And there is one other unmistakable evidence that the stream of tendency is in our direction. I allude to the predominant influence in our age of science, not merely physical, but science in all its departments. It is welcome to us as the very handwriting of the Eternal, as a revelation of the workings of the Infinite Mind. Every new discovery is welcomed by us as a further revelation of the Being who "is for ever reason". But to the "little systems" science can only be welcome in so far as it fits in with the petty scale upon which their theologies and theosophies have constructed the universe. At first, everything is passionately denied, a cry of horror goes up in the land that science is engaged in an attempt to dethrone the God of their theology. And then a few years elapse, and for very shame's sake they set about explaining how that the "God of knowledge" [1] has much in common with their theosophical Deity, and that by a dexterous manipulation of infallible texts and articles of religion, a _modus vivendi_ may be arranged between the two. This is the kind of dialectic that goes on at every Church Congress--men who know in their hearts that the "inspired" anthropology of the Bible is contradicted, fully, flatly, irreconcilably, by the undeniable facts discovered by science, continue to mystify themselves and their hearers alike by all the pleadings, glosses, evasions and refinements at their command, with a view to what they call a "reconciliation between science and religion". Science and religion, we protest, need no reconciliation, for they never were at war. Not religion, but pseudo-philosophy and so-called theology--this it is to which science is an implacable and irreconcilable foe. And she will never cease from her determined opposition until the ecclesiastical idol vacates the very last niche it occupies in its "chapel," clothes itself with the white robe of contrition, and sits humbly upon the stool of repentance awaiting a scientific absolution. For us, such reconciliation is an unmeaning phrase. We never professed to follow aught but reason's kindly light, for that we _know_ to be the Divine Light in us. And, therefore, all that comes to us in reason's name, comes accredited, as though from the innermost court of the Great Presence itself. We discard nothing but what offends reason and its ascertained laws; we bring everything before its bar. Science is to us a Divine revelation, its teachings are among our inspired literature. No need therefore of reconciliation between religion and science when we resolve both, as in a final synthesis, into the root fact of all this wondrous universe--eternal reason. And because of this, a faith such as ours is part of the order of imperishable realities, for the kingdom of reason, like the throne of the Eternal, is for ever and ever. [1] _Deus Scientiarum Dominus._ XVII. "THE OVER-SOUL."