ing and giving in marriage"-which have no counterpart in the original narrative (P. 358-9). While insisting on the flow of inspiration through the whole of the Old Testament, the essayist does not admit its universality. Here, also, the new apologetic demands a partial flood: But does the inspiration of the recorder guarantee the exact historical truth of what he records? And, in matter of fact, can the record, with due regard to legitimate historical criticism, be pronounced true? Now, to the latter of these two questions (and they are quite distinct questions) we may reply that there is nothing to prevent our believing, as our faith strongly disposes us to believe, that the record from Abraham downward is, in substance, in the strict sense historical (p. 351). It would appear, therefore, that there is nothing to prevent our believing that the record, from Abraham upward, consists of stories in the strict sense unhistorical, and that the pre-Abrahamic narratives are mere moral and religious "types" and parables. I confess I soon lose my way when I try to follow those who walk delicately among "types" and allegories. A certain passion for clearness forces me to ask, bluntly, whether the writer means to say that Jesus did not believe the stories in question, or that he did? When Jesus spoke, as of a matter of fact, that "the Flood came and destroyed them all," did he believe that the Deluge really took place, or not? It seems to me that, as the narrative mentions Noah's wife, and his sons' wives, there is good scriptural warranty for the statement that the antediluvians married and were given in marriage; and I should have thought that their eating and drinking might be assumed by the firmest believer in the literal truth of the story. Moreover, I venture to ask what sort of value, as an illustration of God's methods of dealing with sin, has an account of an event that never happened? If no Flood swept the careless people away, how is the warning of more worth than the cry of "Wolf" when there is no wolf? If Jonah's three days' residence in the whale is not an "admitted reality," how could it "warrant belief" in the "coming resurrection?" If Lot's wife was not turned into a pillar of salt, the bidding those who turn back from the narrow path to "remember" it is, morally, about on a level with telling a naughty child that a bogy is coming to fetch it away. Suppose that a Conservative orator warns his hearers to beware of great political and social changes, lest they end, as in France, in the domination of a Robespierre; what becomes, not only of his argument, but of his veracity, if he, personally, does not believe that Robespierre existed and did the deeds attributed to him? Like all other attempts to reconcile the results of scientifically-conducted investigation with the demands of the outworn creeds of ecclesiasticism, the essay on Inspiration is just such a failure as must await mediation, when the mediator is unable properly to appreciate the weight of the evidence for the case of one of the two parties. The question of " Inspiration" really possesses no interest for those who have cast ecclesiasticism and all its works aside, and have no faith in any source of truth save that which is reached by the patient application of scientific methods. Theories of inspiration are speculations as to the means by which the authors of statements, in the Bible or elsewhere, have been led to say what they have said-and it assumes that natural agencies are insufficient for the purpose. I prefer to stop short of this problem, finding it more profitable to undertake the inquiry which naturally precedes it-namely, Are these statements true or false? If they are true, it may be worth while to go into the question of their supernatural generation; if they are false, it certainly is not worth mine. Now, not only do I hold it to be proven that the story of the Deluge is a pure fiction; but I have no hesitation in affirming the same thing of the story of the Creation.* Between these two lies the story of the creation of man and woman and their fall from primitive innocence, which is even more monstrously improbable than either of the other two, though, from the As for the at *So far as I know, the narrative of the Creation is not now held to be true, in the sense in which I have defined historical truth, by any of the reconcilers. tempts to stretch the Pentateuchal days into periods of thousands or millions of years, the verdict of the eminent Biblical scholar, Dr. Riehm (Der biblische Schöpfungsbericht, 1881, pp. 15, 16), on such pranks of " Auslegungskunst" should be final. Why do the reconcilers take Goethe's advice seriously?- "Im Auslegen seyd frisch und munter! nature of the case, it is not so easily capable of direct refutation. It can be demonstrated that the earth took longer than six days in the making, and that the Deluge, as described, is a physical impossibility; but there is no proving, especially to those who are perfect in the art of clos ing their ears to that which they do not wish to hear, that a snake did not speak, or that Eve was not made out of one of Adam's ribs. The compiler of Genesis, in its present form, evidently had a definite plan in his mind. His countrymen, like all other men, were doubtless curious to know how the world began; how men, and especially wicked men, came into being, and how existing nations and races arose among the descendants of one stock; and, finally, what was the history of their own particular tribe. They, like ourselves, desired to solve the four great problems of cosmogeny, anthropogeny, ethnogeny, and geneogeny. The Pentateuch furnishes the solutions which appeared satisfactory to its author. One of these, as we have seen, was borrowed from a Babylonian fable; and I know of no reason to suspect any different origin for the rest. Now, I would ask, is the story of the fabrication of Eve to be regarded as one of those preAbrahamic narratives, the historical truth of which is an open question, in face of the reference to it in a speech unhappily famous for the legal oppression to which it has been wrongfully forced to lend itself? Have ye not read, that he which made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; and the twain shall become one flesh? (Matt. xix. 5). If Divine authority is not here claimed for the twenty-fourth verse of the second chapter of Genesis, what is the value of language? And again, I ask, if one may play fast and loose with the story of the Fall as a 66 type" or allegory," what becomes of the foundation of Pauline theology? 