and man. Their ideas of "sin" and " sorrow and repentance," of a "moral sense," and of a universal, beneficent, and Holy Creator and Ruler,1 are obviously borrowed from the Bible, and the Christian system which it unfolds; and yet they professedly exclude both. Let them carry out their principles, and the legislation of Britain will pass into the confusion which "strikes" among the employed and the combinations of the employers are already beginning to create. What principles and what precepts can legislators in the Darwin, or Herbert Spencer, or Sir J. Lubbock school, bring to bear on contending masses of man, which can be of the least practical value, except those which are drawn from Scripture, and which inculcate with all the majesty of Divine authority, the obligations of self-denial and mutual love? Selfishness and utilitarianism in political economy will be inevitable results on the theory of Natural Selection, and the "survival of the fittest" will be the prevalence of Might only. Their teaching bears us back to the too long honoured plan,—

"That they should take [select] who have the power,

And they should keep who can."

Natural Selection can acknowledge no law, and Barbarism can create none. "Where there is no law, there is no transgression." This nation, if civilisation is to prevail in its highest and most enduring form, must revert with more than its old earnestness to the principles which the Word of God inculcates; for through these only, is that righteousness made powerful by which nations are permanently exalted.

1 See Sir J. Lubbock's "Prehistoric Times," p. 387, 2nd edition; and also Darwin's "Descent of Man," vol. ii., p. 395, where it is said "The idea of a universal and beneficent Creator of the Universe does not seem to arise in the mind of man until he has been elevated by long-continued culture." Culture has never given that idea apart from the Bible or tradition.

We cannot leave this subject without protesting against the notion which some appear to cherish, when they charge us,-sometimes by hints, and sometimes openly,—with being unfavourable to science, and fearing it. We are not. We love it. The Works of God in creation are a source of inexhaustible delight to every student. Next to the guidance of the Word of God, the lessons of His Works are the most impressive, animating, and enriching. The man's heart is not right, who is not elevated by the beauties, and even the very mysteries which Nature is ever spreading before him; but while conceding all this, we cannot accept as true the declaration that science can of itself make us "innocent" or more virtuous, and that "religion is impossible without it." The highest possible civilisation will combine them both. When they shine upon one another, and pour forth their treasures of light for man's enlargement and comfort, Science, Philosophy, Theology, and Religion, may be found mutually helpful. We resist their separation. We keep side by side the Works and the Word of God. The longer the humble student looks into the Word of God, the more imposing does the grandeur of its revelation become, and the more satisfying to the soul is its deepening confidence in its God. But there is this peculiarity in the marvellous volume, that while it impresses the philosopher, it interests the child. Within this record, while there are treasured up for us wondrous facts, tenderest sympathies and purest thoughts, profoundest philosophy, and mysterious movements of Divine government and of sovereign grace, into which angels love to look, there are also teachings so simple and so direct that a child's lip can lisp them, and a child's life embody them.

There may be true religion in the life of the young without much of the profounder theology on which many expend their strength. So, also, "pure and undefiled religion"

may exist without attainments in Natural Science. Men ignorant of the speculations of the philosopher and unable to comprehend the calculus of the mathematician, or to apply any of the tests of the scientist, may, notwithstanding, enjoy vigorous health, be nerved by the bracing breeze, and revel in the beauty of a summer's landscape or in the wild turmoil of a winter's storm; so, also, those who are thus ignorant may have prosperity and health of soul, and delight in the beauties of holiness, while they realise, in the Lord Jesus Christ, "the chief among ten thousand, and altogether lovely." Millions of our working population, ignorant of the most recent discoveries of science and applications in art, and undisturbed by conflicting Biblical criticisms or historic doubts, or the problems of speculative theology, may, notwithstanding all this, have that faith, and that experimental knowledge of the few simple doctrines which are related to sin, repentance, pardon, and peace, and be marked by that refinement of feeling, of language, and conduct, which Christianity alone imparts, and which of itself constitutes a civilisation incomparably nobler than that which science alone can ever evolve.

We join direct issue, also, with the theorists, as to progress. They claim it as their distinctive characteristic; but we do not yield it; while partially theirs, it is pre-eminently ours. Progress with us has a more comprehensive range of feeling and of faculty, and a grander close, while they are left behind in comparative gloom. That the affections be purified and exalted, the understanding enlightened, the will made submissive, and the imagination regulated, is the law of our new life. Our path, like that of the just, shall shine "more and more unto the perfect day." Sanctification is evolution in its highest form. Following on to know the Lord is the Christian's privilege, and to bear in love his brother's

burden, is to "fulfil the law of Christ"! Thus man may reach the summit of civilisation on earth, but progress hereafter shall be 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. May it be ours, in that new and heavenly sphere, to go on from stage to stage in perfect bliss, sounding depths and solving problems, seeing as we are seen, and reaching heights of thought, from which, when we look back on all the views that we deemed grandest here, we shall regard them but as child-experiences compared with 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 Canterbury.

WE

E 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 harmonise 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 Antiquity of Man; and one of the benefits which extending science has conferred, has been to compel interpreters now to look more closely to