The daily Green Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1861-1865, 1863-09-15
From Evangelical Christendom.
Science and Skeptlclsm.

!
" 1t has come to be generally conceded among
discerning men, that the great battles of Chris
tlanity henceforth are to be fought VITA the
various forms of unbelief generated by scien-
tihc inquiry. And it has come to be boldly,
and even boasttully declared that the positive
claims of Christianity so far at least as they
are founded upon the infa!libiity of Scripture,
must now assuredIy succumb under the last
great assault, slowly but steadily, as with the
tread OF destiny, preparing against them. We
can even hear, now and then, the hurrab, the
shout, the 10 traumphe as if the victory were
already in sight"
That these words are true, no man of ad-
equate information will call in question. Yet
how strange, startling and melancholy, the
thoughts which they at first suggest Have
the heavens and the EARTH then. ceased to bear
testimony for the Christians God? In one of
the most solemn and sublime passages of Holy
Writ, the Almighty is represented as shilling
the tempest of doubt and anguish which had
rent the soul Of His servant Job, by answer
ing him from the whrlwind, and bidding him
consider His wonderful works : Where vast
thou when laid the foundations Of the earth
Declare, if thou hast understanding: Who
hath laid the measures thereof, if thou know
est? or who hath stretched the line upon it
Whereupon are the foundations thereof fas.
tened? or who laid the cornerstone thereof?
When the morning stars sang together, and all
the sons Of God shouted for joy?' At this
unfolding of the glories of creation, Job bowed
his head in submission and IN faith. The
Divine sermon from creation was sufficient,
and every doubt and difficulty of the patriarch
vanished. To the monarch-minstrel of Ju-
dab the teaching Of Gods works was as clear
and conclusive as to Job. The heavens,
said King David, declare the glory of God,
and the ornament showeth his Eandiwork.
Day unto d9y uttereth speech, and night unto
night showeth knowledge Until these last
times, no doubt was entertained on the point
The Christian father has walked with his chill
dren in the fields at morning Or at evening,
confident that from every natural object which
he saw whether stone or flower, or star or
living creature, he could preach to them the
gospel; and when he offered his sons counsel
from the most priced and sacred treasures of
his wisdom, he gave them no more earnest al
vice than to search into the wonderful works
of God.
And now infdelity boasts that the earth
has turned against the Bible, and that science
must overthrow Christianity
1t might be we'll for these boosters over the
Bible to remember its quiet but weighty words,
that "pride goeth before destruction, and
naughty spirit before fall" A few years
ago, the Autocrat Of Russia, when foiled by
well-app(ied courage in his attempt to subject
his neghbor to his despotism, declared that
the Russian winter-or; as he said, General
j anuary-would win for him the victory.
The time came for the fulfment of his
naughty prophecy but it was Nicholas him
self that was struck by the wintry cold into
the silent rigor of death. General January
had turned traitor. We entertain the conf
dent hope that the science on which inhdels
rest their expectations Of overturning Chris
tianity will turn traitor to those who seek
thus to use t-that its testimony will, in the
long run, be found to support the Blble--and
that only upon those VIII" nave att"rNp.cI %
set Gods works against His Word will defeat
and confusion be heaped.
We shall state, as briefly ross.oie, Two
of the grounds on which we base this convic-
ton.
In the first place, the rea center and eta
del Of Christian evidence cannot, under any
circumstances, be affected by the conclusions
Of science except in an indirect and secondary
manner 1t is wholly impossible that any
discovery made in the crust of the earth can
affect either the testimony Of our Lords dis