The Churches and Modern Thought / An inquiry into the grounds of unbelief and an appeal for candour

s gradually accepted, and so were the disco

ologer as well as astronomer, and thought the stars were guided by angels. While his mind had a strong grasp of positive scientific truth, it also had an irresistible tendency towards mystical speculation. In those days Science and Religion were easily re

h century; read Truth and Certainty of Christian Revelation, edition 1724, and you will find that a defender of the faith had in those days a comparatively easy task. Science being still in its infancy, Dr. Samuel Clarke gave reasons for the truth of Christian dogmas, which, though they could not be controverted then, would now be considered the most abject nonsense. Bead also Mr. S. Laing's remar

.-The vast antiqu

e elapsed since the birth of the moon" (see Professor Darwin's Presidential addre

ium he would incur should he proclaim his he

otherwise it would not have been published." Does the Church realise the extent to which men of science coat their popular writings with "ecclesiastical sugar"? The retail bookselling trade in England is still largely in the hands of persons belonging to the various sects, and, even where this is not so, few da

ver Lodge] has never yet prof

the Divine Nature is specially revealed to man through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lived and taught and suffered in Palestine 1,900 years ago, and has since been worshipped by the Christian Church as the immortal Son of God, the Saviour of the world." This reconstructed Christian (?) creed has been deftly worded

ligious naturally wish

fessor Ray Lankester, in his Presidential Address at the annual meeting of the British Association (held at York in 1906), should disillusion them: "During the last few years an idea has s

nostics] "exhibit the very t

ncing, 'I am not of the Body; I cannot share the life of the Christian community.' And yet, if we look at him, we recognise in every detail of his character the lines that lead to Christ. He illustrates and exhibits the very temper which Christ blesses; he is pure, unselfish, humble, and good..

athetic attitude, and asks: "Is this a time to banish into silence, or relegate to an inferior position, the great bulwark of the Faith-the Athanasian Creed?" We are to understand that the curses of the Creed are reserved, not for the man who is born of heathen parents, but for the man who, often with much uprooting of h

, and our capitalists." Clergymen who speak with such bitterness and make such sweeping assertions really betray the weakness of their own case. For it is a psychological fact that men are always angriest when they know they are not quite

rejudice by the use of a

every single biologist would tell him that he was himself talking rubbish. The Turin Academy crowned it as the best book written in the last four years of the nineteenth century. Clergymen s

13–14.-"In re

note by the Bishop of London. The book is written in what the Bishop terms a "racy" style, and has the merit of much straightforwardness; but few well-informed, and at the same time open-minde

-The Roman Catholi

tian teaching in this portion of the British Isles, and a portrait of a typical Roman Catholic priest which demonstra

e Roman Catholic Chur

Church in Italy, by the Rev. Alexander Robertson, D.D., a book accorded a flattering reception by the King of Italy in 1903. Again, Lord Macaulay, speaking of the Roman Catholic Church in the first chapter of his History of England, says that, "during the last three centuries, to stunt the growth of the human mind has been her chief object. Througho

7.-Gifts f

o were the poor, and Asiatic poor at that. The pity of it is that often more harm than good is done because the "Divine" command does not specify