above its temple gates? Is their number after all so great? or will they once compare with the highpriests of the temple? Shall we find among them a Galileo, a Kepler, a Bacon, a Newton?-those intellectual giants, taller by the shoulders than any who are living now-men of inventive genius, possessed of more than the merely logical or mathematical faculty, being gifted besides with those penetrative and sublime intuitions which come nearest to the divine. Yet these men believed the Bible, and were not ashamed to confess their obligations to it. Too many of our philosophers have been infidels; but Philosophy herself, in the person of these her most gifted sons, has set her seal to the inspiration of the Scriptures.

The infidel will have it that the Bible has obstructed true science, by teaching a science which is false. We simply deny it. Whenever such an assertion has been made, and an instance specified, one of two results has happened—either the alleged instance has been satisfactorily disposed of, or it has been shown to be one of those residual difficulties which must lie over till science further advances, being in the mean while manifestly not an actual, but only an apparent discrepancy. The history of modern science abundantly carries us out in making this affirmation. The time was when it was in fashion to trump up a whole host of Scriptural inaccuracies in geography, chronology, and astronomy. But no infidel of any intelligence will be

found bold enough to press those objections now. It is mainly on the field of paleontology the battle is now being fought, and we have no misgivings as to the result. The facts of the science itself, in so far as they conflict with the Mosaic account of creation, are but partially investigated; some of them but ill generalized, and many of them not yet verified. Physical theories have been woven out of very slender materials. Cosmogonies have been more hurriedly gotten up than there were scientific data with which to build them. We can calmly wait the advance of science, assured that, as it advances, it will do what it has done before-supply the answer to its own objections; while in the mean time it is gratifying to know, that step by step, the friends alike of Scripture and science have walked abreast of the infidel, furnishing methods of conciliation, at every stage of the controversy, between the geologic and the Mosaic cosmogonies. And one thing the infidel himself must admit, that no chapter in any book has provoked more scientific investigation and speculation, none has done more to stimulate one of our most recent sciences, than the first chapter in that so ancient book, which was written before the birth of science, or even literature, under the shadows of Sinai.

CHAPTER X.

CONCLUSION.

ON a review of the subject which has occupied us on these pages, some practical reflections suggest themselves with which we may appropriately conclude.

It must, I think, be acknowledged that in any view we can take of it, the Bible is a most remarkable book, and has had a most remarkable history. In the rapid sketch which has been given of its literary achievements, we have seen that it has stimulated the intellect, refined the taste, improved the literature, sanctified the arts, vivified the philosophy, and given an impulse to the industry of every people among whom it has found a footing. The question which we would press upon the consideration of the reader is, Can this book be other than Divine? Even other evidence apart, might not its literary characteristics, and its literary achievements, be held as proof conclusive of its divinity? For on what known or conceivable law of mental development shall we otherwise account for it? The Bible exists; how came it to be at all? how to be what it is? The simple principle of causation which necessitates the human mind to seek

out for every effect an adequate cause, would seem here to shut us up to one explanation of the origin of the Bible. Any other cause short of Divine inspiration is manifestly inadequate to account for it.

Suppose the greatest geniuses of antiquity-its poets, orators, scholars, sculptors, painters, musicians, its men of letters, and its mental philosophers—had met to compose a book, which should go down to future ages as their joint production; if this book had accomplished one tithe of what the Bible has done we would have proclaimed it a marvel. But here is a book the earlier portions of which were written when literature was in its infancy, and the fine arts were as yet unborn; its later portions being composed, it is true, during the Augustan age of ancient learning, yet not by any of its great ornaments, but by illiterate Galileans— fishermen from the banks of an inland lake, who had never read a Greek or Latin poet, had perhaps never seen a Greek or Latin piece of art, who, even in their own land, which was remote from the seats of classic learning, were deemed illiterate that this book, written by these authors should be what it is, and have achieved what it has done, is not merely a marvel-it is a miracle.

Either part of our subject, therefore, furnishes a contribution to the Christian evidences. Taking the first, or the literary characteristics of the Bible, we have a book altogether original and unique, not in its theology merely, but also in its method and

style, its poetry, its history, its delineations of nature, and its analysis of human character. Or taking the second part, the literary achievements of the Bible, we have a book equally without a parallel. No other can for a moment be compared with it in the history of mental development-itself receiving no additions since the sacred canon was closed, yet constantly adding to the stock of human knowledge in almost every line of investigation. If we take these two together it appears to us altogether impossible to account for the existence of such a book, except on the admission that it has proceeded from God. The invariable equation of cause and effect seems to shut us up to this conclusion. For dispute about the Bible as men will, there it is, a great fact; and like every fact has in some way to be accounted for. Applying the fundamental maxim in causality to the Bible, simply as an effect, it seems to us simply impossible to find any sufficient explanation of its existence, except one, that it is the Book of God, or in other words, that he who is the Great First Cause of all great effects is the author of this great book. Beyond this, of course, we need not go; but short of this we can not stop, in seeking to account for the bare existence of a book whose contents and whose history are alike so entirely unique.

I have already taken occasion on these pages to avow my belief in the literal theopneustia of the Bible. And in reavowing that belief, in this con