Page:Science the handmaid of religion.djvu/11

Rh Lord Jesus Christ, to whom the Holy Scriptures testify, and whom the Church worships and obeys. The end of religion is therefore the knowledge of God. Testifying its presence by beneficent acts, and by deeds of righteousness and love, its hidden spring is a fact of self-consciousness, the realising the existence and the majesty of God. Religion is knowledge; a knowledge operative, energetic, fruitful in activity, but nevertheless knowledge, a sense of certitude respecting God, and His relations to mankind.

It is undoubtedly true that under the name of religion and theology, a vast amount of useless verbiage has found its way into the world. No doubt, both Catholic and Puritan teachers have talked and written a great deal of nonsense; but when we look at Christian theology as a whole, we cannot but be impressed with its sublime wisdom, and its surpassing eloquence. We may appreciate it the more if we conceive it to have been lost.

Let us imagine the world to be deprived of the whole range of theological teaching, from Moses to, shall we say, Charles Kingsley, Rector of Eversley. We cannot but admit that in this case the human race would have been something altogether different from what it is now. In all probability that increase of knowledge in physical science, which the last three centuries have witnessed, was only rendered possible by the