any opinion about these theories.  I merely wish to point out that, like all other theories, they are professedly based upon matter of fact.  Thus the clerical profession has to deal with the facts of Nature from a certain point of view; and hence it comes into contact with that of the man of science, who has to treat the same facts from another point of view.  You know how often that contact is to be described as collision, or violent friction; and how great the heat, how little the light, which commonly results from it.

In the interests of fair play, to say nothing of those of mankind, I ask, Why do not the clergy as a body acquire, as a part of their preliminary education, some such tincture of physical science as will put them in a position to understand the difficulties in the way of accepting their theories, which are forced upon the mind of every thoughtful and intelligent man, who has taken the trouble to instruct himself in the elements of natural knowledge?

Some time ago I attended a large meeting of the clergy, for the purpose of delivering an address which I had been invited to give.  I spoke of some of the most elementary facts in physical science, and of the manner in which they directly contradict certain of the ordinary teachings of the clergy.  The result was, that, after I had finished, one section of the assembled ecclesiastics attacked me with all the intemperance of pious zeal, for stating facts and conclusions which no competent judge doubts; while, after the first speakers had subsided, amidst the cheers of the great majority of their colleagues, the more rational minority rose to tell me that I had taken wholly superfluous pains, that they already knew all about what I had told them, and perfectly agreed with me.  A hard-headed friend of mine, who was present, put the not unnatural question, “Then why don’t you say so in your pulpits?” to which inquiry I heard no reply.

In fact the clergy are at present divisible into three sections:  an immense body who are ignorant and speak out; a small proportion who know and are silent; and a minute minority who know and speak according to their knowledge.  By the clergy, I mean especially the Protestant clergy.  Our great antagonist—­I speak as a man of science—­the Roman Catholic Church, the one great spiritual organization which is able to resist, and must, as a matter of life and death, resist, the progress of science and modern civilization, manages her affairs much better.

It was my fortune some time ago to pay a visit to one of the most important of the institutions in which the clergy of the Roman Catholic Church in these islands are trained; and it seemed to me that the difference between these men and the comfortable champions of Anglicanism and of Dissent, was comparable to the difference between our gallant Volunteers and the trained veterans of Napoleon’s Old Guard.