scorn upon the father who allowed his son, or the State which allowed its
members, to grow up without knowing a pawn from a knight? Yet it is a very
plain and elementary truth that the life, the fortune, and the happiness
of every one of us, and more or less of those who are connected with us,
do depend upon our knowing something of the rules of a game infinitely
more difficult and complicated than chess. It is a game which has been
played for untold ages, every man and woman of us being one of the two
players in a game of his or her own. The chessboard is the world, the
pieces are the phenomena of the Universe, the rules of the game are what
we call the laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from
us. We know that his play is always fair, just, and patient. But also we
know to our cost that he never overlooks a mistake or makes the smallest
allowance for ignorance. To the man who plays well the highest stakes are
paid, with that sort of overflowing generosity which with the strong shows
delight in strength. And one who plays ill is checkmated--without haste,
but without remorse."

I have elsewhere endeavored to show the purifying and ennobling influence
of science upon religion; how it has assisted, if indeed it may not claim
the main share, in sweeping away the dark superstitions, the degrading
belief in sorcery and witchcraft, and the cruel, however well-intentioned,
intolerance which embittered the Christian world almost from the very days
of the Apostles themselves. In this she has surely performed no mean
service to religion itself. As Canon Fremantle has well and justly said,
men of science, and not the clergy only, are ministers of religion.

Again, the national necessity for scientific education is imperative. We
are apt to forget how much we owe to science, because so many of its
wonderful gifts have become familiar parts of our everyday life, that
their very value makes us forget their origin. At the recent celebration