[Footnote 1:  November, December, 1885; and January, February, 1886.]

The great bulk of those interested in the question place their whole hope for their higher moral and spiritual life in this world and the next on one central Person—­the Lord Jesus Christ. If He is wrong, then no one can be right—­there is no such thing as right:  that is what they feel.  It will be conceded that it is hardly “fanatical” to feel this.  But if so, surely it is not fanatical, but agreeable to the soberest reason, further to hold that this (to them sacred) person did (and His apostles with Him) treat the Book of Genesis as a whole (and not merely parts of it) as a genuine revelation—­or, to use the popular expression, as the Word of god.  That being so, can it be matter for surprise or contemptuous pity, that they should be anxious to vindicate the Book, to be satisfied that the master was not wrong?  That is the ultimate and very real issue involved in the question of Genesis.

As long as people feel that, they must seek the reconciliation of the two opposing ideas.  If the attempt is made in a foolish or bitter spirit, or without a candid appreciation of the facts, then the attempt will no doubt excite just displeasure.  But need it always be so made?

As to the first part of my proposition that attempts to reconcile religion and science are received with a certain dislike, it is due partly to the unwisdom with which they are sometimes made.  Prof.  H. Drummond speaks of the dislike as general.[1]

If this is so, I, as a “reconciler,” can only ask for indulgence, hoping that grace may be extended to me on the ground of having something to say on the subject that has not yet been considered.

Nor, as regards the impatience of the public, can I admit that there is only fault on one side.  In the first place, it will not be denied that some writers, delighted with the vast, and apparently boundless, vision that the discovery (in its modern form) of Evolution opened out to them, did incautiously proceed, while surveying their new kingdom, to assert for it bounds that stretch beyond its legitimate scope.

[Footnote 1:  In the Introduction to his well-known book, “Natural Law in the Spiritual World.”]

Religionists, on the other hand, imagining, however wrongly, that the erroneous extension was part of the true scientific doctrine, attacked the whole without discrimination.

While such a misapprehension existed, it was inevitable that writers anxious alike for the dignity of science and the maintenance of religion, should step in to point out the error, and effect a reconciliation of claims which really were never in conflict.