together. On Friday his restless
head, with its bright blue eyes and tangled golden hair, tossed all day
upon the pillow. On Saturday night I carried his cold, still body here
into my study. Here, too, on Sunday night, came his mother and I to that
holy leavetaking. My boy is gone; but in a higher and better sense than
was in my mind when, four years ago, I wrote what stands above, I feel
that my fancy has been fulfilled. I say heartily and without
bitterness--Amen, so let it be!'

'_Thank God!_' exclaims our great Agnostic when the child is born.

'_Amen!_' he says, submissively, when the little one is buried.

This is the _first_ of the two incidents. The _second_--which is no less
pathetic--is recorded by Dr. Douglas Adam. 'A friend of mine,' the
doctor says, 'was acting on a Royal Commission of which Professor Huxley
was a member, and one Sunday they were staying together in a little
country town. "I suppose you are going to church," said Huxley. "Yes,"
replied my friend. "What if, instead, you stayed at home and talked to
me of religion?" "No," was the reply, "for I am not clever enough to
refute your arguments." "But what if you simply told me your own
experience--what religion has done for you?" My friend did not go to
church that morning; he stayed at home and told Huxley the story of all
that Christ had been to him; and presently there were tears in the eyes
of the great agnostic as he said, "_I would give my right hand if I
could believe that!_"'

This, if you please, is the man who was supposed to be as cold as ice
and as inflexible as steel! This is the man for whom the Christians of
his time had nothing better than harsh judgments, freezing sarcasms and
windy arguments! How little we know of each other! How slow we are to
understand!

III

But the text! It was in the course of his famous--and
furious--controversy with Mr. Gladstone that Huxley paid his homage to
the text. He was pleading for a better understanding between Religion
and Science.

'The antagonism between the two,' he said, 'appears to me to be purely
fictitious. It is fabricated, on the one hand, by short-sighted
religious people, and, on the other hand, by short-sighted scientific
people.' And he declared that, whatever differences may arise between
the _exponents_ of Nature and the _exponents_ of the Bible, there can
never be any real antagonism between Science and Religion themselves.
'In the eighth century before Christ,' he go