realizing in the highest degree the union of mind and heart of which marriage is the type. Then the tie was severed; and for over twenty years he walked alone, sustained by no hope of a re-union in another. world; the sore bereavement embittered by his belief that the noblest soul he had ever known had ceased to be. One shudders instinctively at that atheism which shrouded him in impenetrable gloom, and cut him off forever from the companion who had been the one joy and solace of his life. There are no sadder words in literature than those in which he records his sorrow, for the cloud has no silver lining.

Since then I have sought for such alleviation as my state admitted of, by the mode of life which now enabled me to feel her still near me. I bought a cottage as close as possible to the place where she is buried, and there her daughter (my fellow-sufferer, and now my chief comfort) and I, live constantly during a great portion of the year. My objects in life are solely those which were hers; my pursuits and occupations those in which she shared, or sympathized, and which are indissolubly associated with her. Her memory is to me a religion, and her approbation the standard by which, summing up as it does all worthiness, I endeavor to regulate my life.

In striking contrast with the general sadness of Mr. Mill's life, and of the gloom with which his atheism shrouded the grave, is the record of the Hare family recently published in the charming volume, "Memorials of a Quiet Life." Mr. Mill was a profounder thinker, and possibly a scholar of broader culture, than either Augustus or Julius Hare. But no one can read the two volumes, of whatever creed he be, without feeling that the brothers, with their wives and associates, lived in a larger world, drank at better fountains, were animated by higher aims, and wrought more marked results than the apostle of utilitarianism. Their lives were full of beauty and radiant with joy, and in death they were not divided. His life goes forward in sadness, is filled with disappointment, and ends in impenetrable gloom. No better argument for Christianity can be put into the hands of earnest young men struggling with doubt, than these two volumes. As they turn from the Autobiography of the atheist with whom, as with his father, "life was a poor thing," to the brothers, who walked with God, and made home and earth beautiful by light from heaven, and transformed others by their words and examples into the likeness of Jesus, they will say instinctively as Ruth to Naomi, "Whither thou goest, I will go; where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried."

NEWTON CENTRE, MASS.

HEMAN LINCOLN....

THE BAPTIST QUARTERLY.

SCIENTISTS AND THEOLOGIANS: HOW THEY DISAGREE AND WHY.

Is

I. Nature and Extent of the Disagreement.

S there a necessary conflict between science and Christianity? 2. Is there an actual disagreement between scientists and theologians?

3. What are the causes of this disagreement?

We have propounded the first question not so much for the purpose of answering it as of reviewing the answers given by others, though we shall in the sequel indicate what we consider the proper method of reaching a true conclusion. Probably every man practically settles it very much according to his wish. He does this without any conscious violation of rectitude. Many a discussion, many an argument, has been conducted safely through the intricate turnings and windings of long-drawn dialectical excursions to a prejudged conclusion, while the author all the time persuaded himself that he was earnestly searching for simply and only the truth. To most readers the proposition that there is no necessary conflict between science and Christianity seems self-evident. Nevertheless there are two classes who practically deny it and maintain the affirmative in the discussion of our first question. These are the anti-Christian scientists upon the one hand and those theologians who distrust and disparage science upon the other. The ruling motive with the anti-Christian scientist is to place Christianity upon the same level with the countless other religions, or superstitions as he would

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say, which have been, not so much overturned and destroyed, as out-grown by the world. He therefore either leaps at once, or at least comes by easy and rapid stages, to the conclusion that science is necessarily in conflict with this traditional system or superstition called Christianity, and just in proportion as scientific knowledge increases the world will outgrow it also. Christian theologians upon the other hand may give the same answer respecting the hostility of science, or at least of its present leaders and advocates, to their religion, from precisely opposite motives. Seeing the aggressive spirit of many scientists, and believing that they are the exponents and true representatives of modern science in general, and that their pretentious arrogance threatens the subordination of both philosophy and religion to science, they cry out against it, show up its opposition to religion by overdrawn and exaggerated representations of the views of their supposed enemies, and hope thus to crush it by the ponderous weight of ecclesiastical authority, and consume it by the fierce heat of orthodox indignation. It is difficult to say which makes the graver mistake, and needless to remark that the expectations of both are doomed to disappointment. Anti-Christian science is not the stuff to bend before any kind of authority, though it be clad in prelatical robes and be never so dignified, grave and reverend, or even right reverend, nor to wither up incontinently in the blaze of orthodox wrath; and on the other hand some of the much-vaunted doctrines of scientists, which were to cause Christianity speedily to become obsolete, themselves show signs of decadence and of being outgrown, while our religion is yet tolerably green and vigorous.

