Now this unseemly heat and this unbecoming spirit and temper may be cloaked under a zeal for religion. It may be said that we are to 'contend earnestly for the faith.' We answer, verily, but never with the weapons of malice and wickedness. This mode of treating science, if persisted in, must end only in chagrin and defeat to the parties employing it, for the simple reason that it does violence to reason, nature, and all the laws of man's being. Science cannot be turned aside in her strenuous and ever-successful progress by any such impediments thrown in her way. The clear, calm, cogent facts and inferences of the philosopher cannot be met successfully by the half-suppressed shriek of the mere Biblicist. And it must be at once perceived that any such treatment of science, any such half-concealed fear of the progress of science, any such unfair and spiteful bearing toward scientific men, argues a secret distrust of the system or doctrine which is assumed to be held and professedly defended. These petulant and much disturbed editors and divines must be really afraid that the ground is being undermined beneath their feet. If a man _really believes_ the inspiration and infallibility of the Scriptures, he may feel perfectly at ease as to any facts present or past in the wide universe. But if he is not so sure of them, and wishes, for some personal or interested motive, to believe them, he will be easily disturbed by anything which seems to militate against them. If the Scriptures are true, they can never be shown to be false--if they are not true, we ought not to wish to believe them. The spirit and temper above indicated are wholly out of harmony with the general spirit of Protestant Christianity. It has ever been the boast of Protestantism that it seeks the light, that it seeks discussion, that it asserts the right of private judgment, that it courts investigation, and is willing to expose all its claims to the broad light of day. It claims to be an everlasting protest against priestly tyranny, and monkish authority, and abject spiritual servitude in the laity. Strange, if in this new phase of its history it should fail to be true to itself!