was dead, sir?" said the cross-examining counsel somewhat sharply. "Well, sir," was the answer, "I do not know that he is dead." "Then why did you say he was dead?" "Well, sir," he said, "I do not exactly know he is dead, but I was at the funeral when they buried him on suspicion."

Neither have I much hesitation in referring to the examples of quack advertisements with which we are all of us familiar. One gentleman writes he "had overcome a severe attack of gripe in thirty-six hours by obeying the scriptural saying Physician, heal thyself!'"

Then comes the case of a lady who, according to her own account, was treated by eminent physicians for hereditary consumption, torpid liver and many other diseases.

She says her life was a ceaseless torture, but ultimately she borrowed another lady's copy of Science and Health two hours each day for eight days and was healed. The first day she read Science and Health she weighed about ninety-five pounds. Three months later she weighed one hundred and thirty-five pounds!

But I have said enough on this so-called Science in which I discover as little Science as Christianity. I only refer to it at all as one, and only one, of the many silly delusions which have grown up from time to time and have demonstrated how infinite is human folly. Joanna Southcott and Mr. Prince had their followers, and judging from what I read lately Mr. Prince has his followers even now. Nor will it do to set down all these things as intentional falsehood and fraud. But some people avail themselves of the folly of others and where intentional fraud exists there is invariably the accompanying desire of sordid gain as its companion.

But more dangerous and more difficult to deal with is the question, when undoubted sincerity introduces the delusion, and the unfortunate patient who describes her pitiable condition as being treated for many diseases for years, may in truth have been really cured by ceasing the profuse swallowing of drugs.

The history of the Christian Church from its earliest beginning contains one long catalogue of heresies, and it is no new thing that great spiritual powers have been selfproclaimed by very many impostors. But the patois of fraud -and I believe I have used here before that phrase-lurks in the sort of patchwork of scriptural language. Poets and saints have alike used figurative phrases as "a death unto sin, and a life unto righteousness." There is no death-what seems so is transition "Longfellow. But no one really misunderstands

what is meant. But what does Mrs. Eddy mean when she uses such a phrase to prove the efficacy of Christian Science to ward off death and sickness?

Do not let us underrate the effect of such teaching as I have been describing, the delusion itself is not its worst effect; see what it leads to even with able and learned men.

I am going to quote what has been said by a learned professor. I feel the respect his learning demands, but to agree with him in matters of revelation is to make our reason the standard and measure of the doctrines revealed to us through apostles, to contend that their doctrines should be such as to carry with them their own justification, to reject them if they come into conflict with our own existing stock of knowledge, and thus to accept a rationalistic spirit in the acknowledgment of faithfor faith is in its very nature the acceptance of what our reason cannot reach simply and absolutely upon testimony.

This is what the professor in question has done. His own mind is the measure of what he thinks God must be, and here is what he says:

"The line of least resistance then as it seems to me both in theology and in philosophy is to accept along with the superhuman consciousness the notion that it is not all-embracing, the notion, in other words, that there is a God, but that He is finite either in power or in knowledge, or in both at once."

Alas! is this the conclusion-the Christian Hope, the Christian Faith. The idea of compromise on such a subject. At all events, I hope that in this Institute we shall not recognise anything but the faith once delivered to the saints.

488TH ORDINARY GENERAL MEETING.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 7TH, 1908.

GENERAL J. G. HALLIDAY IN THE CHAIR.

The Minutes of the previous Meeting were read and confirmed and the election of the following candidates confirmed :

MEMBERS.-E. W. Maunder, F.R.A.S., Superintendent of the Solar Department, Royal Observatory, Greenwich; the Rev. Father John Gerard, S.J., F.L.S., B.A.; H. Charlewood Turner, Esq., M.A. (Camb.), Secretary.

LIFE ASSOCIATE.-A. W. Oke, Esq., B.A., LL.M., F.G.S., F.L.S. ASSOCIATES.-F. Gilbertson, Esq., B.A. (Camb.); J. C. McMurdo Given, Esq., M.D., M.R.C.P.; Mrs. J. E. Hendley; Miss A. M. Hodgkin. The following paper was read by the Author :

:

GENEVA AND CHAMOUNIX HALF A CENTURY AGO AND TO-DAY. (Notes of a Recent Visit.) By Professor EDWARD HULL, LL.D., F.R.S. (Vice-President).

(With lantern views.)

