in St. Paul's church-yard, as well as heroism in the field at Waterloo. I now bid you farewell, earnestly praying that God may give you grace never to magnify the creature, forgetting the Creator; never to exalt your fellow-mortal till you partly invest him with the honors of Godhead; never to reduce the Christ, the Immanuel, to the level of human glory; and never, when you see in our Father's works tokens of his hand and will, to suppose that these are Deity, and that Deity is these-like a child, which, standing under a tree when the sun is shining, thinks, because it can look no higher, that the sun is in the tree. the one, the infinite, the is equal, and none is like; which no man can approach unto;" may he be your adoration! May he be your God! adorning you with his own image, and so conferring the only nobleness which will outlive the shock, under which this world is soon to fall with all its grandeur. God holy; God to whom none God "dwelling in the light SELECT LECTURES. IX. Connection between Science, Literature, and Religion. BY REV. GEORGE GILFILLAN, DELIVERED BEFORE THE YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION, IN EXETER HALL, LONDON, IN THE WINTER COURSE OF 1847-8. IX. Connection between Science, Literature, and Religion. THE subject of the following lecture is one which may be considered too wide and vast for a single lecture. Volumes might be worthily occupied in treating of the various and intimate relations in which science, literature, and religion stand to each other. Indeed, the great problem of philosophy is so to fix our stand-point, that, from it, we may be able to see the various lines of those three diverging from, and meeting in one center, as the spokes from an axle, constituting one whole, as the various colors constitute one light. Till this be done, there is too much truth in the murmur of the splenetic, that science has hitherto been but scratching at the door of nature; literature dreaming, and religion doting; and that, with all our arts and sciences, our logic and metaphysics, our philosophy resides in the future, instead of the past. I propose to bring before you to-night a few of the more simple aspects of the subject, principally for the purpose of proving, that there is at least a distinct approximation toward such a union; and, that such a union may be the subject of rational and general hopethe bright bridal of a future day. We can not cast a bridge between Ayr and Arran, between Dover and Calais, but it is much if we believe that some god or giant yet may. Our leading propositions then are: 1. Science, literature, and religion, are connected or related in their nature. 2. They are connected in tendency and effect. 3. They have been connected in the examples of many illustrious individuals. 4. They are, to a certain extent, connected in God's special revelation. 5. The greatest evils have been produced by their partial severance, and apparent misunderstanding. And, 6. There is a certainty of a future, entire, and permanent union between those three fair branches in the one tree of truth. In the first place, they are connected in their nature. They are all, in one view, various phases of the human mind. Science is the mind, as intellect or understanding, contemplating nature as a great series of phenomena, dependent on each other, and linked together, by forces and principles, which it is its part to discover and disclose. Literature is the mind, as genius, surveying nature, as a varied collection of beautiful and sublime objects, corresponding with the beautiful and sublime elements which exist in the mind of man, and its part is to reproduce and combine these twofold classes of elements into new and noble forms. Religion is the mind, as faith, contemplating nature, man, and itself, neither simply as series of successive changes, nor merely as magnificent apparitions of loveliness; but as they declare the existence, proclaim the perfections, repose in the shadow, rise toward the throne, and are illustrated and supplemented by the word of God. All three are thus the one mind under different aspects of contemplation, and using different degrees of light. Science holds a torch of dry light, clear, stern, and searching. Literature is surrounded by a softer and warmer effulgence; |