Page:The church, the schools and evolution.djvu/12

 to study and teach scientific truth, as God has revealed Himself in His works. This is the entire logic of the existence in the world of these two separate institutions, both of which are engaged in the investigation and propagation of truth.

But although the Church and the Schools are entirely separate institutions, and although they are engaged, one in the spread of spiritual truth and the other in the diffusion of scientific truth, yet truth is an eternal unity. This must be so, in the nature of things, for all truth proceeds from and reveals the one and only God Who is its Source and of Whom it is the consistent and perfect expression.

Conflict between these two realms of truth is, therefore, eternally impossible. Men talk of a conflict between science and the Bible, but no such conflict exists. If there is any contradiction, it is not between the statements of Scripture and the facts of science, but between the false interpretations of Scripture and the immature conclusions of science. Herbert Spencer was right when he said:


 * It is incredible that there should be two orders of truth in absolute and everlasting opposition.

Not until God begins to contradict Himself will these two realms of truth ever be in conflict with each other.

The Church and the Schools, then, can never be in conflict until some abnormal condition creeps into the one or the other; for, although working in different realms of truth, each is yet receiving revelations of the one God who can never be in conflict with Himself.

When these two institutions are in normal condition, each will not only not destroy the work of the