Glass J 53 51/ Book *oSS Copyright^ COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. Palaey & Cohen Bookbinders 201-205 WUliam St. New York FACTS AND FALLACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE. FACTS AND FALLACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE BY WM. WOODS SMYTH H FELLOW, MEDICAL SOCIETY, LONDON AUTHOR OF HE BIBLE AND THE DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION," ETC. LLUS1RATED BY PHOTOGRAVINGS AND PLATES PAUL R. REYNOLDS NEW YORK 1910 ^1^ Copyright 1910 BY Wm. Woods Smyth ©GLA268915 PREFACE THIS work accepts without qualification the modern ascertained facts regarding Matter, -Life and Mind, and their genesis, as interpreted by our highest authori- ties ; and exhibits them, in relation to the Bible, as the natural bases of its own revealed facts and doctrines, which they illustrate, confirm, extend. This is accom- plished, not by accommodating each to the other, but by accepting both systems of knowledge in their simplest and most manifest sense; in evidence of which, it is found that the plain and obvious interpretation of the Scriptures, in their original tongue, is the one most con- gruous with the principles which reign in the wide realm of Nature as revealed by modern research. Inasmuch as a misapprehension of Modern Science in relation to the Bible and Biblical Criticism, with other foes, within and without the Church, are now making the Scriptures of none effect, and thereby annulling the power of Divine moral government for the human mind, it is hoped that the effect of the present work will be to restore the Bible to its high place of authority by restoring faith PREFACE in the subject-matter of its Divine relation. It is popular in form. At places I have used matter from works of mine now out of print, but so altered and improved as not to rightly permit of being quoted; and the same applies sometimes to those still in print. It is folly, inviting certain failure, to assail fallacies about the Bible, as the apologetic literature and efforts of our time continue to do, without offering facts in their place, appropriate to the advanced knowledge of our day. In this work, I have the privilege to essay an endeavor, not only to restore the Bible to its place of supreme au- thority, but to vastly magnify that authority, beyond all that has been hitherto known or understood. Professor Harnack describes the critical science of our day, as being "a dance of death" and the Higher Critics, as "men who live for a time on the smell of an empty bottle." w. w. s. Maidstone, Kent. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. The Present Position 1 II. The Nature of Biblical Knowledge ... 9 III. Biblical Revelation and Modern Research . 18 IV. The Genesis of the Earth and Life . . 33 V. The Genesis Order and Time-Ratios of the World and Life 50 VI. Source of the Cosmogony of Genius . . 62 VII. The Genesis of Man, the Limits of Natural Evolution, and the Importance, Place, and Function of the Bible 67 VIII. The Rise of New Factors to Sustain' and Advance the Estate of Men .... 89 IX. Divine Dual Government — The Law of God — The Tempter — Temptation — The Fall — The Rite of Animal Sacrifice 107 X. Symbols of the Creation and of the Stupen- dous Nature of the Fall — A Rational Religion 130 XL After Adam— The Deluge— The Call of Abram and of Moses . . * 141 vii CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE XII. The Destruction of the Canaanites — The Fall of Israel 152 XIII. The Son of Man — His Correlatives in Ancient Ages — His Atonement 155 XIV. The Requirements of God and the Responsi- bility of Men — The Testimony of Scripture and of Modern Science as to the End of the World — Solemn Considerations . . . 177 Appendix for the Science Student . . .187 FACTS AND FALLACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE CHAPTER I THE PRESENT POSITION SO manifestly in evidence are the facts of which we are about to write, that the words of our Lord to the men of His generation, "Can ye not discern the signs of these times?" do not even apply to us, in ours. There are voices calling to us from every quarter, many kinds of voices, some of them mocking voices, proclaiming the decline of our Christian religion, the decay of ancient faiths, and the lapse of the authority of the Bible. In some churches the reading of the Old Testament lesson has been mostly dropped, and the reading of the Old Testament Scriptures discouraged. In a late new arrangement of books in the Reference Library of the British Museum, the Bible has been deposed from its time-honored position in the first place of books, and shunted down some six or eight rows of shelves, and ecclesiastical literature placed above it ! Of similar import, as regards decline, we are deplor- ing the rapid increase of godless secularism, of 1 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE worldiness, and Sunday desecration. And although the drink habit has declined, sins of the most ruin- ous character, which a sense of responsibility to- wards God alone can prevent, and called in the Church Litany "deadly sins," have advanced by leaps and bounds. Our evangelists show fewer con- versions, and of a quality so indifferent that in a brief time they are difficult to find. The Bampton Lecturer for 1907 (the Rev. J. H. F. Peile) said : "Not only the Church, but Christianity itself and all supernatural religion are called in ques- tion, or dismissed as not worth calling in question." Time has accelerated this downgrade movement. There are two potent causes behind this religious decay of our time. Knowledge has much increased, while the old-time views of the Bible have been retained. These views, framed in times of igno- rance, are untrue ; but, inasmuch as they have been bound up with the Bible, the Bible with them is be- ing rejected. The second cause arises from the in- fluence of the Higher Criticism. There are two classes of critics, one with views destructive of all supernatural religion; another class, fearing the in- fluence of advancing information upon the Scrip- tures, sought to accommodate them to the material- istic views of the age by reducing to a minimum the supernatural revelation contained in the Bible, and in endeavouring largely to account for the Scrip- tures by the natural environment in which the writ- ings arose. The object of these critics was to con- serve, not to destroy; and the Church of God pos- sesses, in Canon Driver and Professor George Adam Smith, men who, having come to believe in the sub- 2 THE PRESENT POSITION stantial truth of the Higher Criticism, have zealous- ly striven, after this manner, to preserve to the Church as they thought the permanent value of the Scriptures. However, the attempt has failed. Hux- ley, to whom it was offered by Professor Poulton, said : "It was hardly possible to conceive of any- thing more subversive of a Divine revelation." Legends and folk-lore are no aids to faith ; and it was only folly to endeavour to invest "vague and nebulous hypotheses with the value and with the veracity of scientific demonstration." In the language of Bishop Lightfoot, the critics were guilty of "reversing all the established rules of historic criticism, of deserting solid ground for artificial combinations and shadowy hypotheses." In the words of the Rev. George Ensor : "I charge the Higher Criticism with reducing revelation to a chaos of fables and contradictions, and bringing it there- by into conflict with the necessary and fundamental demands of reason respecting revelation." While a late article by Professor B. D. Erdmans (the present occupant of the chair of Kuenen), in Hibbert's Journal, supplies the best reasons for throwing over- board the whole farrago of documents labelled J, E, D, and P, as having misled scholars all along. The influence of these views has contributed to the decline of faith and to the marked falling-off in Church membership. And on the mission field, from the evidence of Dr. Monro, late Director of the Ranaghbat Medical Mission, who repeats and en- dorses the words of Dr. St. Clair Tisdall, another medical missionary, when he says : "If Higher Criticism be victorious, it will bring missionary 3 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE work to an inglorious close." 1 I respect the evidence of medical men; yet remember, religious decline is owing only in part to the Higher Criticism : views of the Bible formed in times of ignorance must also share the blame. Another way in which the decline of religion arrfongst us is being recognized is the formation of prayer circles throughout the world. Prayer circles of the most devout and spiritually minded men and women of the several Churches, who have united to pray that God may pour out His Spirit and send us a great and world-wide revival. I have thought much, and prayed and written not a little, on the subject of revivals, but am thoroughly convinced that we can have no great revival movement so long as the Word of God, from whatever reason, is made of none effect. It is only by a restored Bible that we can have a genuine revival of religion. In de- fining the present position, and righly apportioning the blame for decay of the faith, we may present the facts as follows : I. The views of the so-called orthodox section of the Church upon the Bible are no longer possible in the presence of our increased knowledge. 1 II. The influence of the Higher Criticism is re- sponsible to a large extent for undermining confidence in the Scriptures. III. Manifestly the Holy Spirit, because of these doubtful and doubt-creating views, cannot originate a great religious movement when permanency would be impossible. 1 From the Record. 