Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 31.djvu/185

Rh patience and care which are necessary in dealing with an abstract subject, and one which touches men's inmost susceptibilities. This patience is required alike from those who are irritated by the old usurpations of theology, and would not be sorry if it could be banished altogether, and from those who esteem theology as the venerable mother and head of the sciences, and fear lest her majesty should be disparaged by too unabashed a gaze.

Secondly, it is neither honest nor politic to hide the real state of things. The questions which it suggests are felt not only by theologians, but by many thoughtful ministers and laymen; and we need not doubt that they are honestly met and solved in many cases. But the impression on the mind of the laity is that a hard system of dogmas which they have identified with "the gospel" exists unmodified in the mind of the clergy, and that theologians are quite unaware of the change which modern conditions have imposed upon religious thought. For instance, Professor Huxley, some years ago, when asked to give an address to the London clergy, proved in an elaborate exposition that the world was more than six thousand years old. Probably there was hardly one of his hearers, even at that time, who needed to be convinced of it. But theologians must feel that it is not mere personal and esoteric conviction, but a frank acknowledgment of the conditions of things, which is needed for the vindication of the dignity of their science and of their own intelligence and veracity.

Thirdly, it is not to be supposed, as sometimes happens, that those who subject an institution to such an ordeal are detracting from it. Criticism is not necessarily negative. More than thirty years ago Prince Albert said that constitutional government was on its trial, at a time when it hardly existed in any great European country but England. The trial it underwent was so successful that it is now recognized, more or less, as the form of government in all Europe, except Russia and Turkey. Criticism, moreover, even where barely negative, is often the means of purging away the dross and making the metal appear in its purity. Theology at the Christian era and at the Reformation underwent such a purification, and stood forth afterward far stronger and more fit for the purposes of piety. We must get down, at whatever expense, to the solid rock, and then we can safely build; but the tower we build will be nobler and more useful, because it stands firm. We need have no fear as to the future of theology and of the religious life which is founded upon it.

I.—1. To begin with the conditions imposed by the physical sciences. The immense advance which has been made in this department, alike in the way of discovery, of diffusion, and of application, is the most marked intellectual feature of our epoch. But physical science can not advance a step without the assumption of the uniformity of Nature. This uniformity is tested at every stage and never fails. The idea that it can fail becomes almost inconceivable. When the