which it professes to be, and which we hold it is, the ordinary and the extraordinary, the natural and the supernatural, must be associated in its character and history. What is the warrant which men of science adduce for repudiating the supernatural while they accept the natural? and by what reasoning does the Christian apologist attempt to preserve their connection? Is there no valid evidence around us in the contrasts of barbarism and civilization, as well as in the histories of nations in their relation to prophecy? and are there no facts in the strangely revolutionized lives of thousands in the Christian church, which proclaim the singular moral force of the Word of God?

Assuming that many are willing to follow such a course of study as we have sketched, either to remove doubts which may be lingering in their own mind, or to aid some brother in his struggle to win the repose which they have gained, we shall, at the outset, offer some suggestions as to the spirit and the method by which their investigations should be characterized. It is of much importance to know, in the first place, what is, and what is not yet, within our reach.

1. We are not entitled to assume the possibility, in the present state of our knowledge, of demonstrating a perfect agreement between science and Scripture, or rather between the inferences of the philosopher and the interpretations of the theologian. Much remains to be ascertained before that result can be realized. The natural sciences are confessedly incomplete; some of them are only in their infancy, and can teach us little. Many

years may pass before they can be brought into perfect accord with the Bible. As the facts of natural science have not been all ascertained and classified, as its laws have not been all recognized, and as the inferences of today may be modified by the discoveries of to-morrow, it is absurd to be demanding immediate evidence of a perfect agreement between Scripture and science. Apparent contradictions are, at the present stage, unavoidable. There must first be an exact and exhaustive examination of all those points at which the Scriptures and the sciences touch each other; for so long as a single fact or a single law remains unknown, some important or essential truth, intimately related to the Bible, may be concealed.

While the natural sciences continue incomplete, natural theology must necessarily have an imperfect foundation. As confessedly dependent on what is incomplete, natural theology can have neither the comprehensiveness nor the definiteness which characterizes supernatural theology, as dependent on what is now complete and unvarying. We cannot force the legitimate yet somewhat incoherent teachings of the one book-the works of God-of which but a few leaves have been separated, scanned, and paged, into perfect harmony with the teachings of the other book-the Word of God-whose revelation of truth has been finished, accredited, and closed.

2. It becomes us to wait patiently, while we work persistently, for the solution of difficulties which may be continuing to press upon us. The experience of the past is an encouragement for the future. The sciences have again and again become their own interpreter, and reject

ed erroneous inferences. Many examples might be given, but one or two may in the meantime suffice. Human skeletons were found in what seemed old limestone, on the northeast coast of the mainland of Guadaloupe; and after bold attacks on the Bible, which were met by some very weak and irregular defences, it was ascertained that the whole was a mistake-that the limestone was of very recent formation, that the skeletons were of well-known Indian tribes, and agitation ceased. A similar commotion was raised when the supposed imprints of human feet on limestone had been figured and described in the "American Journal of Science," and Christians met strange infidel hypotheses by very feeble assertions, until Dr. Dale Owen proved the imprints to have been sculptured by an Indian tribe. Thereafter, for a season, the scientific inquirer and the theological student prosecuted their respective investigations in peace.

There are important lessons for us in these, and in many similar facts. Christian apologists have often egregiously erred, not only in hastily accepting statements regarding supposed facts, but in admitting the validity of the reasoning which has been eagerly founded on them, and in making a fruitless attempt to twist Scripture into harmony with what science itself has subsequently disowned. Facts ill-observed, and afterwards misstated, have drawn many of our best and most candid students into unnecessary collision with Biblical critics; and, after much heat in controversy, and the waste on both sides of much intellectual energy, the obstacle lying between

ence.

them has unexpectedly vanished in the fuller light of sciThe evil to be deplored is, that after the errors have disappeared their influence remains. The imprint often lingers long after the counterfeit die has been broken.

3. There is a constant tendency on the part of discoverers to invest new facts with a fictitious interest, and those who are hostile to the Bible eagerly parade them for the discomfiture of Christians. Every fact is to be welcomed, but it is to be treasured only that it may be adjusted to other facts, and become in part the foundation of a new truth. Isolated and unexplained facts have been too often unceremoniously dragged into court to give testimony against some Scripture statement, and have been too easily held sufficient to push aside those accumulated evidences to its truth which history or science, or both, had indisputably established. It is not, indeed, surprising that the faith of many has failed, when they have observed the too ready acquiescence of prominent Christian writers in theories which necessitate the abandonment of some of the impregnable fortresses that have been raised by exact scholarship around those portions of Scripture which had been longest exposed to the fiercest assaults. Were this method common, no permanent foundation could be laid, and progress in any science would be impossible. Is it not absurd to be displacing corner-stones, and disowning, at random, first principles? No system of philosophy, no science-not even mathematical, the exactest and in one sense the most permanent of all the sciences-could have any weight or make

the least progress, if subjected to such changes in both its principles and their applications, as have marked the history of Bible assaults, concessions, and defences. When facts which are utterly inexplicable are presented, we should retain the fact in science and also the relative statement in Scripture, assured that in due time the needed solution will come to harmonize them.

4. To accept or offer apologies for the Bible indicates weakness. It has, of late, become common on the part of those who are alarmed by the temporary triumphs which scientific investigation has given the avowed enemies of the Bible, to demand that its propositions be altogether dissociated from both science and philosophy, on the plea that the Bible was not given to teach either the one or the other. The proposal is plausible, but it is really unnecessary; for although not given to teach physical science, the Bible cannot contradict either its facts or its legitimate inferences. The Word of God cannot be regarded as by any possibility contradicting the lessons of his works. Like every other book, the Bible must bear all the light that can fall on its pages; and it must not only stand the tests of criticism and history, but vindicate all its claims as the "more sure Word of Prophecy." Otherwise, appeals for leniency are profitless. True, in its highest connections, the Bible is unapproachable by other books; it is easily distinguishable from them; yet in its human relations it must submit to all the ordinary appliances of scholarship. No apologies can justify a single error in either its science or its history, and its propositions are obviously inadmissible if they contradict