4 THE PRESENT POSITION Little wonder, then, that we are bemoaning reli- gious decay. Turn where you will, it is equally hopeless to the Higher Critics, or to those who re- gard themselves as the special conservers of the in- tegrity of the Scriptures of truth, both are uncon- sciously making the Word of God of none effect ! Some further words of Mr. Ensor's are here singu- larly in place. He says : "T can well foresee that under the strain of so great a pressure, feeble faiths will fall to the fold of Rome, robuster reasons range themselves under the banner of unbelief;" and tp which I may add, some also drift to a form of Chris- tianity, falsely so called. Time has abundantly jus- tified Mr. Ensor's prophetic vision. The greatest marvel of the present position is, that while the sev- eral Protestant denominations are by their criticism undermining the authority of the Bible, the Churcl of Rome has arisen to defend it ! Now it is manifest that it is useless to look tp God to pour out His Spirit, so that we may have a great revival, in the midst of antiquated, dishon- oured, and mutually destructive views regarding His revealed will. We cannot expect fire to fall from heaven upon the altars of the Higher Critics ; np more, in these days, can we expect fire to fall from heaven upon the altars of the so-called orthodox Both block the way. Our "orthodox friends" may resent this finding; let them hear the following. The Rev. G. R. Chapman, in the Church Times, write 1 that "The wave of Victorian rationalism is only now beginning to make itself felt," and for this reason : "The body of professional scientists has enormously grown, till at the present hour the number of techn 5 FACTS AND FALACTES REGARDING THE BIBLE cally trained men (and women too) represent a very marked fraction of the population. These rank-and- file Chemists, Engineers, and Science Teachers, trained in countless day and night polytechnics, are permeated almost through and through with the agnosticism of Spencer and Huxley — a standard which, in their turn, they tend, perhaps unconscious- ly, to impart to their less scientifically educated friends and associates in other walks of life." Now as the knowledge of science is rapidly ex- tending to the whole population, of what use is the Bible, as at present construed by the so-called "or- thodox" people, to the cause of Christianity upon the earth? As showing the drift of the education of our time, I heard the other day of boys in a drawing-class in a national school being asked to draw a lake-dwelling of prehistoric man ! Now of what use is the popular view of the Bible as an authority on the origin of our race, or its present position or destiny, to those receiving a national training of this character? Again, I repeat, both block the way to the advance of the Kingdom of God upon earth — the critics on the one hand, and the so-called orthodox on the other. What, then, are we to do? We can never reach solid ground unless our theologians of both sides becomje willing to take instruction from a chief method of men of science; namely, in research to have no views, no opinions, no preconceived ideas of their own ; in short, to efface themselves and submit their minds to the influence of ascertained facts and the legitimate findings of right reasons — a method which the Bible itself urges upon us. The following 6 THE PRESENT POSITION facts may illustrate the method to be pursued. The reader may have heard of the injury done to the Bible and the Christian faith by lectures delivered years ago in America by Robert Ingersoll. The baneful influence of these lectures reached such dimensions that the North American Review became temporarily controlled by Ingersoll, so as to shut out any further reply to him by Mr. J. S. Black, an American judge, "or any one else." This baneful crusade went to its evil mission, until Ingersoll was answered, and his lectures, we may say, annihilated, by the papers of the Rev. L. A. Lambert. His method of dealing with Ingersoll is instructive. Lambert held that the only way to defend the Bible was by pushing all information, all research and stern logical reasoning, to the uttermost possible The Bible will stand this, but no other writings or view r s adverse to the Bible w r ill bear this fierce quest. Xow unfortunately the two sections of the Church above mentioned refuse to adopt this method. Those who regard themselves as conservative and orthodox are afraid to put this method into practice; and, on the other hand, the critics conspicuously avoid doing so. How, then, is it possible a saving faith in the Bible can be preserved? how can we hope to see a re- vival coming, since ignorance, doubt, uncertainty; and critical questioning on every side are obtaining supreme sway, and render saving faith impossible? Ill-founded systems require numerous devices to give them the face of truth ; Dr. Valpy French has truly said of the critics that "their shifts, their resorts, their assumptions are endless." But we shall find that our conservative "orthodox friends" require to 7 FACTS AND FALAGIES REGARDING THE BIBLE have recourse to the same oblique principles for the justification of their views— both sides do so quite innocently. Therefore, as far as lieth in us, let us adopt the method of uttermost research and rigor- ous rationalism. CHAPTER II THE NATURE OF BIBLICAL KNOWLEDGE COURTESY as well as reason demand that the claims which a given book makes on its own behalf should not be rudely cast aside. The Bible claims to be the "Word of God," to possess an in- spiration and revelation from God. Reverence, as well as reason and courtesy, are therefore required at our hands. But what does this imply? In de- fining the sum-total of our knowledge under the heads of Science and Philosopy, Spencer says : ''Science is partially unified knowledge," and "Philos- ophy completely unified knowledge." Therefore, the claim of the Bible to Divine inspiration amounts to the claim that it is a system of most completely unified knowledge. It is therefore manifest that the Bible by its own claims cannot be in perfect agree- ment with any science as yet on its way to complete unification. Here lieth the stumbling-block over which both sections of the Christian Church have stumbled. "You must not look to the Bible for science," say our friends the critics. "You must not look to the Bible for science," say our so-called "or- thodox" friends. Upon this point these two sections of theologians are in perfect accord. But observe, they do not say these things for the reason I have indicated above. Not at all ; they both hold the Bible to be erring, and to be presenting us with the views which prevailed in the age when it was writ- 9 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE ten. Even Professor Orr is here at one with the critics, and says: "The writer here speaks of natural things as they lie open to the eye of the or- dinary observer, and uses the language that would be understood by readers of his own time." Both schools of thought tell us that the Bible was given to teach religion only, to tell us of spiritual things and not of natural things. Now of course, if we are to use our reason we must ask, "When the Lord is revealing a^ religious truth which involves a natural fact, why should He go out of His way, when He is revealing a religious truth, to misrepre- sent a natural fact?" Huxley has shown the folly of this plea when he says : "If we cannot trust an inspired document where it states a simple physical fact, which we can test; by what principle are we called upon to believe a religious fact (so-called) which we cannot test?" The solution of our difficul- ties is reached when we admit that the Bible as a Divine revelation must be viewed as a system of most completely unified knowledge, and so long as the mind dwells upon the mere technicalities of in- completed science, and fail's to take a wide philo- sophic view of "things and their forces, and men and their ways," so long will the Bible appear to be er- ring in matter of science. It is not enough to know the circle of the sciences to understand that the Bible is inerring. We must so know them, and Na- ture also, as to perceive that they never represent things as they really are. That in regard to the facts of "things and their forces, and men and their ways," and the difficulties which they present, as Mr. A. J. Balfour has said in his Foundations of Be- 10 THE NATURE OF BIBLICAL KNOWLEDGE lief, "Naturalism itself has to face them in a yet more embarrassing form;" true, and it is just here that the Bible has the advantage. Shelly once said: "If God has spoken, why is the world not convinced?" Though coming from a sceptical poet, it is nevertheless a fair question. God, who has created heaven and earth, the sea and all things therein — a great fact of which the world, with a vanishing quantity of exception, is convinced; if He has also spoken to men, why is the world not convinced? A very fair question indeed. If the Scriptures are the Word of God, why is the world not convinced of the fact? By a ministry of a few simple insects the Lord has perfected and perfumed many flowers conspicuous for their glory and their beauty. Their mould of form, grace of fashion, and harmony of hue, startle us with their amazing beau- ty, enchantment, and charm. Now of these things the world is full convinced. Could not God by the ministry of man, His noblest creation, produce a Scripture of such commanding excellence, that all the world would be convinced? Certainly. But it must be a Scripture widely different from the con- ceptions which the so-called orthodox and the critics have of their Bible. In the fairyland of or- chids the wandering savage was familiar with vis- ions of the fairest flowers of which we have any knowledge. For him, however, these lovely flowers were destitute of interest. Is it not just possible that in regard to our vision of the Bible we have too much in common with this wandering savage? When the late Professor Seeley said, "Comparing any other book with the Bible was like comparing 11 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE a mud-pie with the Peak of Teneriffe," he had a clearer vision than a good many of us. In answering Shelley's question, let us inquire, What are the things about which the world is con- vinced? We have already mentioned two, namely, the existence of a Creator and the glory with which He has arrayed the flowers. Among enlightened nations, the world is convinced of the truthful re- ality of the science which teaches them to transport men and merchandise along the iron road or over the waste of waters by steam and electricity. The world is convinced of the truth of the chemical and mechanical sciences which have originated and which sustain and guide the great industries of the nations. The world is convinced that the ten thou- sand minutiae which science puts into the Nautical Almanac year by year, relating to all the host of heaven, to guide the mariner upon the pathless seas are all real and true. The world is convinced that the science which told the return of Halley's comet after so many years, and showed men where to hold the sensitised plate to that place in the firmament, from whence its first faint ray fell from the far depths of heaven upon this nether world — the world is convinced that this science is real and true. The next point about which the world is con- vinced is the most remarkable of all. The world (entirely unconsciously) is convinced of the reality and truthfulness of the sanitary? laws given by Moses! The laws of "notification," "inspection," "isolation," and "aseption" by fire and water, and the "disposal of sewage," are all facts embodied in Mosaic legislation; and are all to-day the facts of 12 THE NATURE OF BIBLICAL KNOWLEDGE legislative enactments in the legal codes of civilized nations. As a matter of fact, the camp of Israel un- der the sanitary laws of Moses surpassed for clean- liness every modern town upon all the earth. And had our old-time preachers attended somewhat to the interests of this present world and not so ex- clusively to the things of the world to come; and had they preached these laws of Moses, bearing in mind the word of St. Paul, that "The law is good if a man use it lawfully," not one of the awful plagues that decimated the people of Europe could ever have had any considerable number of victims ! Xow comes the question, Can we extend the knowledge of the facts of modern science through- out the Scriptures after this manner, so that the world may be convinced of their entire truth, and thereby become convinced that God has spoken? The answer is, Yes, most certainly; and this is just the object of this book. Let us not, like our fathers ; remain blind to great Biblical truths. The critics warn us not to look to the Bible for science ; our or- thodox friends (so-called) warn us not to look to the Bible for science. Both resort to the very same shifts and assumptions, and of the two, the latter is becoming most harmful, and is hindering the day of God's revival. If the Bible is so erring in matters of science, where does a Divine inspiration upon which we can confidently rely come in? Before showing how erroneous these reflections upon the Bible are, let me justify from the Scrip- tures the principles which underlie this mode of re- search, and at the same time reply to a current ob- jection which is being voiced and freely circulated 13 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE among the unwary in this country. It is vehemently and reiterately affirmed that science furnished no aid whatever to spiritual religion. Now we know it is still a current saying that "an undevout astrono- mer is mad." But we are told that even astronomy is no aid to religion. David thought otherwise, and said: "When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou has ordained; what is man, that Thou are mindful ot him? and the son of man, that Thou visitest him?" We always thought that to exalt the Lord, to humble ourselves in His presence, to acknowledge the wonders of His care for us, and to believe that He visits us, were the very soul of all true religion. And so they are. Yet it was a very limited scientific vision of God's work which awoke all these spiritual states of mind in the heart of the Psalmist and led him to exclaim, "Thy heavens declare the glory of God." Science is simply knozvledge, and, to use a scriptural qualification, it is knowledge decently or- dered. When in the light of modern science we con- sider the heavens to-day, and the moon and stars, the vision of God's exaltation is still more trans- cendent, the humbling a deeper depth ; that God should be mindful of us becomes a wonder of won- ders, and that He should visit us at ali, a condescen- sion unutterable. Not only is the view circulated in these books untrue, but in a marked degree it is most unscriptural. In the Book of Job all the very religious talk of Job and his friends is described as "words without knowledge, " while the Lord replies in a purely natural science discourse. See also Isa. xlv. 9-12, where certain religious speculations are 14 THE NATURE OF BIBLICAL KNOWLEDGE forbidden and the study of science enjoined; while Ps. xcii. 5, 6 ought to end for ever the foolish no- tions of those who, being themselves ignorant of scientific knowledge, know not what they say or whereof they affirm. And moreover, as the Lord answered and solved Job's difficulties by a natural science discourse, we, following so exalted a prece- dent, hope to solve and settle present-day difficulties by a like method. So far from the Bible being unreliable in matters of science, the sober truth is, that wherever the Bible touches upon questions of science it does so with a grace, an accuracy, and a philosophic perfec- tion, which surpasses every text-book of science in existence. Take its opening words in Genesis, where it tells of an early condition of our world, when it was veiled in darkness. Science now recog- nises and speaks of this period, but how feeble are its words compared with the Scripture : "The earth was waste and empty; and darkness was upon the face of the raging deep." "When I made the cloud the garment thereof, and thick darkness a swad- dlingband for it" (Job xxxviii. 9). Yet observe, no eye but God's and His angels' beheld the earth at this far distant era, and none but God could have compassed its being written for the children of men. Again, how perfectly the truth in the doctrine of Evolution regarding the influence of Environment is presented in the words, "Let the earth bring forth the living creature," especially as the verb is in the Causative voice, Hiphil. To take another instance from the New Testa- ment in the Book of St. Jude the impenitent sinners 15 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE * are likened to "Wandering stars, to whom is re- served the black of darkness for even" A very few- years ago our leading astronomers did not possess sufficient information to understand this Scripture; indeed, their views were diametrically opposed to the thoughts it presents. Lately, however, the depths of the stellar universe have been sounded, and it is known that there is a surrounding realm of night. We know also, to quote the late Miss Agnes M. Gierke, that "the fact accordingly confronts us that not a few of the stars possess velocities trans- cending the power of the government of the visible sidereal system." One of these (1830, Groomsbridge Catalogue), has a velocity of 200 miles a second. Miss Clerke, speaking in her charming style, un- equalled by any of our astronomers, says of this star: "It will pursue its course right across the starry stratum it entered ages ago on its unknown errand, and will quit ages hence to be swallowed up in the dark void beyond." However beautifully said, yet it falls short of the simple Scripture : "Wan- dering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever." Like the Scriptures, "He hangeth the earth upon nothing." "Who compre- hended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance." We have presented to us in a few brief words the profoundest depths of astronomical and geological sciences. And as we proceed, the great fact here recognised will be found to pervade the whole Bible. The thought uttered by St. Jude could not have originated from beholding comets or shoot- ing stars because the heavens he was accustomed to 16 THE NATURE OF BIBLICAL KNOWLEDGE behold presented a perfect blaze of stellar light. Be- sides all this, no knowledge of science and no lan- guage possessed by men could possibly picture so perfectly the weird event itself; thus proving the Scripture to have come by inspiration and not by observation. The inerrancy of the Bible must be rationally un- derstood. Inspiration, verbal inspiration, and me- chanical inspiration, are used in ways which are only confusing. With man, a moral agent, as the instrument, mechanical inspiration is absurb. With human agency, human language, and copyists, ab- solute verbal inspiration is impossible. But, inas- much as the Prophets must have given to us the messages which they received, and not something else, our reason compels us to believe in a rationally qualified verbal inspiration. Verbal, because the Prophets have given us what they received; quali- fied, because of the infirmities of human agency, language, writing, and copying. But, as the human agents were Divinely selected, the authenticity and genuineness are superlatively satisfactory. To this let me add there is an inspiration also in the form of simply stimulating the mind of the seer; he or she being permitted to express their own thoughts and feelings, which for utilitarian reasons were needful Gn account of the hardness of men's hearts. as were certain legislative measures of the Mosaic Code. The song of Deborah and portions of the Psalms are of this order of inspiration. There are also historic records and narratives which, being based on the knowledge of the writers, were inspired only in the sense of being selected. 17 CHAPTER III THE BIBLE SCRIPTURAL REVELATION AND MODERN RESEARCH UPON one occasion the father of the Brontes asked his daughters, "Which is the greatest book in the world?" Charlotte Bronte replied, "The Bible." Her father then asked, "Which is the next greatest book?" and Charlotte replied, "The Book of Nature." Let us now turn to the consideration of these two great Books. "The Bible presents to us a revelation from beyond our bourne of time and place." It includes also a series of historic, pro- phetic, and poetic books, with various epistles and records regarding the influence through long ages of these Scriptures upon the minds and hearts of those to whom they came. The Bible opens with a sketch in brief of the genesis of the Universe and of the Earth, of Life in numerous forms, and of Man. Next, in unbroken continuity in dealing with the race of men, it em- braces great principles of Nature (which had reigned throughout that genesis) in the higher in- tellectual form of language for man's further guid- ance, well-being, and development. The Bible is therefore (as we shall see in due course) Nature translated into language, to suit man when his in- telligence was awakened, in order to preserve his 18 REVELATION AND MODERN RESEARCH being and well-being, and to continue his advance- ment through his intellect and moral nature. The sacred Scriptures open with the simple yet majestic words, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." The Hebrew here omits the article before "beginning," therefore we are to understand an indefinite beginning lost in eternity. In modern research, men have also discovered a be- ginning of the earth and heavens, and after the man- ner of the Bible; they tell us that it is a beginning lost in unfathomable mystery. "Alike in the ex- ternal and internal worlds, the man of science sees himself in the midst of perpetual changes of which he can neither discover beginning nor end. If, trac- ing back the evolution of things, he allows himself to entertain the hypothesis that the Universe once existed in a diffused form, he finds it utterly im- possible to conceive how this came to be ; and equally, if he speculates on the future, he can as- sign no limits to the grand succession of phe- nomena ever unfolding themselves before him." 1 We are also assured that all the ways of science, when legitimately pursued, tell of an "incompre- hensible power" as the cause of all things. "Power to which no limits in time or space can be imagined" is the fact which the Universe manifests to us. And supreme excellence of power is the meaning of the word Elohim, first used in the Hebrew Scriptures for the Creator. Again, the word bara, translated create, according to the highest Hebrew scholars, including Samuel Davidson, signifies to mould, to form, to bring, to pass, to beget. The word create 1 Herbert Spencer, First Principles, p. 66. 