Possibly, some good people who invited him to speak did not know it was loaded; and so his earnest words in praise of Darwin and the doctrine of evolution, occasionally came like unto a rumble of his own artificial thunder. "I speak what I think is truth; but of course, when I express ungracious facts I try to do so in what will be regarded as not a nasty manner," said Tyndall, thus using that pet English word in a rather pleasing way.
In his statement that the prayer of persistent effort is the only prayer that is ever answered, he met with a direct challenge at Oberlin. This gave rise to what, at the time, created quite a dust in the theological road, and evolved "The Tyndall Prayer Test."
Tyndall proposed that one hundred clergymen be delegated to pray for the patients in any certain ward of Bellevue Hospital. If, after a year's trial, there was a marked decrease in mortality in that ward, as compared with previous records, we might then conclude that prayer was efficacious, otherwise not.
One good clergyman in Pittsburgh offered publicly to debate "Darwinism" with Tyndall, but beyond a little scattered shrapnel of this sort, the lecture-tour was a great success. It netted just thirteen thousand dollars, the whole amount of which Tyndall generously donated as a fund to be used for the advancement of natural science in America.
In Eighteen Hundred Eighty-five, this fund had increased to thirty-two thousand dollars, and was divided into three equal parts and presented to Columbia, Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania. The fund was still further increased by others who followed Professor Tyndall's example, and Columbia, from her share of the Tyndall fund, I am told now supports two foreign scholarships for the benefit of students who show a special aptitude in scientific research. Professor James of Harvard once said: "The impetus to popular scientific study caused by Professor Tyndall's lectures in the United States was most helpful and fortunate. Speaking but for myself, I know I am a different man and a better man, for having heard and known John Tyndall."
When John Tyndall died, in the year Eighteen Hundred Ninety-three, Spencer wrote:
"It never occurred to Tyndall to ask what it was politic to say, but simply to ask what was true. The like has of late years been shown in his utterances concerning political matters--shown, it may be, with too great frankness. This extreme frankness was displayed also in private, and sometimes, perhaps, too much displayed; but every one must have the defects of his qualities. Where absolute sincerity exists, it is certain now and then to cause an expression of a feeling or opinion not adequately restrained.