continuous, development of character in eternity may be anticipated. Capacity will be enlarged. "It doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him." The light of Scripture, blending with that of Science, not only to enlarge our conceptions, but to cheer and guide us on our earthly pilgrimage, shines beyond the gloom of death into the distant future, and reveals intuitional attainment. By its light we discover unfailing advancement. Imposed limit there is none. Growth in knowledge will never cease. It may be ours, in that new and heavenly sphere, to rise from stage to stage in perfect bliss, sounding depth and solving problem, seeing as we are seen, and reaching heights of thought, from which, when we look back on all that we deemed grandest here, we shall regard them but as child-experiences in the comprehensiveness and magnificence of those attainments which eternity shall evolve and sustain.

CHAPTER XI.

THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN-THE BIBLE CHRONOLOGY—THE CHRONOLOGY OF GEOLOGISTS.

And while the student of nature goes on honestly, patiently, diffidently, observing and storing up his observations, and carrying his reasonings unflinchingly to their legitimate conclusions, convinced that it would be treason to the majesty at once of science and of religion, if he sought to help either by swerving ever so little from the straight rule of truth; yet he does all this under a reverent sense of responsibility, fostered and deepened by his religious convictions.-THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTER

BURY.

WE have reached another and higher stage, but only to be beset by new difficulties. Such questions are pressed upon us as, When was Man created? Through what periods has his history passed? Does the Bible chronology harmonize with those long ages through which, according to some distinguished geologists and archæologists, Man has existed?

Before we enter on the discussion of the facts and inferences which they adduce, it is indispensable that we determine what the Bible teaches on this subject, and what, consequently, we are really bound to defend.

I. THE BIBLE CHRONOLOGY, AND ITS TEACHING AS TO THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN.

Much confusion and much unnecessary alarm have arisen from a disregard, on the part of Christian apologists, of what the Bible does teach concerning the Anti

quity of Man; and one of the benefits which extending science has conferred, has been to compel interpreters to look more closely to the Scriptures, and to remove every incrustation with which their predecessors may have encumbered the text.

We have no definite Bible chronology. No texts give the date of either the Creation of Man or of the Deluge; accordingly the period between them is variously estimated. In the Hebrew chronology, for example, it is 1,656 years; in the Samaritan, 1,307; in the Septuagint, 2,262; and in Josephus, 2,256. The common conclusion that 6,000 years make up man's history, cannot be positively established. While the chronology deduced from the Hebrew gives 4,000 years between Adam and Jesus. Christ, that of the Septuagint extends man's history by 1,500 years, making the period of his existence 5,532 years; and some increase this difference by 120 years more. We have to deal with the question, it is true, only in relation to the history of man since the Deluge, but the same elasticity is apparent in the chronology after the flood as before it. As part of the Scripture genealogies is definite and part indefinite, we have no means of determining satisfactorily what is the length of man's history; or, in other words, the antiquity of the race. The consequence is, that, apart altogether from recent geological disquisitions, different dates and periods have been stated and resolutely defended. Ussher, Hales, Petavius, Jackson, Poole, and Bunsen, for example, have published widely varying results. By a close examination of the separate genealogical tables, we are taught

other than purely historical truths, and we may well pause before concluding that they are meant merely as a basis for any chronological system whatever.* While many systems have been advocated in avowed and irreconcilable opposition to the Bible, it is evident that the differences, even among those who are devout believers in its reliableness, are such that no sane man can dogmatize as to its chronology. "The extreme uncertainty," says Dr. Hodge, "attending all attempts to determine the chronology of the Bible, is sufficiently evinced by the fact that one hundred and eighty different calculations have been made by Jewish and Christian authors, of the length of the period between Adam and Christ. The longest of them make it six thousand, nine hundred and eighty-four, and the shortest, three thousand, four hundred and eighty-three years. Under these circumstances, it is very clear that the friends of the Bible have no occasion for uneasiness. If the facts of science or of history should ultimately make it necessary to admit that eight or ten thousand years have elapsed since the creation of man, there is nothing in the Bible in the way of such concession. The Scriptures do not teach us how long men have existed on the earth. Their tables of genealogy were intended to prove that Christ was the Son of David and of the Seed of Abraham, and not how many years have elapsed between the creation and the advent." Although eight or ten thousand years are

* See an instructive article, Does Scripture settle the Antiquity of Man? in the "British and Foreign Evangelical Review," by Rev. Malcolm White, M. A. January, 1872.

"Systematic Theology," vol. 2, p. 41. By Charles Hodge, D. D.

insignificant, compared with the long periods over which geologists carry the history of man, they may prove ultimately more than sufficient to cover the facts alike of science and of history. But while it is acknowledged that we have no rigid chronological system in the Bible on which to fall back, that admission is widely different from accepting the conclusions of the geologist, and attempting to force the Bible into harmony with them. Let us now examine

II. THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE GEOLOGISTS.

Of all the sciences, geology is, in many respects, the most indefinite. The data are uncertain, and conclusions as to TIME are generally so vague as to be almost useless. The problems of the geologist, like those of the mechanic, depend for their solution on the elements of Force and Time. Let force be increased, and time may be lessened; but let time be prolonged, and a correspondingly lessened force will produce the same result as a greater force in shorter time. The geologist, therefore, in looking only to results, may make the time long or short which was necessary to produce certain effects, according as he makes the conditions of long time or of great force predominate.

Looking into the immeasurable Past, he endeavors to break it into indefinite sections by such terms as "eras," "epochs," and "cycles ;" and he has introduced a vague chronology by speaking of TIME as pre-geological, geological, and historical. That remote period which starts on its course backward from the date of the first fossil, is