Fides et Historia 51:2 (Summer/Fall 2019): 13-32 EDWARD L. YOUMANS AND THE "PEACEMAKERS" IN THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY James C. Ungureanu I n 1873 Edward Livingston Youmans (1821-1887), popular science writer, lecturer, and “science editor” of D. Appleton & Co., delivered an address at the famous Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York, entitled “The Religious Work of Science.”' In this speech, Youmans announced that “Science has long been regarded and is still widely believed to be the antagonist of religion.” But the time has come, he proclaimed, “when it will be accepted as its most powerful ally and best friend.” According to Youmans, science and religion are not mutually exclusive. “It is the office of science to explore the works of God; of religion to deal with the sentiments and emotions which go out toward the Divine Author of these works.” Science, Youmans asserted, was knowledge of the order of nature, “the laws by which that order is governed,” whereas religion was the “feeling entertained toward that Infinite Being, Power, or Cause, by whatever name called, of which all things are the manifestation, and which is regarded and worshipped as the Creator and Ruler of the Universe.” Men of science, he explained, devote their lives to exploring the works of God. They thus labor at discovering “divine” truths in nature. Such work is, therefore, “religious work.” As religious work, then, science has attained its “grandest achievement” in revealing the evolution or growth in religion. “It has recreated,” Youmans declared, “the universe in thought, and, by elevating and expanding man’s conceptions of the sphere of harmony and law, has exalted our reverential feelings toward the Infinite Power by which it is ordered and sustained.” Whenever conflict emerged, it oc- curred not between science and religion but between theology and science. Indeed, he asserted that theology has always been the “adversary of science.” Men of science have always faced pernicious “theologians who claimed to be authorized expounders of the divine policy.” These theologians insisted on a God who breaks and interrupts the natural order. But the “Almighty” has been vindicated by men of science— they have shown that the wisdom of God is “witnessed not in the violations but in the perfection of his works.” Youmans argued, in short, that “orthodoxy,” or dogmatism, must come to 'Peter Cooper (1791-1883) was a Unitarian inventor, industrialist, entrepreneur, presidential candidate, and philanthropist. His most comprehensive biography remains that of Edward C. Mack, Peter Cooper, Citi-zen o f New York (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1949). James C. Ungureanu is Honorary Post-Thesis Fellow in the School of Philosophical and Historical In - quiry at University of Queensland and Honorary Fellow in the Department of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of Science, Religion and the Protestant Tradition: The Origins o f Conflict (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019).