Sir James Simpson
Michael Faraday
Only to catalogue the recent discoveries and inventions we owe to men of science, from merciful anæsthetics to the latest applications of electric power, would occupy more space than we ought here to give. All honour to these servants of humanity! We rejoice to find among them many who could unite the simplest childlike faith with a wide and grand mental outlook; we exult not less to find in many Biblical students and commentators the same patience, thoroughness, and resolute pursuit of the very truth as that exemplified by the devotees of physical science. God's Word is explored in our day—the same clay which has seen the great work of the Revised Version of the Scriptures begun and completed—with no less ardour than God's world. And what vast additions have been made to our knowledge of this earth! We have seen Nineveh unburied, the North-West Passage explored, and the mysterious Nile stream at last tracked to its source. To compare a fifty-years-old map of Africa with one of the present day will a little enable us to estimate the advances made in our acquaintance with the Dark Continent alone; similar maps including the Polar regions of North America will testify also to a large increase of hard-won knowledge.
David Livingstone