Not all scientists, however, nor all theologians, agree that there is a necessary conflict. It is the extremists on both sides that have alike reached that goal, and alike maintain that position. We have seen extremes meet in politics, and the dissolution of the union. desired from precisely opposite motives; shall we have to record the same phenomenon in science and religion? There are those upon both sides who seize every occasion to emphasize the antagonism and precipitate the conflict. It is time that a note of caution were sounded in the ears of both; caution to the anti-Christian scientist, because if it shall ever be narrowed down to the naked question of choosing between the negations of science-negations which leave the spiritual part of man and his higher aspirations all unsatisfied-and the positive doctrines and comforting promises of the Christian faith, the world will ultimately, and without very much delay, embrace the latter; caution to the Christian zealot, because, however sure of ultimate victory he might be if there were necessarily a deadly and

irrepressible conflict, much mischief may be done and many noble souls may be lost by creating the impression that there is such a conflict when there is none. Many a young man to-day, if fairly convinced that religion and science are radically opposed and that he must choose between them, would most conscientiously fling his religion to the winds and hold on to science. And the more show of authority and opposition arrayed against him the closer would he cling to the object of his choice, till, if confronted with the last perilous alternative, he would emulate the early Christians in the fortitude with which he would suffer martyrdom for his faith. That clergyman or Christian teacher who creates an impression of a necessary antagonism which does not exist, whether by loose insinuations against science in general, or by ill-advised and untimely denunciation of particular scientific doctrines, does incalculable mischief. If it be not enough that he thus plunges many a soul into a sea of doubts, and sweeps out hopelessly to seaward many who are already struggling there and need only a helping hand to enable them to reach the shore, it may make him pause if he will but reflect that he is chiming in with the skeptical scientist who emphasizes the same antagonism in the hope of destroying Christianity. Each believes that there is a conflict and each desires to precipitate it, the one in order that he may see the hoary edifice of the church-a shelter for endless corruptions and delusions, a very den of thieves, as he thinks -battered down and demolished, the other that he may newly embellish that venerable structure with fresh spoils from the infidel camp. If such a conflict could be joined the ultimate issue might not be doubtful, but the temporary mischief in the alienation of those earnest men in all lands who cannot close their eyes to some of the truths of modern science, would rest with crushing weight upon those who precipitated it.

Happily such a conflict is not necessary; at least we are so assured by two other large and intelligent classes who, without any hesitation, answer our first question in the negative. These are the scientists who have faith in Christianity and the theologians who have faith in science. They with one voice declare that there can be no radical discrepancy between the two records, that of nature and that of revelation; that however much the interpreters of these records may for the time being disagree, they must in the end "see eye to eye,' must in the last analysis find the same truths, or at least related systems of truths, and harmonious though opposite phases of the same truth, in the two books of the Great Author.

How have they arrived at this conclusion? We do not claim for

them complete freedom from predisposing influences and underlying motives, unconsciously leading them to deny what the former classes are in like manner led to affirm. On the contrary our first remark that every man answers this question very much according to his wish, applies equally to them. We can, moreover, trace their motives with as much clearness and precision as those of the skeptic and the distrustful theological extremist. The Christian scientist is predisposed to take the most cheerful view of science in its bearings upon religion. Being devoted to his chosen line of inquiry, he of course desires to commend it to others, and to secure for it the confidence and esteem of the Christian world. The theologian who has confidence in science is naturally disposed to smooth down the discrepancies between it and Christianity, in order that he may the more effectually commend the latter to the favorable notice of scientists. So far then as predisposing influences and underlying motives are concerned, they who answer our first question in the negative are no more to be trusted than they who answer it in the affirmative. There is this reason, however, for greater confidence in them, that they are not the special and exclusive advocates of either interest, but have at heart the welfare of both, and are by so much the more likely to take a judicial rather than a partisan view of the situation. Respecting the claims of their opinion to be accepted as the final verdict of mankind, we may therefore rationally regard it as more trustworthy than the former. But respecting its practical value as a weapon against skepticism or against the tendency to distrust and disparage science, there is little to be said in its favor; upon this point, however, we shall have something more to say after considering how many, or what proportion of scientists and theologians agree that there is no necessary conflict between science and Christianity.

We shall find it convenient, preliminary to this inquiry, to divide both scientists and theologians into three classes.

1. A small number of atheistic and a considerable number of skeptical scientists, who openly declare that there is a radical disagreement so great that it can never be reconciled, and that just by so much as science increases the Christian religion must decrease.

2. A large number of scientists earnestly engaged in their work and with singleness of purpose devoted to it, who have, some a very remote and vague, others a tolerably distinct impression that science is hostile to Christianity, but who are silent respecting their doubts, or bury them in the fresh and constantly renewed activity of their investigations.

3. A considerable number of scientists, constantly reënforced by