. I refuse to
think that the priest who stands up before a congregation, as the
minister and interpreter of the Divinity, is less careful in his
utterances, less ready to meet adverse comment, than the layman who
comes before his audience, as the minister and interpreter of nature.
Yet what should we think of the man of science who, when his ignorance
or his carelessness was exposed, whined about the want of delicacy of
his critics, or pleaded his "work and calling" as a reason for being
let alone?

No man, nor any body of men, is good enough, or wise enough, to
dispense with the tonic of criticism. Nothing has done more harm to
the clergy than the practice, too common among laymen, of regarding
them, when in the pulpit, as a sort of chartered libertines, whose
divagations are not to be taken seriously. And I am well assured that
the distinguished divine, to whom the sermon is attributed, is the
last person who would desire to avail himself of the dishonouring
protection which has been superfluously thrown over him.

So much for the lecture on propriety. But the Duke of Argyll, to whom
the hortatory style seems to come naturally, does me the honour to
make my sayings the subjects of a series of other admonitions, some on
philosophical, some on, geological, some on biological topics. I can
but rejoice that the Duke's authority in these matters is not always
employed to show that I am ignorant of them; on the contrary, I meet
with an amount of agreement, even of approbation, for which I proffer
such gratitude as may be due, even if that gratitude is sometimes
almost overshadowed by surprise.

I am unfeignedly astonished to find that the Duke of Argyll, who
professes to intervene on behalf of the preacher, does really, like
another Balaam, bless me altogether in respect of the main issue.

I denied the justice of the preacher's ascription to men of science of
the doctrine that miracles are incredible, because they are violations
of natural law; and the Duke of Argyll says that he believes my
"denial to be well-founded. The preacher was answering an objection
which has now been generally abandoned." Either the preacher knew this
or he did not know it. It seems to me, as a mere lay teacher, to be a
pity that the "great dome of St. Paul's" should have been made to
"echo" (if so be that such stentorian effects were really produced) a
statement which, admitting the first alternative, was unfair, and,
admitting the second,