So, too, among multitudes of similar efforts abroad, we have
during centuries the fettering of professors at English and
Scotch universities by test oaths, subscriptions to articles,
and catechisms without number. In our own country we have had in
a vast multitude of denominational colleges, as the first
qualification for a professorship, not ability in the subject to
be taught, but fidelity to the particular shibboleth of the
denomination controlling the college or university.
Happily, in these days such attempts generally defeat
themselves. The supposed victim is generally made a man of mark
by persecution, and advanced to a higher and wider sphere of
usefulness. In withstanding the march of scientific truth, any
Conference, Synod, Board of Commissioners, Board of Trustees, or
Faculty, is but as a nest of field-mice in the path of a steam plough.
The harm done to religion in these attempts is far greater than
that done to science; for thereby suspicions are widely spread,
especially among open-minded young men, that the accepted
Christian system demands a concealment of truth, with the
persecution of honest investigators, and therefore must be
false.
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