Scientific Doubters.

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III.

CAUTIONS FOR SCIENTIFIC DOUBTERS OF HOLY SCRIPTURE.

THERE exists a large class of thoughtful men, whose minds revolt from the Bible as the expression of a Divine Revelation, only because they see, or think they see, in it statements which are in open antagonism to the discoveries of Modern Science. Hence they turn from its pages with a feeling that it is behind the age; and that it must be looked upon as among the things which are exploded and past. Believing, for example, in man's genealogical descent, through endless evolutions, from one primordial germ; in man's prehistoric antiquity running back into thousands of centuries; in man's aboriginal state of savagery; and in other similar theories, they say, "The Bible contradicts these important discoveries of modern science, and therefore it cannot have been supernaturally inspired."

Such being the creed of certain Scientific Doubters, many others, who have little pretension to any real scientific attainments themselves, are so far influenced by the bold assertion, that their

faith begins to stagger, and their reverence for Scripture gets gradually sapped and undermined. In this way doubt spreads, and unbelief becomes consolidated.

The present chapter will be addressed to such Doubters; suggesting to them a few precautionary thoughts which may, possibly, put the matter in a new light, and help to remove this scepticism. I am fully aware that the first of these cautions will not be satisfactory to the leaders, and founders, and recognized disciples of these new scientific theories, who, of course, fully believe them to be all indisputable. I shall address myself to those persons subsequently. In the meantime I now begin with a class who have become unsettled in their faith even by the mere announcement of such opinions, although they have no full knowledge or persuasion of them personally.

To such persons let me say,—

CAUTION I. Is it not possible that these new doctrines of Sciençe, which appear to you so contradictory to the Scriptures, may, after all, prove only ingenious guesses and imperfect speculations, capable of being very much modified, if not altogether displaced, by the prosecution of further researches?

Whatever the founders or devotees of these opinions may affirm to the contrary, it ought to be carefully noted that not one of their theories has yet been established on a basis which is

Question of further Research.

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beyond the reach of assault; not one has yet been universally accepted by scientific men as really incapable of dispute. It must be borne in mind that, among the teachings of science, there are some discoveries, such as Sir Isaac Newton's on the Law of Gravitation, and Harvey's on the Circulation of the Blood, which are, for all practical purposes, fixed and incontrovertible; while others are still before the world on probation, mere theories, based, it may be, upon the observation of a certain number of recognized facts, yet liable to be reversed by closer and fuller observations of a later date. It should be remembered that some of those scientific beliefs which it would have been high treason against science, a few years ago, to dispute, have now been altogether abandoned. In Geology, for example, there have been many recent changes of opinions. Some years ago no man of science would have risked his reputation for knowledge by speaking of the primitive rocks as fossiliferous, yet recent discoveries in Canada have compelled geologists to alter their belief; and now, no truly scientific student would dream of denying that organic remains may exist in the oldest and lowest rocks. It would be very easy to adduce other changes of belief in various departments of modern science.

I, therefore, lay before my hesitating and doubting friends the following appeal: "Take your stand upon facts such as these, and say, I will wait a little longer before I allow my mind

to be disturbed, and unsettled in its religious faith. Further inquiry and research may lead these very men whose writings now perplex me to modify or retract their opinions. If theories which are considered well established by science at one time have to be altered on a new set of grounds at another time, may I not reasonably hesitate before I grow either angry or sad at any of these alleged discrepancies with Scripture ?"

In other words, whenever speculative opinions are not yet absolutely settled, the wisest course is to maintain an attitude of suspended judgment. That was a fine saying of the ancients, "God is patient because He is eternal." We may say the same of truth also. Truth, when attacked by error, can afford to wait in patience; inasmuch as, during the progress of ages, all mistaken deductions naturally become corrected through a larger accumulation of facts.

Let us now, however, go a step farther; and appeal to those who have no suspended judgment upon these opinions, but who hold them in a fixed and firm belief which refuses all place for such an argument as that just given. I must not for a moment be supposed to yield to those beliefs; for they certainly are not yet established upon a basis which is definite and incontrovertible. But I assume the very worst that can be conceived, and suppose, for argument's sake, that they are proved; and I meet such Scientific Doubters on their own grounds.

Wisdom of Suspended Judgment.

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CAUTION II.-Is it not right and reasonable, in that case, to distinguish between the substance of Revelation as delivered by God, and the Interpretations of that Revelation as deduced by man?

Few mistakes have produced greater misunderstandings between religion and science than the confusion of these two subjects. Yet it is a mistake of which, until very lately, the Church has been herself guilty. It was so in the days of St. Augustine, when, on the ground of a popular and old-fashioned interpretation of Scripture, that ancient Father of the Church thought it heresy to believe the world to be a globe. It was the same in the days of Columbus, when an ecclesiastical conclave in the Dominican convent of Salamanca actually contended that his discoveries could not be true, otherwise St. Jerome and St. Augustine must have been wrong. It was the same in the days of Galileo, when the Inquisition of Rome committed that philosopher to prison, and obliged him, as a saving penance, to repeat once a week during three years the seven penitential psalms, simply because his discoveries were supposed to contradict Divine Revelation. Whereas the fact was, that in all these cases the progress of scientific discovery did not contradict Revelation itself, but only the hereditary and traditional interpretation of certain texts, which, in no true sense, required such a meaning to be put upon them.

Is it to be wondered at, then, if, under treatment so unreasonable, the scientific men of those days