d not identify themselves
wholly with the out-and-out Bible defenders) feel a certain amount of
sympathy, is proved by the interest taken in the controversy. Yet all
"reconcilers" are ridiculed or denounced--at any rate are contemptuously
dismissed. Can it be that the professor has for the moment overlooked
one very simple fact?

[Footnote 1: November, December, 1885; and January, February, 1886.]

The great bulk of those interested in the question place their whole
hope for their higher moral and spiritual life in this world and the
next on one central Person--the LORD JESUS CHRIST. If He is wrong, then
no one can be right--there is no such thing as right: that is what they
feel. It will be conceded that it is hardly "fanatical" to feel this.
But if so, surely it is not fanatical, but agreeable to the soberest
reason, further to hold that this (to them sacred) PERSON did (and His
apostles with Him) treat the Book of Genesis as a whole (and not merely
parts of it) as a genuine revelation--or, to use the popular expression,
as the _Word of_ GOD. That being so, can it be matter for surprise or
contemptuous pity, that they should be anxious to vindicate the Book,
to be satisfied that the MASTER was not wrong? That is the ultimate and
very real issue involved in the question of Genesis.

As long as people feel _that_, they must seek the reconciliation of the
two opposing ideas. If the attempt is made in a foolish or bitter
spirit, or without a candid appreciation of the facts, then the attempt
will no doubt excite just displeasure. But need it always be so made?

As to the first part of my proposition that attempts to reconcile
religion and science are received with a certain dislike, it is due
partly to the unwisdom with which they are sometimes made. Prof. H.
Drummond speaks of the dislike as general.[1]

If this is so, I, as a "reconciler," can only ask for indulgence, hoping
that grace may be extended to me on the ground of having something to
say on the subject that has not yet been considered.

Nor, as regards the impatience of the public, can I admit that there is
only fault on one side. In the first place, it will not be denied that
some writers, delighted with the vast, and apparently boundless, vision
that the discovery (in its modern form) of Evolution opened out to them,
did incautiously proceed, while surveying their new kingdom, to assert
for it bounds that stretch beyond its legitimate scope.

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