19 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE was first used by Lucretius to signify the produc- tion of things by Nature. Thus at the outset the knowledge revealed to us in the Bible is observed to be identical with that offered us by modern research; then follow the words of Scripture : "And the earth was waste and empty; and darkness was on the face of the deep" (R.V.). The Hebrew here signifies that the earth was in this state in the course of its creation — it does not say became so. In the Book of Job xxxiii. 9, the Lord describes, in beautiful language, this period of darkness at the foundation of the world and not at some subsequent period. The text, Gen. ii. 4-5, which, according to Dillmann and others, should read, "Then no plant of the field was yet in the earth," refers to this condition of the world in the first day of wastedness and emptiness (cf. Gen. v. 1, 2, and i. 26, 31) ; while Isa. xlv. 18 refers to the purpose ' of God, namely, "He created it to be in- habited." The researches of men of science have discovered this fact also, and speak of the earth at an early period as being enshrouded in darkness relieved only by the lurid lights of ' active volcanoes — "a darkness, where the light was as darkness." We have, as the next words, "And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." The form of the Hebrew word translated moved, according to Gesenius, signifies to vivify, and teaches the impar- tation of life in the waters. Science is unable to speak with any certainty on this point; no right re- search has yet enabled her to do so. She knows that the high temperature of the earth at one time rendered the presence of life impossible, and that 20 REVELATION AND MODERN RESEARCH life could not have been begotten of powdered rocks and water; and when she has tried to catch germs of life that might be falling from the open space of heaven she has failed to find them. So, therefore, in the Bible alone have we any knowledge of how life was first begotten upon the earth. Next we read : "And God said, Let there be light ; and there was light." Now these words in our Eng- lish Bible gives us the idea of an imperative com- mand of God, which was followed immediately by an instantaneous outburst of light, and as you read down the first chapter of Genesis everything created or made seems to have come forth in like fashion. But that is because it is impossible to render aright the Hebrew into English. The Hebrew tongue is a language of Nature, and therefore suitable to tell of Nature and of the works of God in Nature, while the English language and all tongues of the Indo- Germanic family are artificial. They can tell of man's ways and workmanship, but not so well of the ways of God. You are taught in your grammar that while a noun is the name of a thing, a verb tells of "being, doing, suffering." We are here learning the doings of God in creation. You also know that in your English tongue the verb has sev- eral tenses. To be strictly accurate the Hebrew tongue has no tenses ; its so-called tenses are modes of action, that is, modes of doing. This, of course, you perceive is very important, because we desire to understand the mode of God's doings in the crea- tion of the earth and heavens, namely, of the Uni- verse. Now the Hebrew verb has two modes of action or doing, the Perfect and the Imperfect. The Per- 21 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE feet expresses that which has been and is still going on; the Imperfect, according to Gesenius, signifies the incoming, the unfinished, the continuous. You perceive how beautifully these modes of operation express the stately flow of Nature, how perfectly they recognise the natural course of Evolution, in the modes and moods of Nature, so also in the Hebrew tenses it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to discover either beginning or end. '"Noiseless as the daylight comes back when the night is done, And the crimson streak on ocean's cheek grows into the great sun; Noiselessly as the spring-time her crown of verdure weaves, And all the trees on all the hills put forth their thousand leaves." * Such are the ways of Nature and of God, and the Hebrew tongue expresses them directly and dip tinctly. Canon Driver says of the Hebrew Imper- fect tense that it signifies progressive continuance, or development of the past, and Ewald as marking the relative progressive. This is Evolution pure and simple. Duncan Weir, who wrote before he was acquainted with the doctrine of Evolution, defines the Imperfect as "that which is in process and prog- ress of evolvement." The Book of God, therefore, teaches very clearly that all things came forth slowly, and according to a great process of progressive and consecutive evolvement. And this fact is beautifully expressed in the Hebrew word for "generations" (Gen. ii. 4). The word means organic descent, the "slipping-out- of the one from the other/' a manifest "process of evolvement" agreeable to the Hebrew verb men- 22 Drawn by Augustus Cook.] [Copyright. [To face page 23. REVELATION AND MODERN RESEARCH tioned above. 1 The idea of "special creation," which has got such a firm hold on the minds of many, is not found in the original language of the Bible, in- deed, except with the unlearned, it is a late post- Reformation idea; while, on the other hand, the doctrine of a process of Evolution was held by the intellectual Church Fathers. Thus St. Augustine, St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Thomas Aquinas, all held a doctrine of Evolution. St. Augustine speaks of the animals being created "by a process of growth, whose numbers the after- time unfolded from imperfect to perfect forms." The "special creation" theory is, in point of fact, no theory at all. For example, How could any one tell us how a lion, a cow, or a horse was specialty created? Turn now to the accompanying photograving, where there is an attempt to illustrate the evolu- tionary creation of our world and the several plan- ets, namely, Mercury, Venus, the Earth, Mars, the Planetoids (that is, the small planets), next in or- der, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, with their moons and rings. At the top of the photo- graving we see a "beginning" of all things so far as our scientific knowledge goes, and it is the "begin- ning," as we shall see, of the Bible record also. It is a fiery cloud, called Nebula, from a Latin word signifying a cloud. It is regarded as composed of in- candescent gas or of a great multitude of meteorites, that is, small bodies of a composition similar to the elements of our own world, and like those that con- 1 Gesenius repudiates the idea of van coverting the Imperfect to the Perfect, and rice versa it is the van of consecution, not of conversion. 23 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE stitute the shooting stars which you have often seen; and as these bodies give out light when they impinge upon our atmosphere, so in the Nebula they give light and vapour as they strike against each other — an illumination to which no doubt electricity contributes. The next point in the evolutionary creative pro- cess is shown in the figures below. The simple Ne- bula, you perceive, has taken on a rotary motion. This arises from the influence of the attraction of gravitation, such as causes a stone to fall to the ground. The bodies in the Nebula cannot all fa! 1 to the centre in straight lines, and so they seek to get there by moving round just as you have se water in a basin or a bath when the valve is opened beginning to go round and round as it falls to the centre — a good, though crude, illustration. Or again, streams of matter colliding would commence to ro- tate also. And so after this manner the great Nebula began to rotate. These rotating Nebulae are seen in the heavens, and the one in the illustration is from the constellation of the Huntings Dogs. According to the theory of Laplace and Lockyer, this rotation increases in velocity until rings were formed, such as you see in the figure below the one we have been describing. These rings, on account of irregulari- ties in them, would, in most cases, break up, and rolling upon themselves, like the one in the figure, would form a world like one of the planets as seen in the next figure below ; and thus planet after plan- et, beginning with Neptune, would become formed and their moons form themselves after a similar fashion. Remains of these rotating rings are seen in our solar svstem, in the loose ring of very small 24 REVELATION AND MODERN RESEARCH planets — the Planetoids or Asteroids — which lie be- tween Mars and Jupiter, and are shown in the last figure of the illustration, and similar rings are also seen rotating round the planet Saturn. Besides the theory of Laplace and the meteoritic theory of Lockyer and others, with its qualification by Sir George Darwin, we have now the "Plan'etesimal" hypothesis of Professor Chamberlain and Mr. Moul- ton. This theory derives the planets from spiral ne- bulae only. If the reader will look again at the pho- tograving they will notice in the second figure from the top a spiral nebula, having two points of con- densation, one in the centre and one at the lower margin. It is contended that the spiral nebulae have several centres of condensation, and that these cen- tres without forming rings become the several plan- ets. The theory is interesting, and like unto that of Sir George Darwin. However, it draws largely on the imagination. The very heterogeneous character of the Nebula, which these scientists insist on, is opposed to the regular placing of the planets as shown in Bode's law. Nor can the evidence of Saturn's rings or the ring of Planetoids be explained away. The old experiment of rotating a sphere of oil in a medium of like gravity to the production of rings and spheres is in evidence of the ring theory. In discounting the nebular-gas theory, the almost inconceivable velocity of the nebular matter, how- ever tenuous, even at the distant orbit of Neptune, is generally neglected, and would balance the ex- treme tenuity of the Nebula, and moving in the in- finitely indifferent ether or void * would readily be 1 The existence of the ether is being doubted. 