THE CAUSE OF RELIGION

"A man who wishes to serve the cause of religion ought to hesitate long before he stakes the truth of religion on the event of a controversy respecting events in the physical world. For a time he may succeed in making a theory which he dislikes unpopularby persuading the public that it contradicts the Scriptures and is inconsistent with the attributes of the Deity. But, if at last an overwhelming force of evidence proves this maligned theory to betrue, what is the effect of the arguments by which the objector has attempted to prove that it is irreconciliable with natural and revealed religion? Merely this, to make men infidels. Like the Israelites, in their battle with the Philistines, he has presumptuously and without warrant brought down the ark of God into the camp as a means of ensuring victory :-- and the consequence of this profanation is that, when the battle is lost, the ark is taken."
Thomas Babington Macaulay