhaps many unguarded points. It may be that he considers that the religious agitation in Germany has nothing to do with the prerogatives of emperor or pope: but that bigoted religion and science are the true antagonists, and, with his customary insight into the scientific tendencies of the age, he is eager to be the first in the field. There is much in the spirit of protest which the Belfast address breathes that appeals to the mind of every scientific man.
Ministers who are only general readers in science can have no conception of the scientific spirit which comes through investigation. There is a cultivated interest which arises only from familiarity with methods, processes, and instruments. A minister lives apart from the seething turmoil and progress of the scientific world; and, if he should attempt to dispute with innovators, he will meet the same fate as any comparative recluse who attempts to dictate to the world from his retirement.
Nothing leads thinking young men of scientific tendencies to neglect church-going more than wrong-headed and illogical deductions from science by their pastors. They hear the doctrines of Darwin
