When we compare the present with the past, we are apt at times to feel a little startled by the discovery that this nineteenth century of ours, about whose enlightenment we pride ourselves, is not quite so superior in all repects to other eras in the world's history as we were inclined to suppose. If we take the average intellighence of the people of any nation of to-day, we are supriesed to find that it does not seem to occupy a very much higher position than that of some of the nation of days gone by. If we take Athens, for instanec, in the time of Pericles—"Athens the eye of Greece, mother of arts and eloquence"—we should find that her citizens at that time were not at all inferior to those of to-day the thought might indeed be forced upon us, that in general intellighence, inquick-witted sensibilites, in the spirit of inquary, in questioning subtletym, in the desire and absorbing passion for beauty and for truth, the Athenian citizen stood far ahead of the average citizen of to-day. The Greek was a born lover of artm and a born critic. He was a subtle philosopher, and an enquiring statesman. He could look back upon the traditions of the past with joy, he loved the myths and legends that were interwoven with the history of his country, and that were hymned in the songs of his greatest poets, but he did not allow these beautiful apparitions to influence his judgment in matters of speculative research, In Democritus and Heraclitus, in Plato and Aristotle, we find the germs of speeculative doctrines that are only now beginning to put forth their tender leaves of hope. Never was the pursuit of truth more eagerly followed than in the greece of old time—never was the private judgment of the individual at a higher flood. And yet when we consider the high intellectual standard of each individual member of the athenian community 2000 years ago, when we contrast it with the questioning unrestof Florence at the time of the Medici, or of Europe during the renaissance, and gaze with pride on our own century with its advanced scientists, its great mechanieians, and its social reformers, are we not appalled to find that the average individual does not appear to have benefited to the extent that might have been exprechted from his 2000 extra years of training? That this is the case appears probable from the fact that, notwithstanding the glorious blaze of science whicht illumines the world of to-day, strong men and strong women may still be seen sitting on the grass-grown steps of ruined thoughts, gnawing at the dry bones and huskes of old, bespattered, but still unburied religions and when one who is a member of a Church, but whose opinions are not in harmony with its doctrines, has the courage and the address to point out, what a grinning skeleton these dry bones form, is he not entitled to the gratitude and the respect of all right-thinking men? And even if the opinions which he utters do not commend themselves in their entirety to our own minds, we are none the less bound to acknowledge their worth, and to recognise the good they are likely to do; and while we can appreciate and respect the utterances of such a one, it is none the less our duty to show wherein we differ from them, or where-in they appear defective to us. We may not be satisfied with these opinions—they may not seem to go far enough or deep enough for us; but in any criticisms we may make upon them we are bound to exemplify that spirit of fairness, of candour, of deference, and of respect, which ought to characterise all controvesial utterances.

The now famous leeture recently delivered by Judge Higinbotham, on "The Relations of Modern Science with the Christian Churches," is the leeture of such a one as I have described. It is a leeture which ought to be welcomed a like by Churchman and by Free-thinker. To the Churchman it should show the weakness of Christian creeds, and the inadequacy of theologic conceptions to meet the requirements of modern thought; while to the Freethinker, if he takes the lecture as the literal expression of the Judge's opinions, it should show the inherent frailty of even the most advanced view of orthodoxy, when looked at from the social and scientific vantage ground of to-day, By Freethinkers it has not yet publicly received that attention which the merits of the lecture, and the well-known ability of the lecturer deserve. By the generality of the Churches, on the other hand, it has been received with a storm of indignation, and by a plethora of that remarkable kind of criticism which is usually employed by the clerical mind when it feels called upon to attack aggressive infidelity. I do not think the Church is ever so pitiably weak as when it marshalls its forces, sets up in battle array its ghastly skeletons, dead puppets, and withered dogmas, with the faint hope of routing the well-drilled, well-diseiplined, keen, cutting, arguments of the man of science. The spectacle is similar to that of an army of Chinamen of old time, unarmed except with unmusical instruments, marching onward in battle array, with clashing of cymbals and rolling of drums, in the hopes of frightening a wav a squadron of British redcoats, armed with the bayonet and rifle. But page 4 not only has the Church on this occasion confined itself to puerile attempts at criticism. It has even stooped to call in question the action of a member of its own body—the Rev. Charles Strong—by whose instrumentality Judge Higinbotham had been prevailed upon to deliver his lecture. Mr. Strong is known throughout the Australian colonies as a man of liberal ideas and of culture, and as his action in the present case shows, a man desirous of initiating those reforms which he deems to be necessary in the Church, and which he thinks will tend to place it on a broader foundation than that on which it now rests. The resignation of Mr. Strong cannot fail to weaken the Church, and everything which tends to weaken the power of the Churches helps to strengthen the cause of Freethought. If the tendency of the Church is to excommunicate and cut adrift her strongest sons, how can she expect to preserve her ascendency when she has only the weak to trust to? I understand that although Mr. Strong has resigned his position as a member of the Melbourne Presbytery, and has vacated his church, that his congregation does not intend to desert him. This congregation is the wealthiest and the most influential in Melbourne, and if what is above stated be correct, what good may we expect from a man of his advanced views, untramelled by an hereditary governing body, presiding over a congregation enlightened enough to follow him in spite of his doubtful orthodoxy. I think if no other instance were possible, the case of the Rev. Charles Strong would be sufficient to show the good that Judge Higinbotham's lecture has already done; while the attitude of the clergy towards it, both in Victoria and in this Colony, clearly shows how telling were those of the Judge's criticisms that were applicable to that body. It is not because the Judge attacks the foundations of religion, that the clergy are up in arms against him, for this he most assuredly does not do; but because he disturbs the crumbling dust of Christian creeds and Christian Churches as at present constituted, because he indicates a reform which might be productive of good. And the Church is now, and ever has been, the arch-enemy of reform. Instead of being hostile to theology, the Judge in his lecture even attempts to prove the existence of God, the existence of one supreme Power possessing some human attributes, and to show that there is no necessarily real conflict between religion and modern science.