following the same prescribed conditions throughout the whole universe; you reduce all these to order, and trace them up to their primeval causes: but what those causes really are, or how and why they act in these various ways, you cannot explain. For example, what can science do more than say that a body falls to the ground by gravitation? or that certain substances are related to one another by laws of chemical affinity? Yet what explanation can it give of the raison d'être of those forces? Under such circumstances, therefore, may we not turn from science with a conviction that we have reached the limits of its power, and seek some other teacher upon the subject? Primal causation being unaccounted for scientifically, may we not place ourselves, for this discovery, under the teaching of Divine Revelation, which, instead of speaking to us about force, or matter, or gravitation, or chemical affinities, simply discourses of the Will and Power of God?"

What I mean by this is, that as there are definite points beyond which scientific inquiry is unable to penetrate, we have no right to be blamed if we look into Holy Scripture without any scientific bias as to one theory or another, and simply accept its teaching upon the existence of a First Great Cause which has wisely ordained causation in the manner in which we find it working. Where the one witness ends, the other begins. Is there anything, then, either unreasonable or unphilosophical in our passing from the one to the other?

That this position is true, no philosopher will dispute. For example, with reference to the evolution theory, we have Professor Tyndall's admission that it "does not solve the mystery of the universe. At bottom it does nothing more than transport the conception of life's origin to an indefinitely distant past." And as to the development of life from a primordial germ, he adds, "If this were true, it would not be final. The human imagination would infallibly look beyond the germ and inquire into the history of its genesis." In other words, science, with all its powers, finds itself here at fault. It comes up at last to a point, where it is obliged to confess that its discoveries end, where great questions are beyond its range of thought, and are utterly incapable of solution. If at that point therefore we turn to Divine Revelation, we must not expect to find in it the solution of the mystery couched in any terms that are scientific. We may well be content with what we find; and say, in the words of the Psalmist, "How manifold are Thy works! in wisdom hast Thou made them all!" 1

In conclusion, then, let me beg all Doubters to weigh these foregoing Cautions with conscientious care. Let them reflect (1) that some of their difficulties need not yet be a burden to them; inasmuch as they only rest on scientific speculations, which, however plausible, have not at pre

1 Ps. civ. 24.

sent been universally accredited even by scientific men themselves. They can therefore well afford to put them aside and wait. Let them reflect (2) that some of these so-called difficulties are no difficulties at all; being merely a conflict of science with false interpretations of Scripture, and not with Scripture itself. Let them reflect (3) that it was not in the nature or purpose of God's Revelation to make definite communications to the world about science, but only to "make men wise to salvation" through the discovery of Religious Truth. (4) That as there is a certain point at which science itself fails, leaving a mystery in the forces of the universe which are humanly incapable of solution, we have a right to turn to another teacher, and seek their true solution, apart from all science, in the Revelation of God's Holy Word. Hence I would say to the philosopher, "Do not reject your Bible, if it should be found sometimes to fail in a purpose for which it was never really designed. That would be disingenuous and unfair. Seeing that the Bible is a Revelation of God upon points of Divine knowledge which are, of themselves, beyond any full and certain discovery by man, do not examine it as students of science, but as immortal beings turning to a Father's book which has been provided to make His children wise for eternity. Neither use the Bible as a test and touchstone for the truth of science, nor science as an engine of attack against the authority of the Bible. Use them, rather, harmoniously, as the

Relative Use of Scripture and Science.

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representations of two distinct and separate realms in one great empire of truth; and then, by the blessing of God, you will not only find your doubts remove, but faith will rise upward on strong and buoyant wing."

IV.

CAUTIONS FOR CRITICAL DOUBTERS.

I NOW enter upon a field of thought which requires even cooler and more dispassionate investigation than any which has preceded. We have to deal with doubts generated by men who, in the exercise of their critical faculties, challenge the historical accuracy of the Bible, dispute its doctrinal infallibility, accuse it of irreconcileable discrepancies and contradictions, and of all sorts of moral difficulties; in a word-so remorselessly apply the dissecting-knife to its contents, that they practically leave little or nothing of it for our faith to feed upon.

In taking up this part of my work, it must be at once most clearly understood that I am not writing with the purpose of convincing those who have wholly abandoned themselves to this stage of destructive criticism, and whose opinions are, probably, far too advanced to be met by any counter arguments. I still bear in mind, as before, that there is a large class of intelligent thinkers who are puzzled and perplexed in their reading of Holy Scripture, through many of the opinions propounded by this school of critics; and who, while