The herald., 1896-06-28
A BISHOP AMONG THE PROPHETS
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Professor Huxley's death extinguish-

Professor Huxley's death extinguish-
ed a vast amount of clerical envy, of
which he, living, had been the object,
and the hearty tributes paid his memory
in many a pulpit and religious paper
last July showed what distance had
been travelled since his famous set-to
with Bishop Wilberforce. But another
bishop spoke at Leeds the other day in
favor of the Huxley memorial fund, and
his words are almost of themselves q
memorial to Huxley. 1t was DR.. Boyd
Carpenter, bishop of Ripon, and his ad-
dress before the Leeds meeting betrayed
the frankest acceptance of the spirit in
which Huxley Iabored and the ends for
which he strove. DR.. Carpenter did not
content himself with praising Huxley 8
energy, his unflagging application, his
powers of lucid exposition, and all that,
but went to the core of the matter in
saying, II am here as friend of knowl-
edge, to do honor to one who enlarged
it's borders" To have done this was,
in the bishops opinion. to have added
to the comforts, the joys, and the assur-
ances of life" Nor did he leave room
for the suspicion of the usual mental
reservations. 1t was an essential part or
manhood "to follow truth wherever 1t
leads us. Religious truth, in one sense,
must always wait on scientific truth,
and religious truth must often change
lis lOTIl dL tuc OluQli5 anu Oii eAiS AiA
formation of scientific truth"
How simple the reconciliation of SCI
ence and religion" at which so many
have toiled painfully and In vain, ap-
pears on those terms! All you have to
do is to treat adjacent and mutually in
fluencing truths in those provinces just
as you would in any other-that is to
say, give full credit to each so far as the
evidence for each warrants. and then ad-
just or harmonize the two, or make one
give way before the other, as the laws
of thought compel you. If we could be-
lieve that Bishop Carpenter in praising
Huxley spoke for Christendonn, or even
for the Church of England as authorita-
lively as Bishop Wilberforce did in bait
ing him, we should think that a great
many chairs and lectureships in theo-
logical semfnaries ION the relations of
religion and science" would at once ap-
pear even more useless than they now
do. At any rate the Bishop of Ripon's
position Is the only one that can be sue
cessfully maintained; it is the only one
from which the reconcilers have not al
ready been driven.
We all know the successive stages
through which the controversy has gone.
The first one was marked by an air of
confident superiority on the part of the
ology toward rising science, then indig-
nant, then severely matchmaking. Dr.
I1OIIIleS, Ill Ills lllt OI I<lIlcTSOI, QeSCTlDGS
the conservative theologians of the day
as standing about the young lecturer,
like SO many puzzled pointer dogs, un-
certain what the strange game might be
they had flushed. Something like that
was the ecclesiastical attitude forty
years ago toward evolution. Nothing
quite so absurd had ever been heard Of
Darwin was rare jester. What, he
was in earnest? Had worked seventeen
years before writing a line? Well, we'll.
it was time the church spoke out about
this science falsely so-called. Whatever
vain imaginings these innovators might
bring forth, theology had more sure
word of prophecy If science was dan
gerous and wicked instead of being, as
we supposed, merely laughable it was
time to warn our students against it.
But this stage could not and did not
last very long. Theological students had
q way then, as they have now, of per-
versely reading the very books their pro-
fessors put on the Index for them. So
there soon came In a new fashion-one
which must still be called the reigning
fashion. 1t is to be- generously toleran;
of science. but to insist that 1t Keep te
its own sphere. Science was all very
well in its place. but, like Mr.. Brooke
and his pamphlets in Middlemarch. il
would never do to go too far in ths
sort OF thing; you must see your danger
sliihS e,.iu pun UP. mere came
the famous illustration which still lives
TO comfort many troubled hearts-the
Illustration of the parallel tracks. y
There was the scientific train coming or
under full steam, apparently bound &c
collide with the religious train going the
other way, but 10! just as the crash was
imminent you found they were on par
aliel tracks and could not touch each
other VOLTA tout!
This parallel-track theory of religion
and science has flourished long. but a
great deal has had to be spent on it fo,
repairs. Somehow a large number o1
switches have been surreptitionsly bull
between the two tracks, and collisions
have occurred in spite of the utmos,
care. Car loads of Assyrian cylinders
and Egyptian Inscriptions have gone
smashing into the Plenary Inspiration
caboose; geological excursion train.
have recklessly jumped their own rail:
and telescoped the Mosaic cosmogony
special passing on the other track; thu
higher critics have unexpectedl,
thrown a switch and at the same timt
thrown train load of dignified theolo
gians into a miscellaneous and strug
Cling heap of historians, philologists
and antiquarians. The parallel tracks
have come to be, in fact, strewn with 81
many wrecks, and the expense and diff