The true northerner., 1877-08-17
RELIGION VS.. SCIENCE.
Unbelief, and How to Meet 1.-THE Discus
sions I'm the Pan-Presbyterian Council.
Cl,ioa Tribune

Unbelief and How to Meet It-The Discus
sions I'm the Pan-Presbyterian Council.
[From the Chicago Tribune.l
Moncure ID. Conway sends 10 the Gin
cinnati Commercial the results of his
observations at the Pan-Presbyterian
Council. 1t strikes him as sad fact
that the London disbelievers remain un-
moved while the Calyanistic sheet-light-
ming is playing 80 dreadfully about their
devoted heads. Huxley is unaware
that he has been used up by McCosh,
and Herbert Spencer that the work of
his life has been laid in ruins by Patton,
OF Chicago" The field-day of the coun-
Gil, according to Conway, was certain
Monday, when the question mp for dis
cussion was: 1.-THE Nature of Unbelief,
and How TO Meet It." The chief paper
was read by DIR. Francis l.. Patton, of
Chicago-the old-time antagonist of
Prof. Swing. He set out with the prop
osition that the generic cause of unbelief
is depraved nature, which in the first
place makes q man undesirous of hearing
the gospel, and in the next place disin-
clined to accept il. Mr. Conway says:
"It is simply monstrous for an able and
| learned divine TO think of building on
such a fiction as that" but Mr.. Conways
opinion, perhaps, is no better than an
other mans. At the same session DIR.
McCosh read paper, "Cut Off at an
Advanced Age 10y the. Call of Time, " in
which he seemed to regard The interplay
of scientific discussion as q war of Kill
kenny cats, one theory destroying an
other; but still he recognized the steady
advance Of nti-supernaturalistic thought
in all countries, and his proposition for
meeting it practically was to train a body
of apologists, other than the clergy, as
defenders of the faith. Another speaker
was DIR. De Pressense, who, in felicitous
French, declared that infdelity had
chiefly arisen from the church welding
power over or in the state-thus assum-
ing position similar to that of our own
Joseph Cook. A less hopeful view was
that of DR.. Thomas Smith, of Edin-
burgh, who said that infdelity was much
more due to literature than science, even
history being now written in an infidel
spirit; and he thought that the popular
form of it is secularism. DR.. Flint,
Professor of Theology in the University
of Edinburgh, lamented that Europe
was so ill-supplied with Christian schol-
ars qualified to meet the scientists on
their own ground and put them to rout.
The Presbyterian divines at Edin-
burgh, it will be observed, were far
from being of one mind they could not
agree either upon the causes OF unbelief
or upon the remedy for it. While the
defenders of the faith are in this unset
tied condition, it would be pre-
sumptuous for any mere layman
to attempt the answering of these
mighty questions, nor would 1t
be wise to Judge the merits
of the discussion from the report of Mr..
Conway, which, though it is two col
umns in length, is so colored by the
prejudices of the writer as to be compar-
atively valueless. But there is one idea
which stands out prominently in all the
discussion, and that is that the Chris
tian church is suffering for the want of
teachers trained in the rudiments of
modern science. Some of the speakers
at Edinburgh confessed this openly, and
others proved it by the unscientifc
methods of their arguments. There is a
vast difference, according to the modern
use of language, between clergyman
scientifically trained and one trained in
| the sciences. A large body of theolo-
gians hold that theology itself is sci
ence, and consequently that every young
man who has received thorough train
ing in the Presbyterian theology is SCI
entifcally trained. 1t makes no differ
ence whether he knows an echinoderm
from protozoan, or chunk of old red
sandstone from Connecticut valley
bird -track-if his faith is firmly anchored
IN the doctrines of the church he is con.
sidered competent to pass upon all sci.
entifc questions. The discussion al
Edinburgh is valuable, therefore, since
it shows a departure from this old theory
of theological education.