FOR THE SABBATH.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 580, 28 June 1913, Page 2

FOR THE SABBATH.

RELIGIOUS BELIEFS OF SCIENTISTS. Sir William de W. Abney, D.Sc., F.R.S., Advisor to the Board of Education (Science and Art Department) since 1903; chairman of the Society of Arts, 1904; President of the Royal Astronomical Society, 1893-95; President of the Physical Society, 1895-97, is an authority on the photography of the heavens. He responded as follows; — "I am a student of science and honestly say, that so far from there being antagonism between the Bible and physical -cience, the reverse is the esse. Science tells us that there are certain laws in nature —now where there are laws there must be a lawgiver—a God. A student of physical science at all events must be a reverent man, for it tells him how far he is removed from knowledge of such a Law-giver. "The doctrine of salvation is rot, and cannot; be learned from science—it is a matter of faith, and as such is beyond the reach of scientific manifestation; but there is no more reason to doubt of its truth from the story as we read of \it, than there is that George I. lived and died. If there is a Supreme Intelligence, as I believe science teaches there is, the mystery of the Atonement is no greatpr mystery than many other matters which we cannot explain. "Men of science are nut more irreligious or anti-Christian than men who are not scientific. I should say much less ;o. Newton, Faraday, Brewster, Stokes, are examples of Christian men. There are many other leaders of science who could be named and who are bright examples of Christian character. "IE any one asserts that Science and Religion are opposed, and that men of science are irreligious because they are men of science, they assert that which is false when they so generalise."

SHALL WE LIVE AGAIN? "I feel in myself the future life. I am like a forest once cut down, the new shoots are stronger and livelier, than ever. lam rising, I know, toward tho sky. The sunshine is on my head. The earth gives me its generous sap, but heaven lights me with the reflection of unknown worlds. "YouEay the soul is nothing but the resultant of the bodily powers. Why, then, is my sobl more luminous when my bodily powers begin to fail? Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart. I breathe at this hour the fragrance of the lilacs, the violets and the roses, as at twenty year;. The nearer I approach the end, the plainer I bear around me the immortal symphonies of the worlds which invite me. It is marvellous yet simple. It i.3 a fairy tale, and it is history. "For half a csntury I have been writing ray thoughts in prose and in Verse, history, philosophy, drama, romance, tradition, satire, ode, and song; 1 have tried all. But I feel I have not said the thousandth part of what is in me. »Yhen Igo down to the grave I can SBy like many others —"I have finished my lite." My day's work will begin again in the next morning The tomb's is not a blind alley; it is a thoroughfare. It closes on the twilight, it opens on the dawn." —Victor Hugo. "Tolerance involved fairness, sympathy, and patience the recognition of zeal for truth and right in 'many whose conceptions differ from our own, the recollection that truth has many aides, and that none of us is omniscient. Yet it does not mean that we may be indifferent to anything that is true and right, or that we have not always a duty of defending truth and, righteousness as we have come to know them. Genuine tolerance springs of. strong convictions. Only a man with deep zeal for truth can appreciate zeal in another, and allow for it and respect it when they differ. The duty of tolerance does not conflict with the duty of loyalty of truth, though it does condition the mode of its discharge. It merely imposes recognition of the limits of our knowledge and compels us to concede to others the rights in pursuit of truth which we claim for ourselves."