204 Lines on the Presentation of an Indian Brooch. Then I journey'd to the eastward, Five and thirty years I dwelt there, Or a remnant of his song. None have won me but the chieftain, But to thee, to thee I come Knowing that I now will cover All the graces and the learning, All the strength and sweetness blended, Of a woman and a brave man, Of a daughter and a princess Of the haughty Indian tribe. Thou, to whom the task is given, Lines on the Presentation of an Indian Brooch. Keep me as a relic, dear one, THE PRESENTATION BROOCH. 205 SCIENCE AND RELIGION.* CHARLES T. CONGDON. ALF the differences of the world are the result of a confusion of ideas, and an inadequate comprehension of the relative value of indisputable conclusions. In the controversies also, which belief and dissent occasion, the most noise is usually made about that which is of the least consequence. If we begin our consideration of divine things by a resort to philological research, to matters of letter or text, to that reductio ad absurdum, of which small free-thinkers and skeptics are fond, it may be assumed that the man of faith will always be out-talked by the man of facts. Such were the trifling methods of the last century, even in the hands of remarkable men-of Paine, and others of his school-and they have been occasionally adopted by several of those who call themselves rationalists and liberalists at the present time. We had best begin by dismissing these and their uncritical notions. Because I cannot see that it is of the least importance whether the * Abstract of a paper read before the Society by the author. creation of the world occupied the Creator six days, or sixty, or six thousand-the main fact being the creation, and not the processes by which the divine worker saw fit to accomplish his self-imposed task. Again, there is nothing about which scientific and philosophical writers have so carped and quibbled and split hairs, as the miracles. But neither their assailers nor their defenders seem to have had the least idea of their comparative unimportance. I should not have a very high opinion of that christian belief which depended upon their evidence, however valuable I might regard them to be, considered in other connections. Once more, I do not see of what consequence it is whether the four canonical gospels were written by those apostles after whose names they are called-whether they were produced soon after the crucifixion, or not until the second century was lapsing into the third. Certainly that which is in them, which informs and inspires them, which makes them seem to the majority of enlightened mankind, the divinest and most precious things ever written and printed, does not in the least depend upon their authorship, still less upon their date. So again, the real Christ is he who has kept his fast hold upon the human heart, the utterer of words of ineffable love and wisdom, and not the Christ who turned water into wine, and who rose again upon the third day. If the miracle was necessary for the convincement of the Jews, surely it is not necessary for us. The Sermon on the Mount would have remained the perfect essence of religion and morality, even though he who preached it had never risen on the third day, for it is in itself greater than any miracle. Faith in a future happiness does not rest upon the ascensionfear of a future of retribution does not depend upon the descent into hell. I make these allusions to show that all that is best of Christianity, and most precious in its teachings, has no material or scientific dependence. So far as historical Christianity is concerned, and so far as it is linked to the Jewish dispensation, I suppose that there will always be honest differences about details and dates. So there will always be exegetical criticism of the Scriptures. So, too, you will easily see that the truth or error of any doctrine is not in the least affected by its acceptance or rejection. The eternal veracities remain, though all the world. should hoot at them. I think it necessary to make this observation, because men are prone to think less of this or that truth if it happens to be rejected by some accepted authority, and to take their opinions complacently at secondhand from the idol of the hour. The perpetual mistake is that something must be false, because somebody thinks it to be so. Small thinkers, or those who are thoughtless altogether, though they do not in the least comprehend the processes, chuckle at the results, and the most venerable |