If such are the uncertainties of science to the actual investigators, what shall we say to him who has learned his science at school? When we meet with such an infidel, who denounces religion while he extols the certainties of science, would it not be well to ask a few questions such as the following? Have you personally measured the diameter of the earth, observed the transit of Venus, or calculated the distance of the moon? Or, further, would you feel yourself competent to perform such labor; or is it possible that, after all your boasting, you have taken your science at second-hand, and on the testimony of another? Again, perhaps you are a student of the stone book (as scientists sometimes call the strata of the earth's crust), with its enduring records graven in the rock forever; and perhaps you profess to believe that under these ponderous strata the Bible has found an everlasting tomb! But how many of the volumes of this stone book have you perused personally! Have you ever visited the many localities in our own country, to say nothing of the instructive lessons to be learned from the strata of England, Scotland, Wales, the Himalayas, the Andes and the Lauretian rocks of Canada, where the different formations are to be seen? Have you personally excavated from their beds, the various fossils that form, as it were, the very alphabet of the science; or, is it possible that all you know of geology is from the specimens of collectors, and the statements of lecturers aided by maps of ideal stratification in rose-pink, brimstone-yellow and indigo-blue?

But perhaps you are a chemist, and proud, as most chemists are, of the accuracy attainable in that most demonstrative science. But how much of it is really science to you? Of the nine hundred and forty-two substances mentioned in Turner's Chemistry, how many have you analyzed? Could you truthfully say one-half, one-fourth, or even one-tenth? Much less, would you face the laughter of a college class, to-morrow, upon the experiment of taking nine out of the nine hundred, reducing them to their primitive elements, and giving an accurate analysis of their component parts?

In fact, do you know anything worth mentioning of the facts of science upon your own knowledge, except those of the trade by which you make your living? Or, after all your boasting about scientific certainty, is it true that you have been obliged to receive your science upon faith, at second-hand, and on the word of another, and to save your life you could not tell who that other is, or even name the discoverers of half the scientific truths you believe? Therefore, whatever precision may be attained by scientific men—and we have seen that it is not much—it is very certain you have none of it. The very best you can have to wrap yourself in is a second-hand assurance, grievously torn by rival schools, and needing to be patched every month by later discoveries.

But this is not all. Most sciences are not only uncertain, but also insufficient. We demand the knowledge of truths of which science is profoundly ignorant. Of all the great problems and precious interests which belong to me as a mortal or immortal being, science knows nothing. I ask her whence I came. She points to her pinions stretched over the abyss of primeval fire, her eyes blinded by its awful glare, and remains silent. I inquire what I am; but the strange and questioning I is a mystery which she can neither analyze nor measure. I tell her of the voice of conscience within—she never heard it and does not pretend to understand it. I tell her of my anxieties about the future—she is learned only in the past. I inquire how I may be happy hereafter—but happiness is not a scientific term, and she cannot even tell me how to be happy here! Poor, blind science!

Further still, all our dearest interests lie beyond the domains of physical science, in the regions of faith. Science treats of things—faith is confidence in persons. Take away the persons and of what value are the things? The world becomes at once a vast desert, a dreary solitude. I can live, and love, and be happy without science; but not without companionship whose bond is faith. In its sunshine alone can happiness grow. It is faith sends man out in the morning to his work, nerves his arms through the toils of the day, brings him home in the evening, gathers the children around the table, inspires the oft-repeated efforts of the little prattler to ascend his parent's knee, clasps the chubby arms around his neck, looks with the most confiding innocence into his eye and puts forth the little hand to catch his bread and share his cup. Undoubting faith is happiness even here below. Need we marvel, then, that man must be converted from his pride of empty, barren science, and casting himself with all his powers into the arms of faith, become as a little child before he can enter into the kingdom of heaven?

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CHAPTER IV.
DID THE WORLD MAKE ITSELF?

MANIFESTATIONS OF POWER—MOUNTAIN CHAINS—PHENOMENA THE EFFECT OF CAUSE—EXTENT OF UNIVERSE—MANIFESTATIONS OF DESIGN—THE HUMAN EYE—MATTER INERT—DID THE PAVING-STONES MAKE THEMSELVES?—THEORIES OF BUFFON—OF DR. OLBERS—HISTORY DECLARES GOD'S GOVERNMENT.

"Nature is but the name of an effect whose cause is God."—COWPER.

"The infidel astronomer is mad."—HERSCHEL.