The Rev. Canon Brock (President) then read a long & exhaustive paper on “God and Science” or modern science in its relationship to religion”

In the course of his remarks the author said it was useless to ignore the advancement of modern science in its bearing upon religious belief & useless to endeavors to maintain that science & religion might & ought to be kept entirely apart for it was impossible that scripture, which was a revelation from God, could , when rightly interpreted, be at variance with the works of the divine hand. The antag0nism between science and religion was purely imaginary.

The author the touched upon the modern theory of forces & evolution in their relation to a personal God. Two principal forces were referred to- the correlation & conservation of force. He then pointed out the distinction between matter & mind, between force & life, We must “regard life, as transcending mere matter & its forces, and as a distinct gift of an all-wise omnipotence.

Passing on to the modern theory of evolution he said it had been thus defined; “By evolution we mean the theory according to which all life on our globe is derived in a continuous and unbroken series by natural generation from original organisms”. This theory left them & the whole universe to the sport of chance & was fatal to any real belief in a personal & ever present God. But there was a theory of evolution which they might hold & still retain a living faith in a personal God.

Many leading men of science believed that evolution was the method which the Almighty had chosen to act upon in bringing on the scene the successive organisms of nature. Revealed religion had everything to gain from the advances of science. A real talisman against skepticism  was to be found in a stronger personal faith in our divine god.