earnest seekers after truth as it is displayed in God’s works.  Their belief in the Bible rested in most cases on the authority of others.  They had not investigated for themselves its external evidences; in many cases they had neither the ability nor the opportunity to do so; nor had many of them as yet become practically familiar with that internal evidence which the faithful Christian carries within him, though in time they might have become so, had they not been driven into infidelity by the reception which was given to their discoveries.  When men of this character were informed by those to whom they were accustomed to look up as teachers in religious matters, that the discoveries, of the truth of which they were so firmly convinced, and in which they took such justifiable pride, were contradictory to the teaching of the Bible, they were placed in a position of extreme difficulty.  For this statement was, in fact, a demand made upon them that they should give up these discoveries as erroneous, or else renounce their belief in the Bible.  But their belief in the Bible rested in the main on the authority of others; they felt themselves incompetent judges of the evidence on which it rested, while they were fully acquainted with, and competent judges of, the grounds on which their own discoveries were based.  The evidence on which they acted was, to their minds, quite as convincing as the Biblical evidence was to the minds of their antagonists.  Two things, then, were pronounced incompatible by what seemed to be a competent authority; they could not adhere to both, and the natural consequence was that their assent was given to those statements which rested on evidence which they thoroughly understood, and the Bible was rejected.  Thus it has come to pass that many of our scientific men, if not professed unbelievers, have yet learnt to look upon the Bible with suspicion and distrust.  To some of them, as is evident from their writings, their position is a matter of profound sorrow.

There have, indeed, been many noble exceptions to this state of things.  Many men whose pre-eminence in scientific knowledge and research is admitted by all, have yet clung in childlike trust to the Bible.  They have recognized its authority, they have been satisfied that God’s Word could not be in opposition to His Work, and they have been content to wait in unquestioning faith for the day when all that now seems dark and perplexing shall be made clear.  But there have also been very many with whom this has not been the case, and their unbelief has not affected themselves alone.  The knowledge of it has had a deadly effect upon thousands who were utterly incompetent to form any judgment on either theological or scientific subjects, but who gladly welcomed anything which would help to justify them to their own consciences in their refusal to submit themselves to a law which, in their ignorance, they deemed to be harsh and intolerable.  There has also been another class of sufferers.