25 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE liable to form rings and planets. Part of the high velocity of the Nebula would be absorbed in the rotation of the several planets on their axis — at first at a very high rate of motion. Doubtless an element of all these theories was present in the evolution of the solar system. And all these are still nebular theories. There is yet another theory, called the "capture theory," of which it is needless to speak. Now after all these planets were formed, there still remained the largest portion of the Nebula ly- ing inside them, and destined to become later on our Sun. The planets being small, very soon lost their heat and cooled down to a world like ours at its foundation, when it was waste and empty, as the Bible says. And at that early period, when all the free oxygen and hydrogen "had united to form water, this water would surround the globe first as vapour and then as a great mantle of cloud. Think how the sky would look if nearly all the waters of the seas were in thick clouds around the earth ; we would have neither light 'nor sunshine. However, this thick cloud resting on the earth as well as above it would in due course condense. Now observe, with the condensation of the thick mantle of cloud around the earth, light for the first time would fall upon the globe. This light was from the condensing Nebula lying inside the plan- ets. The Bible reads : "God said, Let there be light ; and there was light." This is the word of God, and that it was not simply an utterance like the words of men, but a Divine mode, is shown by John i. 1, 2, where the Word is said to be the Lord; the living Word, as it is further said, "All things were made by Him." But, as we have seen, the Hebrew Bible REVELATION AND MODERN RESEARCH is not as the English translation ; perhaps the near- est approach to the Hebrew would be, "Let light come to be" (that is, by a continuous process) ; "and light came to be," etc. And then we read: "And God saw that it was good," or appropriate, that is, for the use of the habitable earth. These words show that light was not the work of a special crea- tion; had it been, there would be no sense in such words, because all God's special works would, of course, be good : but when we regard this light as having come forth, through a multiform process of evolution, conditioned by the properties of matter and energy engaged, and that might result in ten, thirty, sixty, or a hundredfold perfection on the sev- eral planets of our system, we see the appropriate- ness of the expression "good" which would apply to the earth, but not to the other planets of the solar system. Here again we see that the record of Revelation and the researches of Science teach the same thing. We said above (p. 26) that after all the planets were formed, there still remained* the largest por- tion of the great original Nebula lying inside and at the centre of them all, and destined to become the Sun — in the words of Sir Norman Lockyer: "Plan- ets revolving round an uncondensed Nebula." Now this shows the sun to have been formed last of all, and long after our earth was formed. So as you read down the first chapter of Genesis, not until the fourth day is it said that the sun was made, and the ratio of time indicated agrees with the time- ratio of science. All calculations based upon the age of the sun by Helmholtz, Kelvin, and Professor New- comb, and of the earth by later geologists, place the 27 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE sun in the time-ratio corresponding to the fourth day. The influence of radium, since it has an in- fluence common to the universe of things and their forces, makes no difference to these time-ratios ; it is simply each term of the ratio plus x. The days of the Creation in Genesis are called by the writer of the Hebrews eons or ages (Heb. i. 2), xi. 3). All the Greek Fathers regarded them as ages, and the chief Latin Fathers did not regard them as ordinary days. They were, as the late Sir William Dawson well said, "The Lord's working days, not man's" : "The days of heaven upon the earth" (Petit, xi. 21). And this is the sense in which we are to regard the day of the Fourth Com- mandment, namely, the day-periods of Genesis as types of our week-days. The seventh day in Gen- esis as types of our week-days. The seventh day in Genesis is limited by no evening and morning, because it still abides (Heb. iv. 1-10). Canon Driver has been betrayed into great error on the subject of the cosmogony. Writing in his work entitled Genesis (fifth edition) he says: "The formation of the heavenly bodies after the earth is inconsistent with the entire conception of the solar system. No reconcilation of this representation with the data of science has as yet been found." Now it is obvious to any one, that in the evolution of the solar system, the central body, being much larger than all the planets together, would be the last to condense to the solar condition ; that, as Sir Norman Lockyer says, we would have "Planets re- volving round an uncondensed Nebula." As to the other heavenly bodies, namely, the stars, our own sun 28" REVELATION AND MODERN RESEARCH averages their general size, therefore their ages would have a general correspondence. The stars of the Milky Way are regarded as still bathed in nebul- ous matter, and are therefore younger than our sun, In Gen. i. the stars are mentioned only parenthetically. In regard to the moon, until true sunshine fell on, that body it could not become a great light. The fact of the sun and moon having been made on the fourth day, shows that they were already in exis- tence in some form, because of the light thrown on, the word "inadc'' at Gen. ii. 3, where it is said that God "rested from all His work which God created to it lake:' Canon Driver, being obliged to admit that the Bible is in agreement with science in placing light before the sun, goes on to say: "Truthfulness de- mands that it should be stated at the same time that it (the Bible) also disagrees with science in placing its creation (i.e. light) after the formation of the earth with water upon it; whereas in fact ; according to science, light existed unnumbered ages before the primitive nebula could have condensed to form either the earth or the water" (Genesis, Ad- denda xvii.). Most certainly light existed before either earth or water, but the subject-matter of the Scripture text has another and distinct point of view. It says : "Darkness was upon the face of the deep. . . and God said, Let there be light." Where? somewhere in the Universe? No, verily, but where the darkness was, namely, "the face of the deep." I marvel at Canon Driver making so obvious a mistake. Another point he raises is that vegetable food alone is given to all animals. Dawson has wel? 29 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE said : "In general, vegetable food is, in an important sense, the food of all living creatures." To this I may add that the Carnivora on land can have only a transient existence ; they are being, and shall be ex- terminated, and therefore, in so brief and general a record, their specified food is not mentioned. There is no genealogy given to Cain, because his family had no future. Canon Driver's criticism of the cosmogony of Genesis calls for yet further atten- tion. Let the reader view his words in the light of modern science, and he will receive instruction. He says : "The formation of the heavenly bodies after the earth is inconsistent with the entire conception of the solar sys- tem — and indeed, if we think of the stars, with that of the whole celestial universe — as revealed by science. Both the stars in their far-distant courses, and the planetary system" with which this globe is most intimately connected, from a vast and wonderfully constituted order, so marked by correlations of structure, by identity of compound elements (as revealed by the spectroscope), and by unity of design, as to forbid the supposition that a particular body (the earth) was created prior to the whole, of which it is a single and subordinate part. (2) The commonly accepted theory (Laplace) of the formation of the solar system by the gradual condensation of a nebula, does not permit the consolidation of the earth, the appearance upon it of water, and the growth of vegetation before the sun was made, i.e. while the substance of the sun was still in a diffused gaseous state. At such a period it is doubtful if the earth itself would not also have been in a gaseous state; certainly it would not have cooled sufficiently for water to exist upon it and trees to grow." — Genesis, 7th edition revised, 1909, pp. 24, 25. When we remind the reader that the mass of the sun is about 749 times the masses of all the planets put together, and is 332,260 times that of the earth, 30 REVELATION AND MODERN RESEARCH he will see the folly of Canon Driver's dreams, that so exceedingly small a mass (the earth) being possibly "in a gaseous state," or not cold sufficiently for water and vegetation at the era of Gen. i. 1-11. To this we must add a consideration mentioned by Helmholtz, that because of the much lesser influence of gravitation on the earth, the original temperature on that small body could not have stood so high as on the sun, and there- fore it had a much lesser range of temperature through which to fall. But Canon Driver raises the question of the Scrip- tures teaching that the earth was created prior to the whole of the stars, as he interprets Gen. i. 16. Now if we look closely at this Scripture we cannot help noticing that the stars are only mentioned parentheti- cally. But observe, the Canon's criticism applies with equal force against every text-book of astronomy in existence. Every astronomer and well-informed man of science knows that we are in the presence of changes reaching far back into the unknown — changes which glide slowly into each other. Now no astronomer on earth could tells us when the stars came to be. We recognize an evolution order of nebula, helium stars, hydrogen stars, carbon stars, etc., in regard to given classes of stars. But all classes are present to-day, and have been before the earth was. Who, then, can tell us when the stars were made, since for eons they are always in the making? The scriptural text is per- fect ; after mentioning the sun and moon being made to rule the day and the