precise than that which is required for an occurrence of normal kind.

Only those who misunderstand the reign of law or ignore it can hold an abnormal event to be more sacred than a normal one. On the other hand those who have attained to this scientific clearness of vision, and who can see as a simple and obvious truth that in abnormality there is nothing of itself that is sacred, that the normal is just as sacred as the abnormal, must not, because it is obvious to them, despise or condemn those who in the pre-scientific ages did attribute some sort of sacredness to abnormality.

There are still those, and possibly they are still a majority amongst professed Christians, who would think it derogatory to the person whom they worship as wholly God as well as wholly man, to be a man in the fashion of His birth as well as in the fashion of His death. Let us honour them for their sincerity of heart and for their reverential souls even when we deem their sincerity and their reverence to be founded in this respect on no adequate basis. If we find ourselves in the cause of what we consider truth unable to share all their beliefs, let it be ours to see that we neither plume ourselves on any superiority of discernment, nor fall behind them in the devotion with which inwardly and outwardly we follow the Master.

Our minds are not all constituted alike; it is impossible for us all to see truth in the same aspect. But we can all follow truth as it is discoverable by us, and we can all pray for a clearer revelation of it. To our own Master we stand or fall. There are idols of the temple as well as the idols of the cave, and of the tribe, and of the market-place. It has been largely the part of scientific investigation to show us how well-meaning piety has not always held a clear distinction between idol and emblem, between the symbol and the thing symbolized; and "Nehushtan" has had to be the verdict pronounced, and still will have to be pronounced, over some of the survivals before which men, thinking to worship God, have offered incense, and bowed themselves down.

It is for this cause that as our convictions deepen and strengthen we must be the more ready to preserve open minds. towards the convictions of others, to hold judgment in reverential suspense even toward some things which large bodies of devout men have regarded-perhaps for centuriesas closed questions. Revelation has not stood still, nor will it in our time. We stand not on the limited territory

where our forefathers stood: we have a larger heritage, we look out upon a larger landscape, there are before us greater heights to be climbed. Why should we feel anything but hope and courage in the larger vision? We are no longer children, and must look to outgrowing many of the thoughts and even of the beliefs which were accepted as final in the childhood of the

race.

It is well known that one of the first-fruits of the invention of the telescope was the discovery of the spots on the sun. History records that the discovery was denounced as impious; and the doctrine that there are sunspots was banned as heretical. It is narrated, and the narrative is of significance to-day, how an ecclesiastic being invited to examine for himself and to see whether there were not spots on the sun, refused even to put his eye to the telescope for fear that he should see the spots which the astronomers asserted to be there, and so discredit should be brought on the reputation of Saint Thomas Aquinas.

That same spirit which first denounces the results of investigation, and then refuses even to look whether they exist, is by no means extinct, as the recent correspondence on Faith and Reason in the columns of the Standard has shown. To fear that which one does not understand may be natural; but to refuse to try to understand is a defect of character worse than cowardice. Those who pin their religious faith to an outward authority have had many shocks of late, and may need more for their soul's health. The spirit of inquiry cannot be stemmed by an appeal to the fourth century or to the sixth. If men ask us to accept as final the decisions of the Council of Nicea, we are bound to inquire whether that body had before it all materials needful for a final judgment, whether history has shown its composition to be representative and unbiased, its deliberations to be conducted in the scientific spirit of calm inquiry, its decisions to be taken without heat or partisanship. Nay, even if in all these respects it had been perfect-and alas! in some of them it was a miserable failure-the question would still remain why any thinking person in the twentieth century should be bound by the thoughts of the fourth. The fact is we are not bound by the decisions of the Council of Nicea. It has closed no question which we are not at liberty to reopen. Except to those who are in bondage to ecclesiastical systems, there are no closed questions that a reverent mind may not beneficially reconsider. We have as much right to reconsider the problems of religion in the light of our own age and of its

special revelations, as the men of any former age by the light of theirs. There is an open door before us, which no man, and no body of men, alive or dead, can shut. We cannot be denied the right to look through the telescope lest we should see spots on the sun. When, forty years ago, Bishop Colenso drew general attention to that which devout scholars had already several times observed, the "stratification" now so evident in the books of the Pentateuch, he was hounded out of the communion of the Orthodox. Even now there are pious souls who refuse to read his scholarly works-lest they should see spots on the sun! We are to a lesser extent witnessing a like attitude assumed toward those who in our day are pointing to the undeniable evidences of stratification in the composition of our Gospels. It is not a question of science but one of scholarship. Scholarship is now in possession of the records of ancient Babylon and ancient Egypt, which antedate our Bibles and which were not known until recently. Already these have been sufficiently deciphered to throw much light upon the stratification previously observed, and have vindicated the earlier perceptions of the scholars.

