The herald and mail. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1873-188?, 1876-02-11
THE FUTURE OF CHkisTriANI;TiY.
Some Strieturies Upon the Course OF ScE-
enfiSts With Regard to Religion
and the Bible.

Some Strieturies Upon The Course or Sci
entists With Regard to Religion
Y and the Bible.
There never was a time when the ne
cessity for bringing home to the mind
the sacred associations of the Christmas
seas3h Was gtgatat than il is now. Men
of unquestiOnable learning and ability
arr everywhere striving to destroy the
foundations Of the christian religion.
They insist tliat God can not and does
not exist, but that the uniS efse Is gov
erned by some unknown laws, which are
the result of spontaneous evolution.
/ First came atoms, and then the atoms
ii-stIttied shape, and then the shape be-
gan to turn round the SUM- and then a
germ with life appeared upon it, and the
germ gradually became man. The same
! process is always being continued in
other planets. Worlds come into exis-
tence, live out their days, and then per-
| ish, with all the countless myriads of
generations which pass to and fro upon
! theih and this vsst tragedy goes on
without design Or plan, without even a
| designer. There is Il 'law," but who
made the law, or how came it into exis-
tenee; the philosophers acknowledge that
they can not even conjecture. sbine Of
! them will go so far as to admit that
| there must be "first cause" but they
regard it as a mere philosophical abstrac-
| tion, inconceivable to the finite sense,
and inexplicable i'll all the operations
which can be traced to it. But the
belief in a wise and ,benefcent God; or
in eteriial wisdom ruling all things at
cording to its own immutable DEGREES, or
in any dealings of the creator with man.
or in life hereafter-all this Is sum-
mariIy rejected by the philosophers. 1t
almost seems at times as though the
present aim of science was not 50 much
! to enlarge its own boundaries and fields
! of knowledge, as TO convince the world
that christianity is an imposture and
| that its f0uh1ef was merely an amiable
enthusiast.
To protest against this warfare of
science upon religion would be worse
! than uae1ess, fi,r the leaders of the new
scientific school are not disposed to listen
to any remonstrance. They will give
no quarter TO christianity. 1t is an old
'yivhs' fable, and those who believe i'll 1t
barely surrender their reason to super
stition, or are creatures destitute OF
reason. This is the tenor, often the very
language, of modern science. one Is
inclined sometimes to wonder that
philosopher, who is obliged to announce
at frequent intervals that some fresh
"discovery" compels him to make
very complete change in his "views
concerning his new creed, or no-creed-
that stitch q man should be presumptuous
enough to declare that he, at length, has
! totnd out what God is, and that it is
nothing more than fetch of mans own
imagining. There is nothing fixed OF
permanent in modern science. When
| Eozoon was lately found in the Lauren
tian rocks, the accepted theories as to
! the age of life on this planet were over
| turned. Geology itself is but in its in
! fancy. That quarter of the world in
which philology gives lis good reason for
! believin. that man made his first ap-
pearance is still totally unexplOred.
| biologists have but scratched the sur
face of very limited section of the
! earth. Astronomy, also, has Just began
! to tell its story. 1t may almost be said
| that every time Il good astronomer looks
at the heavens through telescope, he
! observes something which mOdities the
conclusions or discoveries of his predetes-
sofs. Science is not positive, although
it's professors are. There is nothing III
our day which can be compared with
Newton's discovery of the law of gravl-
tation. He brought to our knowledge
one of the supreme laws of the universe;
and vet Newtoh was christian, and
what he detected in the great ocean OF
truth" only led him to believe more
| firmly than ever in the God of revela-
! ton. We have lost in our day two
great christian philosophers-Faraday
| and Agassiz-and that loss rs one which
| it would be difficult to Overestimate.
| The weight of their names was per
petual check to the assumptions OF the
new school which now rushes forward
| once week to announce to bewlldered
world that there is no God. They are
satisfied that all the universe sprung
| from a single germ, but how the germ
was made, or why they can not make
one like it, are questions left unanswered.
In all essential respects, the religion OF
the germ is much harder 10 reconcile with
reason than the religion of Christ. Mat
thew Arnold insists that we shall not be-
| lieve in anything which we can not un-
stand. Can anyone, then, understand
| his mystical revelation concerning the
unknown "essence," which he labor
ouslv manufactures into n deity? 1t
surely is no harder to believe that AL
mighty God made the universe than
that this wondrous and glorious system
is the result of the spontaneous evolution
of matter. There must be beginning
to everything, even to law and germs, to
matter and essences. What was the be-
| ginning? The philosophers reject what
they call the incredible teaching of the
| Bible for something tenfold more i'll
| credible. Man dashes himself in vain
aoainst the adamantine barriers which
| lie between him and the solution of the
| mystery. If the scriptures warn us that
we never pass beyond them, science can
at least carry us no further. The one
gives us ample ground for hope and con-
| ISOLATION. and scope for the exercise of
the Ioftiest faculties. The other bids us
look backward into chaos, and forward
into nOthingness.
IF the teachers of christianity were al
wavs as earnest and as thor ugh in their
work as the preachers Of the germ theory,
and other equally remarkable deitles OF
purely human invention, the latter could
not make the progress which they now
seem TO be doing. For their pretensIons
will not bear investigation, and thelI
coniectures are far more irreconcil5ble
with the natural instincts and prompt
ines ofthe mind-which the philosopher;
nrofess to reverence 50 much-than the
| DelIeT IudU tU6It NIOi WIZ luiCo bAAS
( world. and that il Is ruled with infinite
wisdom, although in a manner quite in.
COMPREHENSIVE 10 u.s. We do not know
the true meaning of anything we sec
around us, or in any of the ordinary con
ditions of life. To our apPrehensions
death is the greatest evil, and yet it i,
by no means certain that it is an evil al
all. The general testimony of physicians
: is that the vast majority of people meet
| it with a tortitude which they never an
| ticipated they could summon up. TC
the bcreaved survivors, death is indeed
/ an evil, an evil hard to be borne. But
, at such times the departed should alsC
r be remembered. What have they lost
/ They are gone, and we must quickly
= follow For either grief or JOY, fo
: either pleasure or pain, our aay Is short
lis ii the survivor or the departed wh'