famous
clergyman to say to a brother theologian, "Oh, I see, my dear sir, your
God is my Devil."

Man has been studied proudly, contemptuously, rather, from the point
of view supposed to be authoritatively settled. The self-sufficiency of
egotistic natures was never more fully shown than in the expositions of
the worthlessness and wretchedness of their fellow-creatures given by
the dogmatists who have "gone back," as the vulgar phrase is, on their
race, their own flesh and blood. Did you ever read what Mr. Bancroft
says about Calvin in his article on Jonathan Edwards?--and mighty well
said it is too, in my judgment. Let me remind you of it, whether you
have read it or not. "Setting himself up over against the privileged
classes, he, with a loftier pride than theirs, revealed the power of a
yet higher order of nobility, not of a registered ancestry of fifteen
generations, but one absolutely spotless in its escutcheon, preordained
in the council chamber of eternity." I think you'll find I have got that
sentence right, word for word, and there 's a great deal more in it than
many good folks who call themselves after the reformer seem to be aware
of. The Pope put his foot on the neck of kings, but Calvin and his
cohort crushed the whole human race under their heels in the name of the
Lord of Hosts. Now, you see, the point that people don't understand
is the absolute and utter humility of science, in opposition to this
doctrinal self-sufficiency. I don't doubt this may sound a little
paradoxical at first, but I think you will find it is all right. You
remember the courtier and the monarch,--Louis the Fourteenth, wasn't
it?--never mind, give the poor fellows that live by setting you right a
chance. "What o'clock is it?" says the king. "Just whatever o'clock your
Majesty pleases," says the courtier. I venture to say the monarch was a
great deal more humble than the follower, who pretended that his master
was superior to such trifling facts as the revolution of the planet. It
was the same thing, you remember, with King Canute and the tide on the
sea-shore. The king accepted the scientific fact of the tide's rising.
The loyal hangers-on, who believed in divine right, were too proud
of the company they found themselves in to make any such humiliating
admission. But there are people, and plenty of them, to-day, who will
dispute facts just as clear to those who have taken the pains to learn
what is known about them, as that of the