For the invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made.—Romans I, 20.

There is a Roman road going from Cambridge towards the south-west; six miles out of Cambridge it passes between the villages of Harlton and Little Eversden, climbs a hill and drops down on the other side to the Ermine Street. A hill, a little over two hundred feet high, is usually an insignificant feature, but in Cambridgeshire, with its great expanses of open fields, things appear different; and one has only to ascend a mere few feet up the slope to command the whole of the plain towards Cambridge, with the chapels of King’s and St. John’s Colleges on the horizon. The view is of great charm; its predominant features are breadth, serenity, quietness and repose; there is just the plain of large fields, broken by the clumps of trees surrounding a few villages, with church towers rising from their midst, and the road stretching out between low hedges. There are many times when the view is not only charming but beautiful; one such time is on an autumn evening when it is growing dark, with a clear sky overhead and a white-grey mist creeping over the fields. Such an evening was Tuesday November the fourth, of last year. I remember it vividly, for I was out on the low hillside until five o’clock.

Perhaps I should not have remembered the day so exactly but for the fact that Sir James Jeans was to deliver the Rede Lecture at half-past five.