cientific statements as have actually been associated
with revelation. If we regard St. Paul's reference to knowledge as
relating to such statements as these, then nothing could be more
complete than the fulfilment of his own prediction, 'Whether there be
prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease;
whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.' The evidence from
prophecies fails for the exact inquirer, who perceives the doubts which
exist (among the most earnest believers) as to the exact meaning of the
prophetic words, and even in some cases as to whether prophecies have
been long since fulfilled or relate to events still to come. The
evidence from 'tongues' has ceased, and those are dust who are said to
have spoken in strange tongues. The knowledge which was once thought
supernatural has utterly vanished away. But if, in the ages of faith,
some of the results of modern scientific research had been revealed, as
the laws of the solar system, the great principle of the conservation of
energy, or the wave theory of light, or if some of the questions which
still remain for men of science to solve had been answered in those
times, the evidence for the student of science would have been
irresistible. Of course he will be told that even then he would have
hardened his heart; that the inquiry after truth tending naturally to
depravity of mind, he would reject even evidence based on his beloved
laws of probability; that his 'wicked and adulterous generation seeketh
"in vain" after a sign,' and that if he will not accept Moses and the
prophets, neither would he believe though one rose from the dead. Still
the desire of the student of science to base his faith on convincing
evidence (in a matter as important to him as to those who abuse him)
does seem to have something reasonable in it after all. The mental
qualities which cause him to be less easily satisfied than others, came
to him in the same way as his bodily qualities; and even if the result
to which his mental training leads him is as unfortunate as some
suppose, that training is not strictly speaking so heinously sinful that
nothing short of the eternal reprobation meted out to him by earthly
judges can satisfy divine justice. So that it may be thought not a
wholly unpardonable sin to speak of a sign which, had it been accorded,
would have satisfied even the most exacting student of science. Apart,
too, from all question of faith, the mere s