night, it simply adds, "and the stars;' Next, we find the following passage at page 22 of Canon Driver's work: — 31 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE "In Genesis, fishes and birds appear together (fifth day) and precede all land-animals (sixth day); according to the evidence of geology, birds appeared long after fishes, and they are preceded by numerous species of land-animals." This is a remarkable passage to come from the pen of a Hebrew scholar, who knows that the Hebrew word, daga, for fishes is not only not used at all, but the words used, sheretz and hattannium haggdolim, forbid the idea of fishes, and denote creatures that creep, such as reptiles or amphibia, and great saurians ; and, as Sir William Dawson pointed out, the Hebrew word here even sketches their structural formation ! Lastly, we come to the land-animals being placed in Genesis after birds. It will be news to geologists to be told that birds, whfch are derived from ichthyoid reptiles, were "preceded by numerous species of land- animals." Can amphibia and ichthyoid-reptiles be called land-animals? But the point here raised is similar to one mentioned above. Canon Driver's strictures on Genesis apply with equal force against any text-book on geology. In the succession of changes gliding one into the other in the long course of progressive evolu- tion, no geologists can tell us when such and such a kind of living organism came to be. He can tell us the era which a given class specially indicates, and Sir Archibald Geikie has written on the use of fossils upon this point ; and with his order, the Bible, so far as it goes, is in absolute agreement. It is painful to have to point out the manifest mistakes which a writer of such eminence has made, and especially as the tend- ency of these mistakes, we regret to say, is to place the Bible at fault. 32 CHAPTER IV THE GENESIS OF THE EARTH AND LIFE WE now come to study the genesis of our own world, namely, the earth as an independent body. At the earliest period the earth was rotating much more rapidly than at present, and from the con- densation of the nebular matter or of meteorolites of which it is composed, and owing to their rapid motion and vehement collision, they must have become more or less volatised into a semi-fluid and gaseous condition. In this state the rapid rotation of our world gave rise to another smaller body from itself, namely, the moon, which, having been thrown off the world, began slowly to recede from the earth until it reached its present position. Meanwhile the earth, immersed in space, a realm so cold that it is said even hydrogen would freeze, and the meteorites of which it was originally composed having become welded into one uniform mass, its heat became dissipated into space. A brief era of tumultuous commotion, like as seen on the sun to-day, followed, and was succeeded by the increasing consolidation of the globe. Lord Kelvin imagined this consolidation took place from centre to circumference. However, the folding of the crust of the earth, and the behaviour of molten rock in solidifying, teach us that an outer crust must have formed all round the globe. At 33 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE the Cambridge meeting of the British Association, 1904, the venerable geologist, the Rev. Osmond Fisher, submitted satisfactory evidence to show that the fold- ing convolutions and contortions of the globe's crust rendered Kelvin's theory of a solid earth an impossi- bility. 1 In the course of these events the various elementary gases surrounding the globe sunk into chemical union. Water was formed which began to condense upon the earth. Tides and strains on the upper crust, caused by the moon lying nearer the earth than at present, were frequent, and of a truth "darkness was upon the face of the raging deep." And the whole earth was "waste and empty." Let us turn now to the doctrine of Evolution itself. On a frosty morning we are enabled to see our breath as in the form of a cloud. When this cloud reaches a pane of glass it condenses into water, and later passes into those fern-like leafy forms so familiar to us in the frosts of winter. This is one example of simple Evolu- tion. The trembling molecules of watery vapour dis- sipate their motion or heat, draw together, and arrange themselves in forms according to their properties. The indefinite unformed cloud passed into the definitely formed icy leaves. This is a process of Evolution in the inorganic world. It is obvious that the natural laws present in this simple event attend also the order of events in the case of forms of matter of vaster dimensions. The solid earth is composed of a variety of substances, and according to present-day thought there was a time when by reason of fervent heat the 1 For a satisfactory reply to Professor Sollas's theories based upon Lord Kelvin's idea of a solid earth, see Appendix. 34 THE GENESIS OF THE EARTH AND LIFE solid earth formed part of a nebula or cloud, but by dissipation of heat-energy that cloud condensed into the several planets, including the earth and the sun. This course of events is described as simple Evolution, and is the outcome of the properties of Matter engaged. Xo man of science imagines that the Creator interfered at any stage in this great process, or that He exercised any directivity in forming rocks or mountains or mak- ing diamonds. The properties originally bestowed upon Matter and Energy, and the laws arising out of those properties in their creation, were all-sufficient; the question of time and sequence, as they appear to us, are nothing to Him. The illustration of the cloud of our breath and fern- like leaves which came out of it, as imagining Evolu- tion, was given us by Professor Huxley. We now come to the sphere of compound Evolution and to the realm of life. And just as in the case of simple Evolution we found matter existing in an in- definite, unformed state, so also in the case of life its earliest condition is one of indefiniteness and without form : a bioplasm without structure, yet exhibiting attri- butes transcending far the properties of mere matter. Speaking of living matter, Professor Allman says : "While we watch it beneath the microscope, move- ments are set up in it, waves traverse its surface, it is seen to flow away in streams which may continue sim- ple or may divide into branches, each following its own independent course. And this not only where gravity would carry them, but in a direction diametrically opposed to gravitation ; and all this without any obvious impulse from without, which would send ripples over its surface or set the streams flowing from its margin. 35 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE Liquid as it is, it is a living liquid; structureless as it is, it manifests the essential phenomenon of life." 1 This living bioplasm has a dowry of attributes be- stowed upon it by the Creator which almost infinitely surpasses the properties of matter. Indeed, its poten- tiality is infinite. As has been mentioned, the origin of life, like that of matter, is beyond the realm of science. From the Bible we learn that "In the begin- ning God created the heavens and the earth" ; and as touching the origin of life, "The Spirit of God brooded over the face of the waters." As to the creation of matter and of life, beyond this we cannot go. After the original creation of matter, the evolution of its many forms follows as mentioned above ; and after the begetting of living matter by the Spirit of God, the evolution of its many forms followed as we shall now endeavour to describe. Simple living matter, as we have said, like the cloud of our breath or the primeval cosmic cloud, is in an indefinite, unformed state, and like them its evolution is a process of progression towards definiteness and form. As a familiar illustration, we may take an egg during the process of incubation. We can mark how the indefinite germ and surrounding matter comes to be built-in and built-up to the definitely formed bird. And this is an epitome of the evolutionary development of the higher animals in the long ages of geologic times, and of the two the development of the egg is cer- tainly the more wonderful. Living matter possesses the power of independent action. "We behold the material universe massed to- gether in more than adamantine ties of its own, and 1 Address as President of the British Association, 1879. 36 THE GENESIS OF THE EARTH AND LIFE flowing together in orders absolutely timed and origi- nated beyond our ken : but when we come to the lowest form of life, we have to contemplate with amazement a Being which originated actions of its own, and in times of its own — that rough hews its ends, let the providence of the outer world shape them as they may." 1 By reason of this measure of independent action, life acts on the purely physical world, and the physical world acts upon life, and again it reacts upon the physical world. It has thus come to pass, that living matter has ever been forming itself by its own inherent, active powers, and was at the same time ever being formed by the forces of its outer world. In illustration of the powerful influence which the states and changes of the external physical world have upon life and living creatures, I quote the following from Professor Haeckel's History of the Creation: — "Our commonest indigenous snake, the ringed snake, lays eggs which require three weeks' time to develop. But when it is kept in captivity, and no sand is strewn in the cage, it does not lay its eggs, but retains them until the young ones are developed. The difference be- tween animals producing living offspring and those laying eggs is here effaced simply by the change of ground upon which the animal lives. "Tritons are amphibious animals, nearly akin to frogs, and possess, like the latter in their youth, ex- ternal organs of respiration — gills with which, while living in water, they breathe the air dissolved in the water. At a later date a metamorphosis takes place in tritons as in frogs. They leave the water, lose their 1 The Government of God, by the writer. 