The Dallas weekly herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1885, 1881-04-21
RELIGION AND SCIENCE.

principle by Wnicn cohiescehso oo'"oon
known scientific truths and religious doc
trines may be effected, is an undertaking
which has intensely interested and employed
some of the highest orders of intellect from
the very dawn of history down to the present
time. The age of faith, the age OF doubt
the age of hypocricy and the
age of reason as invariably
follow each other, as do the periods OF
infancy, childhood, manhood and full matu-
rity in tie individual. And in each there Is
such tendency, to be so arbi rary in the
assertion of its claims and the accuracy of its
dogmss, that in the conflict truth appears to
be ground out of sight, between the upper
and neither stones. The jealous religion'st
at times has deemed it right and expedient to
crush out of admission some of the plainest
data that were ever demonstrated, as witness
alone the treatment of Copernicus, Bruno
and Calico, who maintained respectively
the rotundity of the earth, the heliocentrie
theory, and the plurality of worlds. On the
other hand, the colder scientist with harsh
aggressveness has lent himself
TO attempt to suppress the religious senti.
ment by showing the irreconcilability with
his truths. Instead of entering upon the
argument under the nobler and better con-
tnectionthat the other had something worthy
to be investigated and understood, and
that very possibly under their seeming an
tagonism there might be hidden an entire
agreement and that both have their respec-
tive bases in the reality of things, so that
after all there might be harmonizing COM
bination, they. have each proceeded upon
the assumption that the one was divine and
the other diabolical. When each should
have been only too willing in true humility
and gladness of heart to accept truth from
any source, they have stood rebelliously
aloof in self-sufficient, seclusive arrogancy,
with the repellant force of the positive and
negative poles of battery. A finite being
cannot comprehend infnity whether this
be of time, space, or matter; so neither can
his limited mind be expected to grasp the
absolute. There is RELATIVELY to all our
knowledge from which shere is no possible
escape. But there is consciousness OF an
acuality behind it all, behind all appearan-
ces, that is part and parcel, warp and wool
of our very organization. Our magniied
imsge in the mirror, the bent stick in the
water, the refracted rays from the star, the
din and variation of the needle, the mirage de-
ception in the distance, are all evidences of the
imperfec,ions of our assumed kno Wedge, the
futility of our calculations and the uselessness
of these until the parallsx or the proper.
corrections have been made. And when
made, 10 we have the reconciliation of what
appeared to be fl at contradiction. The old
fable of the different colored shield is a
familiar case in point. The fact is there
was fundamental verify somewhere. Just
so in all religious and scientific matters
There may be, and in the vast majority OF
cases, there is, nucleus of reality from
which wrong process. of thought has drifted
to illogical conclusions. The old sayings
that there must..be some fire where there is so
much smoke, some truth where there is so
mu ch rumor, are illustrative of those inhe-
rent principles in humanity which begun with
Adam and will die out with only the las
man. And thus it is with human be-
liefs. They. have. their germ through some
rolatiyity TO fact, Just ss the segment OF a
c ircle bears relation to the entire sphericity.
They may be but nero adumbrations OF a
truth, the mere fringe of an idea, the mere
protective envelopes, SO TO speak, the scat
folding of coming structure, by which
due CONGRATULATIONS may evolve into the full
sunlight of recognition, as cardinal and nee
essary actually, and not an accidental part In
the constituted order of things. Consider
ing that we are all the descendants OF an
erring past, tina. .,coffed as folly what we
admire as truth to-day, and vice versa; and
that, too, we are parents of the future, and
our Thoughts ere as children born
TO us. subject TO notifications
and adsptability in the balancing conditions OF
the conservative and the progressive, which
are, perhaps, the evolving modes of mani
festations of the Great Unknowable, we
ought in all humility allow the widest lati-
tude 10 the thought of the possible out OF
what seems with our limited light the i'm
possible. Our faiths are not adventurous,
they are structural. II is no! by preju Iced
proceeding, partial views, bat the reverse
that the thread spun 10 darkness may con-
duct US safely into the household Of some
universal law which rsdiAies light we never
saw before.
In the midst of this darkness In
which we grope, there is one question which
hAs not only puzzled the man of science
but has given much concern 10 the believing
christian, and that is the actuAlity Of Chrisrs
dual nsture, 9 conjunction of divinity and
hunsnity simultaneously, God AID man.
We do not propose in this article TO enter
upon its discussion. The sbler powers Of an
eloquent, learned and esteemed divine will
uutsrtsks that in this city this evening. We
hsvs but sought in. the foregoing remarks to
lay The groundwork, the reason why be