contribute foreign
curiosities to your stock. Neighbouring gentlemen would send you
valuable objects which had been lumbering their houses, uncared for,
because they stood alone, and formed no part of a collection; and I,
for one, would be happy to add something from the fauna and flora of
those moorlands, where I have so long enjoyed the wonders of nature;
never, I can honestly say, alone; because when man was not with me,
I had companions in every bee, and flower, and pebble; and never
idle, because I could not pass a swamp, or a tuft of heather,
without finding in it a fairy tale of which I could but decipher
here and there a line or two, and yet found them more interesting
than all the books, save one, which were ever written upon earth.

THE NATURAL THEOLOGY OF THE FUTURE

Read at Sion College, January 10th, 1871.

When I accepted the unexpected and undeserved honour of being
allowed to lecture here, the first subject which suggested itself to
me was Natural Theology.

It is one which has taken up much of my thought for some years past,
{313} which seems to me more and more important, and which is just
now somewhat forgotten; I therefore determined to say a few words on
it to-night. I do not pretend to teach but only to suggest; to
point out certain problems of Natural Theology, the further solution
of which ought, I think, to be soon attempted.

I wish to speak, remember, not on natural religion, but on natural
theology. By the first, I understand what can be learned from the
physical universe of man's duty to God and to his neighbour; by the
latter, I understand what can be learned concerning God Himself. Of
natural religion I shall say nothing. I do not even affirm that a
natural religion is possible: but I do very earnestly believe that
a natural theology is possible; and I earnestly believe also that it
is most important that natural theology should, in every age, keep
pace with doctrinal or ecclesiastical theology.

Bishop Butler certainly held this belief. His "Analogy of Religion,
Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature"--a
book for which I entertain the most profound respect--is based on a
belief that the God of Nature and the God of Grace are one; and
that, therefore, the God who satisfies our conscience ought more or
less to satisfy our reason also. To teach that was Butler's
mission, and he fulfilled it well. But it is a mission which has to
be re-filled a