37 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE gills., and accustom themselves to breathe with their lungs. But if they are prevented from doing this (that is, from leaving the water) by being shut up in a tank, they do not lose their gills. The gills remain, and the water salamander continues through life in that low state of development, beyond which its lower relations, the gilled salamander (or Sozobranchiata), never pass. The gilled salamander, attains its full size, its sexual development, and reproduces itself without losing its gills. "Great interest was caused a short time ago among zoologists by the axolotl (Siredon pisciformis), a. gilled salamander from Mexico, nearly related to the triton; it had already been known for a long time, and had been bred on a large scale in the Zoological Gardens in Paris. This animal possesses external gills like the young salamander, but retains them all its life like all other Sozobranchiata. This gilled salamander gener- ally remains in the water with its aquatic organs of respiration, and also propagates itself there. But in the Paris garden, unexpectedly, from among hundreds of these animals, a small number crept out of the water on to the dry land, lost their gills, and changed them- selves into gill-less salamanders, which are not to be distinguished from a North American genus of tritons (Ambrystoma) and breathe only through lungs. In this exceedingly curious case we can distinctly follow the great stride from water-breathing to air-breathing animals." Now, since life in its simpler and more primitive forms was much more liable to be changed by forces effecting it than the above more highly organised and permanent ones, we may see that, in primeval eras, 38 THE GENESIS OF THE EARTH AND LIFE living forms must have undergone rapid, manifold and great alterations at the incidence of external changes affecting them. Simple living matter, as we have seen, is observed to be in a state of great activity of its own. This, as has been said, is profoundly significant. Besides the Deity Himself, Life is the only other worker in the universe; He works, and life works, and there is not another. He has conferred upon it His own loftiest attributes, but has jealously guarded the same, by giving it a law to which it must conform itself and its action, or render up its being; and its entire genesis or evolution, as we shall see, is nothing less than its learning to conform itself and its activities to this law, as expressed in the states and changes of its environ- ment. All its conduct, as said, is governed by the states, circumstances and changes of the world into which it has been born. To the laws of that environing world it must conform its actions. And when it fails, death is ever the ready and unfailing penalty; while that matter and energy which it had vitalised, but misused, afe again returned to the realm from which they were taken. Let it be clearly understood, chemistry and physics can never account for the mysterious phenomena of life. Chemistry can accomplish nothing except under the direction of the human mind. 1 And life is a direc- tive power originating from itself, the movements, functions, and changes of living organisms. This self- orginating action must have preceded all mnemonic 1 The thought is well developed in a paper by Dr. Joshua Oliver I was permitted to see in MS. 39 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE conditions suggested by Dr. Francis Darwin at the late meeting of the British Association at Dublin. At that meeting Dr. J. S. Haldane said : "Our aim must be, in short, not to reduce organic to inorganic phenomena, but to bring inorganic phenomena into the domain of biology. Now the first requirement of a working hypothesis was that it should work, and as a matter of fact the physico- chemical theory of life has not worked in the past and could never work." As to the origin of life, the fact is continually neglected, that there is no difference be- tween the universal natural event of omnie vivum ex vivo of to-day, and the Bible record of the origin of life on the earth. Since life was derived from the Living God, it was still omnie vivum ex vivo. Here, then, there rises before the mind a vision of life, which, having formed to itself a body, is seen to be moving, working, acting in the midst of a physical world. So long as it adapts itself to that world, so long as it conforms to certain laws, its existence is preserved, but when it fails it forfeits life and dies. The kind of obedience required of life is very varied, and yet consists simply in adapting itself to the "world around it, in balancing outer changes by inner changes in itself. This outer world was, of course, ever chang- ing. We found it just now in darkness, but light came, the heavy mantle of cloud lifted, and the expanse or firmament of a clear heaven expanded over the earth. Canon Driver is intent upon making the firmanent in the mind of the writer a solid sky. When Gesenius, Kalisch and other high authorities regard it as an expanse, and when we remember what our own word 40 THE GENESIS OF THE EARTH AND LIFE for heaven is derived from, and that we speak of the vault of heaven, what is the use of going out of the way to place the Bible at fault? In due course, land arose from the great sea, many alterations were going forward, and living organisms became in individuals and in races in relation to each other the most influenr tial section of life's environment. However, there were three great gifts from among others in the dowry of life, namely: capacity for originating its own actions and changes, ability to organize living tissues of differ- ent kinds, and power to bring forth abundantly off- spring after its kind in ever-varying forms. These forms multiplied exceedingly on the earth, and inas- much as life vehemently craves for food, from the zoophite up even to the healthy genus homo, war ensued (because of the limited food-supply) between all forms of life. In this "struggle for existence" the best or fittest forms of live survived, and the unfit perished. In other words, those best adapted to their surround- ing circumstances or environment, physical and vital, lived and propagated their kind, while the ill-adapted died. Not only were the adaptations which the living creature had the good fortune to inherit of importance, but it itself had to make many adaptations in its con- duct in contact with the outer world ; these latter adap- tations, better called adjustments, when of the right kind, prolonged the life of the creature; but when it failed to make the right adjustment, then death was the penalty. Thus when we see "the worm trodden on, the bird dead from starvation," the deer killed by a lion, and man struck down by disease or decay, we see that death ensued because the living creature was either 41 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE unable or failed to make the right adjustment to pre- serve its life. Of course, in an exceedingly limited degree, time and chance influence the fate of some. But, as we have seen, that inasmuch as on the whole it is the best or fittest which survive, therefore, as these betterments and fitnesses were continually added on to living beings and were continually accumulating, the living creatures must, because of increased adaptation, have risen higher and higher in the scale of life. As long as it was a simple amoebseic-like form of life, as figured in the text, every part of which performed the office of stomach, of lungs, legs and feet, etc., none of these offices were well accomplished ; but in the course of the changes which arose by adding adaptation to adaptation in the multiform variations which life orig- inated, a portion of its structure became devoted to the office of stomach and mouth, another to that of gills and lungs, another to more rapidly diffusing the products of digestion and destined to become a heart with arteries and veins, another to interlacing the several parts of the body as nerves, another to feet and legs; and the attribute of sensation, through touch, became specialised into taste, hearing, smelling, and sight of great acuteness. All these became cen- 42 THE GENESIS OF THE EARTH AND LIFE tralised and co-ordinated. And rising into conscious- ness through a central brain, we can see on the one hand in due course the highest order of living animals stand forth before us, at the end of this growing chain of cumulative changes. And, on the other hand, that a simple system of continuous modification and develop- ment from lower to higher forms explains the order of their creation. We see in this order the beauty of the Hebrew tongue in speaking of that creation being an incoming, unfinished, continuous creation, of its being in process and progress of evolvement. We see the beauty of its being an order of progressive con- tinuance or development of the past. We see the beauty of the words, "Let the earth bring forth" the living creature according to his kind, lit. "towards his kind," an evolutionary idea. "And the earth brought forth," as teaching the power of Environment in the course of Evolution; and these words are greatly en- hanced in meaning when we remember that they are in the Hebrew voice Hiphil, which signifies causation. Once in Kal, but as it is transitive, governing the accusative, it also is causative^ and therefore clearly includes the environment of living organisms as a factor in the genesis of all life, vegetable or animal — an important point also in the scientific doctrine of Evolution. Possibly new forms and perhaps new species may have originated by mutation per saltum. But it was point out by Darwin that great alterations coming at a leap in living organisms are of an unsubstantial nature. Exceptions to this rule would arise where the survival of favourable lines of inheritance produced 43 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE definite variations. 1 Let it be clearly understood that all movements, functions, variations and changes, not simply responsive, originate in and from the living creature itself, and that there is no Divine directivity whatever. Any such directivity would be fatal to the independence of life and to the great purpose of God, in which, having given to life free self-action, He holds all living creatures responsible for their actions and conduct and even for their nature. And the idea of directivity is absolutely opposed to the facts of Nature. Life having been launched on the world, it was left to itself to originate its own actions, and in degree its own organisation, but always under the law of God given in the creation of the Universe, as the providence that shapes its ends. "Self-adjustment to meet the environmental condi- tions differentiates animate from inanimate nature. As characteristic as this self-adjustment is, its central trend is towards what is sometimes called 'purpose.' Animate objects are observed to adjust themselves to their own advantage, that is, so as to prolong their individual existence or that of the species. The more we know of them, the more completely appears this trend in their reactions. A living organism advanta- geously adapts itself to its surroundings ; and every part of a living organism exhibits this power." 