Darwin himself, in his quiet country home at Down, was simply astonished at the rapid success of his own work. The first edition was published at the end of November 1859; it was exhausted almost immediately, and a second was got ready in hot haste by the beginning of January 1860. In less than six weeks the book had become famous, and Darwin found himself the centre of a European contest, waged with exceeding bitterness, over the truth or falsity of his wonderful volume. To the world at large Darwinism and evolution became at once synonymous terms. The same people who would entirely ascribe the Protestant Reformation to the account of Luther, and the inductive philosophy to the account of Bacon, also believed, in the simplicity of their hearts, that the whole vast evolutionary movement was due at bottom to that very insidious and dangerous book of Mr. Darwin's. The fact is, profound as had been the impulses in the evolutionary direction among men of science before Darwin's work appeared at all, immense as were the throes and pangs of labour throughout all Europe which preceded and accompanied its actual birth, when it came at last it came to the general world of unscientific readers with all the sudden vividness and novelty of a tremendous earthquake. Long predestined, it was yet wholly unexpected. Men at large had known nothing or next to nothing of this colossal but hidden revolutionary force which had been gathering head and energy for so many years unseen within the bowels of the earth; and now that its outer manifestation had actually burst upon them, they felt the solid ground of dogmatic security bodily giving way beneath their feet, and knew not where to turn in their extremity for support. Naturally, it was the theological interest that felt itself at first most forcibly assailed. The first few chapters of Genesis, or rather the belief in their scientific and historical character, already sapped by the revelations of geology, seemed to orthodox defenders to be fatally undermined if the Darwinian hypothesis were once to meet with general recognition. The first resource of menaced orthodoxy is always to deny the alleged facts; the second is to patch up tardily the feeble and hollow _modus vivendi_ of an artificial pact. On this occasion the orthodox acted strictly after their kind: but to their credit it should be added that they yielded gracefully in the long run to the unanimous voice of scientific opinion. Twenty-three years later, when all that was mortal of Charles Darwin was being borne with pomp and pageantry to its last resting-place in Westminster Abbey, enlightened orthodoxy, with generous oblivion, ratified a truce over the dead body of the great leader, and, outgrowing its original dread of naturalistic interpretations, accepted his theory without reserve as 'not necessarily hostile to the main fundamental truths of religion.' Let us render justice to the vanquished in a memorable struggle. Churchmen followed