all will they consent to be defiled with the mire or exposed to the perils of religious strife. This plea is false in fact, as it is futile in philosophy. It is in fact false for literary and philosophical controversies have been neither few in number nor wanting in a keen and rancorous spirit. And, admitting that religious contentions have been still more rancorous and embittered, it is only what might reasonably be expected, on account of the higher interests at stake. The plea is, moreover, worthless on philosophicial principles: for it eviscerates the distinction between truth and error of all meaning and value. Better not to admit the distinction at all, than, having admitted it in one instance, deny it in another; or, what is worse, depreciate its significance even to thought, and that too in the most important of its applications. All argument and all effort are for ever at an end, unless truth-yea, all truth-be precious; so precious, that in the legitimate pursuit of it we may and ought to put forth our utmost strength; and in defence of it, when found, incur the utmost hazard.' It is unworthy of any Christian scientist to be discouraged by apparently insurmountable obstacles. The boldest assertions and the most plausible reasonings need not disturb the Bible student. Difficulties seemingly insuperable have, in the past, suddenly yielded to unexpected discoveries; and every science, we may rest assured, will hereafter gain strength enough and light enough to purify its own temple and be its own interpreter. The past may be held to be prophetic of future "Christian Errors, Infidel Arguments," p. 97. solutions; and the sciences will be found not only correcting the mistakes and the arrogance of many of their students, but rebuking the too hasty concessions of Christian apologists, and either directly or indirectly revealing, at the same time, the impressiveness and the majesty of Scripture truth. CHAPTER II. THE FIRST CHAPTER OF GENESIS-ITS DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS AS A HISTORY ORIGINATION OF The archetype of science is the universe, and it is in the disclosure of its successive parts that science advances from step to step; not properly by raising any new architecture of its own, but rather unveiling by degrees an architecture as old as creation. The laborers in philosophy create nothing, but only bring out into exhibition that which was before created.-CHALMERS. As an historical record, the first chapter of Genesis is without a compeer. It is unapproached. Its first announcements distinguish the Bible from all other books. Its simplicity, its directness of statement, its boldness of conception, its subdued grandeur, are throughout conspicuous. "The historical events described," says Delitzsch, "contain a rich treasury of speculative thoughts and poetical glory, but they themselves are free from the influence of human invention and human philosophizing." The record begins where the investigations of natural science cease, and this very peculiarity has drawn upon the Bible the fiercest assaults. Every statement has been in turn sifted, rejected, and vindicated; and one of the fairest tests which at the very outset we can apply, is carefully to compare the Bible account of creation and of the preparation of the earth for man, with those parallel histories by which heathen nations have hitherto been guided. Reserving for future consideration the mutual relations of its more definite statements, let us therefore at once place this portion of Scripture history side by side with the best accounts which antiquity and modern history can furnish. Their incongruities are so apparent as to be ludicrous. If we carefully examine the Chaldean, the Phoenician, and the Egyptian, as illustrative of ancient cosmogonies, and the varied delineations and beliefs of Northern Europe and India as illustrative of accepted records in more recent times, we cannot fail to recognize the wonderful preeminence of the Bible. I. HEATHEN HISTORIES OF CREATION COMPARED WITH THE BIBLE RECORD. I. In the Chaldean myth, the "All" is represented as consisting of darkness and water, filled with monstrous creatures of profound form, and governed by a woman, whose name, Homoroka, signifies ocean. This woman was cut into two halves by Bel, the supreme deity: the one half formed the earth, the other heaven. Bel thereafter cut off his own head, and from the drops of his blood men were formed. 2. In the Phoenician cosmogony, the beginning of the "All" was a dark windy air, a turbid eternal chaos. By the union of the spirit with the "All," or universe, slime was formed, from which every seed of creation was educed. The heavens were made in the form of an egg, from which sprang sun, moon, and stars, and constellations. By the meeting of the earth and the sea, winds arose, with clouds and rain, lightning and thunder. The noise of the tempests aroused sensitive beings, and henceforth living creatures, male and female, moved in the sea and on the earth. 3. The Egyptians had several myths, the chief of which was that the heaven and earth were at first commingled, but afterwards the elements began to separate. "The fiery particles, owing to their levity, rose to the upper regions; the muddy and turbid matter, after it had been incorporated with the humid, subsided by its own. weight. By continued motion, the watery particles separated and became the sea, the more solid constituted the dry land. Warmed and fecundated by the sun, the earth, still soft, produced different kinds of creatures, which, according as the fiery, watery, or earthy matter predominated in their constitution, became inhabitants of the sky, the water, or the land." Similar absurdities prevail in the myths of Greece and Etruria.* The following quotation from the laws of Menu is illustrative of the strange beliefs of millions in India at the present day, who regard these laws as a revelation from Brahma: "This universe existed only in darkness, imperceptible, undefinable, undiscoverable by reason-undiscovered, as if it were wholly immersed in sleep. There, the selfexisting power, himself undiscovered, but making this world discernible with fire-elements and other principles, appeared with undiminished glory, dispelling the gloom.... He having willed to produce various beings from his own substance, first, with a thought, created * See "Commentary on the Pentateuch," by Keil and Delitzsch, vol. I., pp. 38-40; and "Creation and the Fall," by the Rev. D. MacDonald, pp. 48-60. |