66 For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive (1 Corinthians xv. 21, 22). If Adam may be held to be no more real a personage than Prometheus, and if the story of the Fall is merely an instruc tive " type," comparable to the profound Promethean mythus, what value has Paul's dialectic? While, therefore, every right-minded man must sympathize with the efforts of those theologians who have not been able altogether to close their ears to the still, small voice of reason, to escape from the fetters which ecclesiasticism has forged, the melancholy fact remains, that the position they have taken up is hopelessly untenable. It is raked alike by the oldfashioned artillery of the Churches and by the fatal weapons of precision with which the enfants perdus of the advancing forces of science are armed. They must surrender, or fall back into a more sheltered position. And it is possible that they may long find safety in such retreat. It is, indeed, probable that the propor tional number of those who will distinctly profess their belief in the transubstantiation of Lot's wife, and the anticipatory experience of submarine navigation by Jonah; in water standing fathoms deep on the side of a declivity without anything to hold it up; and in devils who enter swine, will not increase. But neither is there ground for much hope that the proportion of those who cast aside these fictions and adopt the consequence of that repudiation, are, for some generations, likely to constitute a majority. Our age is a day of compromises. The present and the near future seem given over to those happily, if curiously, constituted people who see as little difficulty in throwing aside any amount of post-Abrahamic Scriptural narrative, as the authors of Lux Mundi see in sacrificing the pre-Abrahamic stories; and, having distilled away every inconvenient matter of fact in Christian history, continue to pay divine honors to the residue. There really seems to be no reason why the next generation should not listen to a Bampton Lecture modelled upon that addressed to the last :— Time was-and that not very long ago-when all the relations of Biblical authors concerning the old world were received with a ready belief; and an unreasoning and uncritical faith accepted with equal satisfaction the narrative of the Captivity and the doings of Moses at the court of Pharaoh, the account of the Apostolic meeting in the Epistle to the Galatians, and of the fabrication of Eve. We can most of us remember when, in this country, the whole story of the Exodus, and even the legend of Jonah, were seriously placed before boys as history, and discoursed of in [Gunnar, forced into quarrels by Hallgerda his wife, is outlawed. The avengers of blood set on him in force and slay him after an heroic defence.] Up started Gunnar from his sleep, as a weird and woful sound 64 Rang through the silence." 'Twas thy cry, my trusty guardian hound! But wherefore then hath Gunnar foes, Gunnar the stout and strong, So wilful Gunnar sat at home. But his foemen gathered rede, For the fell deed, yet few thereout all scatheless should return. Wood wrought was Gunnar's hall; clinched boards from roof-ridge doubly sloped, Where wall met roof, there window-slits with screening shutters oped : Above the ceiling of the hall were lofts himself slept there, Hallgerda, and his mother-three. For his foes with coward care Learned his farm-folk were all afield, nor, ere the hound was still, Two score upon one man dared come to work their wicked will. Gunnar awoke at the dog's death-howl; but his foemen naught could hear, Nor know for sure were he within so Thorgrim drew anear To spy and list. He clomb the wall, and soon his kirtle red To Gunnar at a window showed. Forth lunged that weapon dread The bill, and smote him in the waist. Slipped Thorgrim's feet, his shield Unerring. Naught their might avails. Some seek th' outbuildings' screen, Find them, nor doth their errand speed. And so with efforts vain They back recoil. Then Gizur cried, "We must our onset make So again they fight with a steadier might and an onslaught tough and long, Upon the ledge of wall without Gunnar an arrow spied. 66 "An arrow of theirs! 'Twill shame them well," so spake he in his pride, Awhile Mord pondered, till he marked where lay upon the ground Some coiled ropes, wherewith the house in strengthening bands they bound Ofttimes; for joist and plank and beam such girding needed well, When whirling wind and furious storm drove sweeping down the fell. "These ropes,' quoth Mord," o'er the jutting ends of the bearing beams we'll cast, And to the sturdy rocks hard by the other ends make fast, Then with windlass strain and twist amain, until from off the hall Following perforce the tightened cord the yielding roof shall fall." All praise the rede, all lend their hands; and, ere the chief was ware, Off slid the roof, and to the skies the gaping lofts lay bare. Fierce then his foes on Gunnar swarm, not hidden as before, And climb and strike and hurl and shoot; but still his arrows pour This way and that, where'er they charge, and, though each shift they try, So doth the lordly boar at bay deal havoc 'mid the hounds, His lightning tusks full many a side gashing with gory wounds. "Waste we not lives, but burn the hall, I said, and say again," Quoth Mord; but Gizur, much in wrath, "Why thou what none are fain Just then upon the side roof leapt bold Thorbrand, Thorleik's son ; Gunnar with both hands clutched his bill, turned quick, and Thorbrand thrust Then round him close his vengeful foes, yet still he wards them well, Brave blow, fierce fight, rough ride, mad leap, wild feats by fiord and fell. Vengeance then burned in every heart, vengeance armed every hand; |