Whether the belief that electricity is life would be inconsistent with the Christian faith or not, it is clear that when an infidel preacher asserts that Faraday held such an opinion, his assertion will influence few who are not already disposed to Materialism. Far more damaging is it to the cause of religion when her ministers repeat the assumption of the infidel that those who study the truths of nature are particularly prone to disbelieve. Yet such statements have been made, even with reference to Faraday. I have it on the best authority that one of the leading clergymen of the day, preaching on a special occasion from Peter's words, "The elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up," spoke in antagonism to scientific men, alluding to Faraday by name, and to his computation of the tremendous electrical forces that would be produced by sundering the elements of one drop of water. "They shall be confuted by their own element--fire," added the preacher, careless of the conclusion which his audience might legitimately draw from such a two-edged argument. The accuser of the men of science was much astonished when told after his sermon, by a brother clergyman, that Faraday and other eminent physicists of the day were believers in a divine revelation. It may be doubted whether Faraday ever tried to form a definite idea of the relation in which the physical forces stand to the Supreme Intelligence, as Newton did, or his own friend Sir John Herschel; nor did he consider it part of his duty as a lecturer to look beyond the natural laws he was describing. His practice in this respect has been well described by the Rev. Professor Pritchard:[17]--"This great and good man never obtruded the strength of his faith upon those whom he publicly addressed; upon principle he was habitually reticent on such topics, because he believed they were ill suited for the ordinary assemblages of men. Yet on more than one occasion when he had been discoursing on some of the magnificent pre-arrangements of Divine Providence so lavishly scattered in nature, I have seen him struggle to repress the emotion which was visibly striving for utterance; and then, at the last, with one single far-reaching word, he would just hint at his meaning rather than express it. On such occasions he only who had ears to hear, could hear."