not 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. Wait patiently, while you work persistently, for the solution of difficulties which may be continuing to press upon you. The experience of the past is an encouragement for the future. The sciences have again and again become their own interpreter, and ejected erroneous inferences from their teachings. Many examples might be given. Take one or two. Human skeletons were found in what seemed old limestone, on the north-east coast of the mainland of Guadaloupe, and in solid calcareous tufa near Santa, in Peru; and after very 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 Indian tribes, and the 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 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 many similar facts. Christian apologists have often egregiously erred, not only in hastily accepting statements as to supposed facts, but in admitting the validity of the reasoning which has been hastily based 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 mis-stated, have drawn many of the 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 them has unexpectedly evanished in the fuller light of science. The 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 up 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 in 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 young men. 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 which 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 sub

jected 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, you should retain the fact in science and also the relative statement in Scripture, assured that in due time the solution will come.

4. Neither accept nor offer apologies for the Bible. It has, of late, become common on the part of those who are alarmed by the temporary triumphs which scientific investigation has given to those who are avowedly hostile to 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 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 just 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 all; 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 human reason; they may be above, but they cannot be opposed to it.

5. Akin to an easy escape from difficulties, through apologies for the Bible, is the tendency to glide into conclusions directly hostile. The prevailing activity of the age

is so unfavourable to leisurely investigations, as to facilitate the subtle advances of error. While some writers are as preeminently gifted, and as distinguished in the different departments of learning, as those of any preceding age; and while their reasonings and their conclusions are borne by the daily or the serial press to every man's door, multitudes think and decide by substitute. They want leisure, and trust to others. Rapidity of locomotion, the chief physical feature of our time, betokens also intellectual tendencies. Men read cursorily and decide rapidly. The daily newspaper is making book-study rarer than hitherto. It is felt in ten thousand instances to be distasteful or difficult. The subtle influence of the daily newspaper is telling on our thoughtfulness. We really seem to be approaching the fulfilment of Lamartine's prediction-" Before this century shall have run out, journalism will be the whole press, the whole of human thought. Thought will not have had time to ripen,-to accommodate itself into the form of a book. The book will arrive too late; the only book possible soon, will be a newspaper."

As one result of this process, truth and error are often imperceptibly commingled. So swift is the transition from one fact and inference to another, that truth and error, like different colours blent into one by rapid motion, become so much alike that few can separate them. Thus with every advance of truth, error is wafted forward. The seeds of future tares and wheat are being profusely scattered. It cannot be denied, that while to almost every man's door are daily wafted accurate records of passing history, of the discoveries of science, of the triumphs of art, and of the generalisations of philosophy, the same messengers no less sedulously exhibit, now faintly and now in the strongest light, every difficulty connected with the Bible, both real

and imaginary, the boldest objections of historic criticism, the theories of speculative philosophy, the apparent contradictions of science and Scripture, and the saddening conflicts of professing Christians. The constant diffusion of such influences does, in the long run, tell not only on less active minds, but on the most energetic, and it renders easier of acceptance every erroneous conclusion.

But this incessant activity is a symptom of health. augurs good. Rightly directed, it may strengthen character while it developes mental power, and gives a more exquisite appreciation of the just and true. But remember that everything depends on this rightness of direction; and to secure this, unfailing caution is required. The wind and tide. which, rightly used, would hasten the voyager to his harbour, may, if unheeded, strand him on an unexpected shore; and those subtle forces, and those under currents, which should have aided in guiding you to a satisfying intellectual and moral repose, may, through the thoughtlessness or the indolence that at the outset disregarded a slight divergence from the truth, which was almost but not altogether imperceptible, destroy your happiness through the shipwreck and the ultimate abandonment of the Christian faith.

6. Another common tendency in the wrong direction claims your attention. It manifests itself in repugnance to controversy or discussion in every form. Many shrink from it as unseemly, and seek escape from it in solitude or study. While peace is in itself desirable, it is not always attainable. You cannot escape conflict by letting go the Bible; nor can you traverse any of the fields of science without entanglement in the intellectual struggles of disputants whose reasonings have sometimes but little of the calmness of philosophy. Nor is this to be regretted. The repose of meditation is not so bracing as the discipline of occasional contest for the truth.