INTRODUCTION.-Visit to Geneva, 1852.-It is about half a century since I first stood on the banks of the Mer de Glace at Chamounix and had a view of Mont Blanc. Early in my college days I had become acquainted with the glories of the Alps, and was fired with ambition to visit Switzerland and its wonderful snowy mountains and glaciers. I had read and studied that charming book, Norway and its Glaciers, by Professor James Forbes, as also the explorations of Agassiz, Charpentier and De Sausseur amongst the Alpine Glaciers as related by Lyell; but it was to Forbes that I was chiefly indebted for what I know of the structure and movement of glacier ice, as it is to his observations conducted on the Mer de Glace of Chamounix through several successive seasons, with the aid of his faithful attendant and guide, Auguste Balmat, that we are acquainted with the laws which regulate the motion of glacier ice; observations which were afterwards repeated by Tyndall.

Therefore, on the first opportunity that presented itself after my appointment to the staff of the Geological Survey of Great

Britain, and having scraped together sufficient funds, which with great self-denial were sufficient to carry me through my journey that I left England for Switzerland. I crossed over to Paris, where I stayed only one night, and next day took the train for Dôle, beyond which the railway did not then extend. Arriving at Dôle by midnight, I left the train and presented myself at the office of the diligence demanding a seat for Geneva. What was my consternation when I was informed that the coach was "full up," as all the seats had been booked beforehand in Paris! I was told that I must wait for the coach next day; but might not that coach be just as full as the one about to start? In this dilemma I appealed to the conductor to get me through somehow, and he agreed for the sum of 20 francs, and at the risk of dismissal if discovered, to make me a den on the coach top amidst the luggage, where I could lie covered over by the tarpaulin, but open in front.

First view of the Alps. To this proposal I had to assent, and in this position I made the journey to Geneva, of about nine or ten hours, as part of the baggage. I need hardly say the position was not quite as comfortable as that of a first-class compartment of a railway train at the present day!

But I was not without a reward which is denied to persons so travelling to-day. After crossing several beautiful hills and valleys of the Jura range, we at length came to a point in the road where all the passengers were allowed to descend and remain for some minutes. It was the summit of ridge from which the road commenced to descend into the great Valley of Geneva. From this point the view commanded the valley and the Lake of Geneva stretching from end to end; beyond which was seen the range of the Alps rising in three successive tiers. First, that of the forests, green with verdure. Above this extended the dark band consisting of naked rock, contrasting with that of the forest below and with that of the snows above; and surmounting this region was that of the snowy Alps, its lower limit clearly marked off as seen from my point of vantage, and rising high into the pure vault of heaven; so pure and ethereal as to give the idea that it was a celestial vision rather than as part of the terrestrial world; and finally, rising from the centre was the white dome of Mont Blanc, the highest point of Europe. This magnificent range of mountain scenery stretched from end to end a distance of over fifty miles.

This first view of the High Alps has remained impressed on my memory ever since, and for the time the discomforts of my journey were forgotten. Needless to say, the view is now

seldom seen by travellers, as the coach has given place to the railway, from which only slight glimpses of the High Alps are to be obtained.

First visit to the Mer de Glace.-Arriving at the beautiful city of Geneva, I did not remain there more than two or three days. My goal was the Mer de Glace and Chamounix, and to that I pushed on by diligence. At that time there was no railway; it is otherwise now, and after a long day's journey I found myself in the little village at the foot of Mont Blanc. Next day I ascended the pine-clad slopes to the châlet of Montanvert, and at length stood on the edge of the great glacier. A wonderful and beauteous sea of ice, fissured by crevasses, and bounded by lofty cliffs terminating often in sharp peaks, and lying at their feet were huge moraines of broken rock and débris fallen from the cliffs above. It was a weird and awful sight, as no living creature was visible from where I stood. But I was not alone. I sat down on a boulder to eat the little store of biscuits and fruit I had brought with me, and presently I was joined by a noble hound-possibly a St. Bernard-who made up to my side in a friendly way, and I returned his civility by sharing with him my lunch. How he came to be there or whence he came I never discovered, but he remained with me for the rest of the day, and having accompanied me down to Chamounix in the evening he then disappeared, doubtless satisfied with having fulfilled his friendly office of guide, companion, and protector.

Second visit to Chamounix and the Mer de Glace, 1908.— Having now finished the narrative of my first visit, I proceed to make some observations on the Mer de Glace of to-day, in order to illustrate the changes which have occurred within the past half century. Chamounix itself has greatly changed. Instead of a hamlet in the upper Rhone valley with, perhaps, two or three hotels, it is now a good sized town with numerous hotels, and shops exhibiting photographs of the scenery around, some of the coloured ones being remarkable examples of high art. A handsome English church raises its spire in the centre of the town, and was well filled by a congregation on the Sunday I was there. Instead of the toilsome climb of about 3,000 feet to Montanvert,* a newly-opened narrow gauge railway, worked by steam locomotives, ascends by a winding

* The "Hôtel d'Angleterre" at Chamounix, at which I stayed, has an elevation of 1,000 mètres (3,280 feet) above the level of the sea, and lies at the base of Mont Blanc, the summit of which is conspicuous from the front of the building.