main features by various
institutions of learning in other States, show this abundantly. But
there has been a triumph far greater and wider. Everywhere among the
leading modern nations the same general tendency is seen. During the
quarter-century just past the control of public instruction, not only in
America but in the leading nations of Europe, has passed more and more
from the clergy to the laity. Not only are the presidents of the larger
universities in the United States, with but one or two exceptions,
laymen, but the same thing is seen in the old European strongholds of
metaphysical theology. At my first visit to Oxford and Cambridge, forty
years ago, they were entirely under ecclesiastical control. Now, all
this is changed. An eminent member of the present British Government has
recently said, "A candidate for high university position is handicapped
by holy orders." I refer to this with not the slightest feeling of
hostility toward the clergy, for I have none; among them are many of my
dearest friends; no one honours their proper work more than I; but the
above fact is simply noted as proving the continuance of that evolution
which I have endeavoured to describe in this series of monographs--an
evolution, indeed, in which the warfare of Theology against Science has
been one of the most active and powerful agents. My belief is that in
the field left to them--their proper field--the clergy will more
and more, as they cease to struggle against scientific methods and
conclusions, do work even nobler and more beautiful than anything they
have heretofore done. And this is saying much. My conviction is that
Science, though it has evidently conquered Dogmatic Theology based on
biblical texts and ancient modes of thought, will go hand in hand
with Religion; and that, although theological control will continue
to diminish, Religion, as seen in the recognition of "a Power in the
universe, not ourselves, which makes for righteousness," and in the love
of God and of our neighbor, will steadily grow stronger and stronger,
not only in the American institutions of learning but in the world
at large. Thus may the declaration of Micah as to the requirements of
Jehovah, the definition by St. James of "pure religion and undefiled,"
and, above all, the precepts and ideals of the blessed Founder of
Christianity himself, be brought to bear more and more effectively on
mankind.

I close this preface some days after its first lines wer