All the more reason have we, who can from a lower plane appreciate the labours and conscientious care of a scholarship that is itself far beyond us, to keep that open mind which the study of science continually reminds us to be essential in all true progress. Depth of faith for some of us is measured not by the quantity of pious beliefs which we can accept, but by the simplicity of those which we find needful for guidance and conduct. A man's religious life consisteth not in the abundance of the beliefs which he professes. Credulity is not faith. Even in spiritual things there is a sacred renunciation of the self, which enables one to lay aside many hindering things that are but old garments inherited from our forefathers. When we observe the greatest source of hindrance to all united work for the spiritual betterment of mankind, to have been those endless theological controversies which have embittered and estranged the earnest and the devout, and have been ever followed by persecution and spiritual cruelty, shall we not at least declare that in the name of the Master whose we are and whom we serve, we will have nothing to do with them or with the un-Christ-like spirit that characterises them. We need to have faith enough to believe that suspense of judgment is often a more sacred duty than acceptance of any particular dogma. For our age one of the greatest blessings that could befal us would be to possess that reverential open mind which

rises above all bigotries, scientific as well as religious. For while we need knowledge and insight, just as much do we need reverence reverence for the truth because it is true, wherever we find it. If in the sole pursuit of truth we find ourselves called upon as a sacred duty to renounce some things hallowed by usage and pious association, that renunciation must be itself no hasty act, no passing impulse, no wilful breaking away. It must be under the supreme conviction that it is required of our hands. Return to the simple faith long overlaid by tradition and sacramentalism may not be easy, but it may be none the less a duty laid upon us. The renunciation with which for most of us the restatement of religion necessarily begins, must be a renunciation not for renunciation's sake, not born of spiritual pride, no truckling to popular pressure, no weak compromise for the sake of intellectual peace. It must be a renunciation made in obedience solely to the dictates of truth, a renunciation ad majorem Dei gloriam.

DISCUSSION.

Dr. WALTER KIDD.-I have been asked to move a vote of thanks to Professor Silvanus Thompson, thanking him for his kindness in coming this afternoon and putting before us this valuable address; we recognise the value of the source from which it comes, from one who is well known for his Christian character. You will see how valuable it is for us to have this address presented to us from such a source. We have all been brought into a high plane of thought, into spiritual regions, and into regions of high science, and we have heard an address which is marked by extreme clearness of thought and loyalty to truth on both sides; and I could only wish that our President had been able to be present to the end of this address, that he might have expressed the value of evidence as it has been presented to us ;—it is a question of evidence, all through, and the task remaining for us is simply to interpret the evidence. We shall all be set thinking on these lines and be prepared to learn much more. We may be startled to find we have to learn so much. Years ago we thought we knew a great deal more than we do now,

but we must be still learning-religion and science are progressing and we must be prepared to learn more and more. Let us show we are of open mind and desire to recognise the truth.

Lieutenant-General Sir HENRY GEARY, K.C.B.-It gives me great pleasure to be allowed to second this vote of thanks to Professor Silvanus Thompson. I am sure we have all listened to it with the greatest possible interest, and I think it has been a great opportunity for us to have heard the subject handled this afternoon by so high an authority. It would be quite premature to attempt to make any remarks upon the because when it comes to be paper, printed it will require most of us to take it home for careful study; but I think an additional reason for our thanking Professor Thompson for coming amongst us is the particular era at which this paper has been read. Even the most careless cannot be blind and deaf to the unsettled state of the minds of people at the present moment. It is a time when every thinking man and woman has to go to the foundation of the faith in which they have been brought up and examine it by the light of modern study, and I think in a few words we can sum up the Professor's teaching, and that is, that perhaps the greatest crime a man can commit in the twentieth century is to close his mind to any influx of light.

Mr. MARTIN L. ROUSE, B.L.-As one deputed to ask Professor Silvanus Thompson to come to lecture before us, and who has heard him most delightfully hold forth to large audiences of the British Association an exposition of electric power, I should like to concur in the vote of thanks that is now being given; but I would say I am most firmly convinced that the evidence that we have of the truth of the holy word of God, the Bible, as it stands, is overwhelming. I would also like to call attention to this fact, that this very age is foretold by the Bible in more than one way. One way is that when Daniel was about to close up his prophecy the angel said to him: "Shut up the words and seal the book, even to the time of the end; many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased." There, in that very book we have embodied this most distinct prophecy of the character of the age just before the winding up of God's purposes and the setting up of Christ's visible kingdom upon the earth.

The CHAIRMAN.-The Resolution which has been moved, seconded and now spoken to, is that we present our best thanks to