ceive of a theory of development which should combine more elements of strength than that which we have considered. The objections to the Darwinian theory are objections to the theory of development in general. The only alternative is the doctrine of special creation. We may expect, then, that after all possible modifications of the transmutation theory have been tested, the philosophic world will acknowledge the prophetic wisdom of Prof. Dana's "Thoughts on Species"-that clearest and fullest statement of the great law of permanence of specific type tempered by variability within limits--the law which, changeless as the great Lawgiver, extends through all time and all space, binding in the unity of plan all nature, inorganic and organic.

The rejection of the doctrines of spontaneous generation and transmutation of species will thus bring us to a purely supernaturalistic theory of organic nature. Life is not a property or a modification of matter. It is a direct creation by Omnipotence. Here, then, will be found one of those limits of scien tific discovery, which, as we have seen, must bound our pro gress in every direction, though we cannot even conjecture their situation till we have actually reached, and vainly endeavored to pass them. For the origin of life in its myriad forms no secondary cause can be assigned. Its effects may be discerned in their correlation with the laws of matter, but the creative act which originated it must remain an inscrutable mystery. Matter in every form may pass under the microscope or into the crucible, but the principle of life will forever elude our observation. We can seize it with no forceps, we can view it with no lenses, we can dissect it with no needlepoints, we can analyze it with no re-agents. It is above and beyond matter-the pure, ethereal inspiration of that Spirit which of old "moved upon the face of the waters." whether vegetating in the protophyte or culminating in the power and glory of human thought, is a sacred thing-the grandest sacrament of nature's universal worship; and Science, in the presence of its solemn mysteries, will stand with bowed head and moveless wings like the cherubim above the ark of God.

Life,

Such will probably be the result of the controversy on the most important question now agitating the scientific world. Yet we have used the future tense designedly, for we believe the time has not yet come when the question can be authoritatively and finally decided. On a subject so complex, and so imperfectly studied in many of its bearings, we must be content to hold and teach provisionally those views which seem to us the nearest approximation to the truth, ready to abandon to-morrow every article of the creed we advocate to-day, leaving perhaps to future generations to confirm or to contradict our teachings, and cheerfully accepting as our mission the task of opening, through the gloom of uncertainty, or it may be through the deeper darkness of error, a path for our successors to the perfect truth.

We have examined the question not as theologians, but as students of science; yet it would seem scarcely fitting to leave the subject without some-reference to its theological bearings. To what extent is the almost universal abhorrence felt by evangelical theologians for the Darwinian theory, a reasonable feeling?

The adoption of a naturalistic theory of organic nature would materially weaken one of the arguments of natural theology. Eternal existence in some forin has been almost universally admitted, the only alternative-the notion of an uncaused beginning-being absurd. Hence the older atheists maintained the eternity of the present cosmos. The rise and progress of geological science necessitated a modification of this view. The only atheistic theory which can now be plausibly maintained is that matter and its laws are eternal, and that each successive condition of the universe, or of any of its parts, is but a natural development of the condition immediately preceding. This of course involves the doctrines of spontaneous generation and transmutation of species. Deny these or either of these, and the atheist is driven to the absurdity of supposing an uncaused beginning. The orthodox theory in science writes the name of God on every organic structure so plainly that even the fool can scarcely fail to read it. We should be unwilling to have that inscription erased. Yet it should be remarked that the effect of the Darwinian theory would be

merely negative. It would somewhat obscure nature's record of the existence of God, but it would write no word of contradiction. The theory is perfectly consistent with theism; the worst that can be said of it, in this connection, is that it is perfectly consistent with atheism also. The argument for the existence of God from design in nature, as well as that drawn from man's moral consciousness, would of course remain intact. The Christian Darwinian would say the question is not whether, but how God made animals and plants.

But to many minds there appears to be a positive contradic tion between Darwinism and Revelation. With that propriety can man be said to have been created in the image of God, if he is only a more highly developed protozoan? With what propriety indeed can he be said to have been created at all, if he is the natural offspring of some other creature? The Christian Darwinian might answer that it is not necessary to consider the human soul as a development; that the theory relates only to man's physical nature, which allies him with the lower animals; and that the godlike soul was supernaturally created, when a body worthy to be its home had been naturally developed. The acceptance of the Darwinian theory would of course necessitate the adoption of a modified view of inspiration, or of a loosely allegorical mode of interpretation, at least as regards the early portion of Genesis. A change so radical, suddenly, effected would affect the church with a painful feeling of general insecurity. A change of base in the midst of the conflict is always hazardous, though sometimes necessary. Yet we are far from believing that any permanently disastrous consequences would ensue.

And, while science holds in abeyance her final decision of the question, let the Church lift herself above the notion that the Christian faith is dependent on the issue. Christianity is founded in the necessity of man's moral nature, and its strongest evidences are above the reach of scientific questioning. Let the lesson of the past be heeded. As one theory after another, supposed to be inseparably connected with Christianity, has been swept away, Christianity has but risen from the shock stronger and purer. We may wait, then, without fear the issue of the scientific controversies of to-day. The foundations

of our faith will remain unshaken in the future as in the past, whether the sun revolves around the earth, or the earth around the sun, whether the universe was created by fiats, or moulded by the gradual operation of secondary causes,—whether the duration of man's existence be six thousand, or sixty thousand years, whether all nations were "made of one blood" in a literal, or only in a spiritual or metaphorical sense,-whether "God formed man of the dust of the ground" immediately, or through a process of secondary causation.

ARTICLE II.-CONFESSIONS OF A HIGH-CHURCHMAN.

Bryan Maurice, or The Seeker. By Rev. WALTER MITCHELL. Philadelphia: Lippincott. 12mo.

THIS is a volume of Episcopalian polemics under the form of a novel. It makes "the epic plunge" at once in medias res, with a discussion on the Pentatench, and winds up with a wedding, and red fire, and "the solemn cares of a Missionary Bishopric," with a handsome Gothic church and parsonage for the back scene. The story is entirely subordinate to the theological intent of the author, and serves mainly as a setting for his brilliants of controversial divinity; so that the book takes place in literature with a class of school-books once in vogue, such as "Conversations on Chemistry between a Mother and three Daughters," or "Uncle Peter's Talks upon English Grammar with his Little Friends," in which it was conceived that the driest studies might be capable of a certain dramatic fascination; or rather with that large and still growing class of popular discussions, the latest representative of which we see advertised under the title "Dialogues on Ritualism between a Layman and his Rector," and the advantage of which is that therein the ill-favored opponent of the writer's pet doctrines can be made, in spite of himself, to defend sentiments which he would abhor, with weak arguments which he would despise, and then be overwhelmed with sudden and quick-witted rejoinders which the author had dreamed of for a week, wishing that some one would only say such foolish things, that he might seize his chance to make such bright replies. This sort of controversy is conceived to have many of the advantages of actual tug-of-war, with none of its perils. The intellectual satisfaction of it to the writer, if not quite like

"the joy which warriors feel

In foemen worthy of their steel,"

may at least be likened to the martial glory of a sham-fight at a militia training; or to the excitement of the combat in a Punch-and-Judy show, when the left-hand puppet is so horribly banged with that terrible club by the right-hand puppet;