their order correct? If their verdict is in the negative, then in justice to themselves as well as to those who ask their decision, they will, I hope, not talk of the impossibility of a correct account so early in human history, but point out which statements are wrong, and wherein the order needs to be changed. Of course many important matters are not spoken of. The contrary would be impossible for lack of space; would be now for present scientists for lack of knowledge. The question is as to what the account says, not as to the things about which it is silent. Nor can the verdict be justly affected by what Moses may, or may not, have thought. It is more than probable, if he thought anything about it, that he supposed the plants and animals then living were the only ones that had ever lived on the earth, and that he believed many other things as incorrect as Milton's story of creation. With all this we have nothing to do; it is not what Moses thought, but what he wrote, that is under consideration. Do the statements that are on record describe, by chance or otherwise, actual occurrences and conditions, and is their order correct? If to these questions an affirmative answer is given-for a layman it is difficult to see how any other is possible-a problem of profoundest importance will remain. How was Moses able to make such statements, and to learn their proper order? His own errancy makes the inerrancy of what he wrote all the more perplexing. That he got no assistance from tradition is self-evident, for tradition could begin only where his narrative ends. It will be one of the problems of the nineteenth century, Why did learned and able men ever believe the Genesis account was derived from the Chaldean myths? but even if it was, the difficulty would only be pushed back a little, not solved. The latest-that Theologians have given two answers. voiced by Dr. Cocker-is that the story is poetical, unhistorical, and unchronological, and hence is in no degree remark able save for the sublimity of its style, and the nobleness and piety of its sentiments. If what we have heard of the teachings of astronomy, optics, chemistry, and geology, is reliable, this answer may be safely set aside. The older theologians said that Moses was in some way guided-they called it inspired-by a power above man, in writing and in ordering his statements. Many think so now. It remains for scientists to offer, if they can, a better answer, one more in accord with all the facts. In the meantime I would commend to their consideration Dr. Draper's canon in reference to a book claimed to be inspired. "Considering the asserted origin of this book, indirectly from God Himself, we might justly expect that it would bear to be tried by any standard that man can apply, and vindicate its truth and excellence in the ordeal of human criticism. . As years pass on, and human science becomes more exact, more comprehensive, its conclusions must be found in unison. therewith. When occasion arises, it should furnish us at least the foreshadowing of the great truths discovered by astronomy and geology, not offering for them the wild fictions of earlier ages, the inventions of the infancy of man.”1 This requires (1) that when human science was less exact and less comprehensive, its conclusions were not in unison. therewith. And such was the case, for it is only within a few decades that science has become sufficiently exact and comprehensive to permit such unison. It requires (2) that it should at least foreshadow the great truths discovered by astronomy and geology. We have seen that it more than foreshadows the following modern discoveries, basal facts whose truth is of the highest importance to science itself. I. The non-eternity of the heavens and earth. 2. Their unfinished condition at first, and consequent cosmic development. 3. The earth's primal condition, viz., infinitely tenuous; a profound deep; a fluid; void of all things; crucial facts of its once nebulous state. 4. Motion was due to a source outside of matter, a fact vital to the very existence of inertia. 5. Light was subsequent to motion. 6. Light became good light before the earth became opaque. 7. The waters now in the seas existed first as vapor and cloud. 8. The atmosphere was foul with poisonous gases after the waters had been deposited. 9. The continents were once under the waters. 10. The various ocean basins are really only one. II. The land and sea were essentially as now before modern vegetation appeared. 12. The appearance of the present or final species of plants before those of the animal kingdom. 13. It more than "foreshadows" the close proximity in time of land and sea completion to the first appearance of present vegetation, and its much greater distance from the first appearance of present species of birds and water animals, and still more from that of present land mammals. 14. It "foreshadows" the probability that the stars are of the same substance as the sun, and subject to the same laws. 15. It more than "foreshadows," it states that the air and water fauna of the present day came into existence in the same period. 16. After them, and last of all the brute creation, came present species of mammals. As for Dr. Draper's third requirement, it is hardly necessary to speak of it here, for there is nothing in this account which resembles "the wild fictions of earlier ages, the inventions of the infancy of man." I cannot see where the Hebrew Cosmogony fails to meet the requirements of Dr. Draper's supposedly fatal canon. The most remarkable thing in this account is not that its words describe events that really occurred, or conditions that really existed. It is the correctness of its order from first to last. A child might guess the names of a half-dozen of the kings of England, but to place them each in its order, would require actual knowledge either on his own part, or on that of some one who prompted him. His own knowledge of the pre-human history was, of necessity, nothing. It remains, then, to discover who prompted him. I leave others to draw such conclusion as the facts warrant, and to give a satisfactory explanation of the existence of this chapter. ARTICLE IV. CHRISTIANITY AND THE EVOLUTION OF A STATEMENT MADE ON SOLICITATION OF THE LATE GEORGE H. ROMANES. BY THE REV. JOHN T. GULICK, PH. D. [The author says of the following article, that it "was not written with any thought of publication, but simply as a reply by letter to a correspondent who asked 'On what lines of Christian evidence do you mainly rely?' and saying that his own belief had been shattered by what seemed to him overpowering assaults from the side of rationality." He is will ing, however, to have it published in the BIBLIOTHECA SACRA. The interest and value of it is greatly enhanced when it is known that the person who solicited the statement was the distinguished George H. Romanes, late editor of Nature (the principal scientific periodical of England), and that this reply, with the distinguished savant's personal acquaintance with Mr. Gulick, was among the prominent influences which led to Mr. Romanes' substantial return to the Christian faith. 1 It will naturally be asked, How did this intimate acquaintance spring up between Mr. Romanes, the recognized expounder of Darwinism after Darwin's death, and Mr. Gulick, the obscure missionary in foreign lands? The answer is a most comforting one to those whose lot is cast in apparent obscurity, and who are tempted to lament that their lamp is hid under a bushel; for, in what we are here to relate, there is a striking illustration, that, under the direction of an all-wise Providence, there is no such thing as obscurity. Like their Master, the true'servants of Christ, wherever they are, are doing a work which cannot be hid. Mr. Gulick was born of missionary parents, in the Sandwich Islands, and was for some time himself a missionary there, though later he has been assigned a field in Japan. While in the Sandwich Islands he occupied his spare time in making an exhaustive study of the land mollusks of the archipelago. As the immediate result of this work, carried on for many years, numerous articles were published by Mr. Gulick in the scientific journals, beginning with one entitled "The Variation of Species as related to their Geographical Distribution, illustrated by the Achatinel 1 See review of Romanes' Thoughts on Religion, in the Bibliotheca Sacra for July, 1895, pp. 572, 573. |