2 Let it be clearly understood that living organisms, apart from all reactions and responses to forces inci- dent upon them from their environment, originate movements of their own. Life's greatest attribute is 1 Professor Lloyd Morgan. 2 Professor C. S. Sherrington, in a paper before the Roya] Society. Nature, April 16, 1908. 44 THE GENESIS OF THE EARTH AND LIFE the free power of self-movement ; and so great is that freedom that it has taken all these millions of ages to teach organisms the appropriate and efficient actions even for the temporal preservation of their existence — nor is the lesson finished yet. Now it is because of this great freedom that life has to learn by prolonged experience in suffering, in failure, and from death, that there arises the necessity for the multiplied off- spring, for the war of Nature, the struggle for exist- ence, the destruction of the unfit, and progressive ad- vance by preservation of the fittest. If, as materialists contend, life is only a form of physico-chemical action, then all its movements would be determined by fixed and necessary laws, so that no action could ever fail in efficiency, and the long discipline of such a so-called life would be unneces- sary ; but this would not be life at all. It is the privi- lege and power of free independent action which makes life what it is. Again, had all living organisms been specially created, or if there had been any Divine directivity operating, there would have been no need for life's long, painful discipline. They would have been per- fectly adapted from the first. Let us remember that, while progressive advance- ment and the creation of bringing-forth of higher and more perfect forms of life was the rule in organic evolution, there were nevertheless occasional cross- currents and return tides in the great stream of prog- ress, where lower and less perfect forms became the -fittest. Thus the chilly temperature of the Permian era at the close of the Primary age gave rise to stunted forms of organism, which had flourished in the pre- 45 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE vious period. These, though exceptional, are no in- fraction, but also a fulfilment of the great law that obedience in the form of structure, function, or adap- tive response, was ever demanded of organisms, while disobedience, or inefficient response, ever ended in death. According, therefore, to scriptural revelation and scientific research, all living animals are linked to- gether by community of descent. And thus, as Dar- win says: "From the war of Nature, from famine and death, the highest object of which we have any conception, namely, the production of the higher ani- mals, follows." It is the Bible record, which Darwin adopts in the following words: "There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one ; and that while this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning, endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved." And "That man may be excused from feeling some pride at having risen, though not through his own exertions, to the very summit of the organic scale; and that the fact of his having risen, instead of having been aboriginally placed there, may give him hope for a still higher destiny in the distant future." Had we a complete vision of the whole chain of life from the lowest and simplest forms up to man, we should behold through ages a great multitude of forms gliding with hardly perceptible modification into each other in a rising scale of progressive advancement. But in the latest ages, and in some cases in the later, when definite variations through survival of favourable 46 THE GENESIS OF THE EARTH AND LIFE lines were produced, new forms of living organisms would arise in brief period of time and with few links in the chain of progressive advancement. It is a natu- ral fact that when organisms which have not changed for a long time begin to change, they change rapidly, and doubtless this was the way in which the finished and permanent forms of the higher animals and man were reached. We, therefore, do not expect to find readily the links which originally united forms now lying far apart, because these links were so few; while, on the other hand, the permanent forms or the changing forms which remained for long periods un- changed obviously have left us abundant remains. Therefore, we cannot expect the few intermediate links to be readily found. In the case of man, the latest phases of development were doubtless, with very few links, speedily traversed, and man himself, in the plenitude of physical and mental power, stood forth at the summit of all life. And were we to associate with him other supreme forms of animal life, giving the highest points on the great tree of life, we would behold the lion, the ox, and the eagle, with man, as the finished forms of all living organisms which have come forth in the creation of God. But to complete in a figure the whole vision of creation we must go back to the ultimate place given to us both in the Bible and science, namely, to the nebular cloud. How beautifully this is portrayed in the vision of Ezekiel: "And I looked, and, behold, a whirlwind 1 came out of the north, a great cloud, and 1 The revisers have put here a "stormy wind"; they could not have known that every storm wind is a circular — a whirl- wind. 47 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE a fire infolding itself, and a brightness was about it, and out of the midst thereof as the colour of amber, out of the midst of the fire, came the likeness of four living creatures. ... As for the likeness of their faces, they four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion, on the right side ; and they four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four also had the face of an eagle. Thus were their faces." "These were visions of God," namely, His throne imaged in the whole creation or Kosmos. It is interesting to find Professor Huxley giving us a similar vision of the creation. He says : "Just as the cloud of our breath condenses on a pane of glass in a frosty morning into fern-like leaves, so after a like manner have the whole flora and fauna of the globe come forth from the great nebular cloud." 1 The accompanying photograving answers both to the vision of Ezekiel and to that of the learned pro- fessor, with exception of the flora, but, inasmuch as the highest twigs of the great tree of life are presented, they cover all other forms. The symbol of Spencer is seen in the plant rising out of crystals and earth with a caterpillar and chrysalis, and surmounted by a flower and butterfly. The Bible symbol is much the more perfect. The Bible has been reproached by the critics for suggesting a geocentric formation of the Universe. Although we never expected to find the earth in the centre of the solar system, yet we now find that a geocentric formation of the Universe is the one which really prevails. As Sir Norman Lockyer says: "The stars in question in the Milky Way — which is a great 1 Quoted from memory. 48 '-5 >— i 5 O I g [To /ac^ /'flgt' 48. [To face page 49. THE GENESIS OF THE EARTH AND LIFE circle — are all equally remote, and the only place where such a state of things can be observed must be a point equally distant from all, that is, in the centre of the system under observation. It is worth while to repeat, that because we are in the centre, because the solar system is in the centre, that the observed effect arises." The accompanying photograving of the nebula in Lyra gives an idea, according to Sir Norman Lockyer, of the formation of the stellar universe. The circular band represents the Milky Way, and the spot in the centre the solar cluster. That a symmetrical arrangement of the Universe prevails is proved by the fact that it has remained intact for millions and millions of ages, and that our delicately balanced solar system shows no evidence of having been perturbed in the eons of the past. "While the silent heavens roll, and suns — along their fiery way, All their planets whirling round them — flash a million miles a day." 49 CHAPTER V GENESIS ORDER AND TIME-RATIOS OF THE WORLD AND LIFE THE Bible and the book of geology give us the order of certain events and of the appearance of various forms of life on the earth; it is interesting to compare them. We have already seen their harmony in regard to the darkness and to the dawn of light, and in the fact that the first forms of life were brought forth in the waters of primeval seas, and were at first of the simplest forms in which life appears. At this early period, from the high temperature of portions of the earth's surface and the many and frequent fractures of the folding crust, there could have been no clear atmosphere: steam, watery vapour, mist, and cloud would commingle earth and heaven. Later, however, the clouds above would receive all watery vapour, and a clear atmosphere, a "firmament" (Hebrew, an ex- panse), would separate the waters of the seas from the waters of the clouds as recorded in Genesis. And be it understood clouds are real water — water in a finely divided state, and they often lie along the skies in great seas, and the wind in those high altitudes rolls them into waves, and when they reach the peaks of lofty mountains, they break in spray against those elevated shores, as do the waters of the seas below, 50 GENESIS ORDER AND TIME-RATIOS and are sometimes attended by a solemn sound of sobbing as of sorrow on the sea. If the earth to-day were a perfect spheroid without elevations or depres- sions, the sea would cover it to the depth of nearly two miles. A similar condition prevailed in those early days which the Bible recognises, till land at length arose from the waters. Later still, points of land would unite to form more permanent land areas, and the waters became gathered into more clearly bounded seas. All these changes are perfect ; they illustrate how well the Bible recognises the great evolutionary principles of Differentiation and Segregation attending the genesis of the earth at this period. Along these day-ages life had been progress- ing, and became divided into clearly marked vegetable and animal kingdoms. About the third day-age the highly organised fishes appeared in the waters, accord- ing to the geologic record. Land areas being now established at the era corresponding perfectly to the third day-age, vegetation arose. Sir A. Geikie says: "We can dimly picture the Silurian land, with its waving thickets of fern, above which lycopod trees raised their fluted and scored stems, threw out their scaly, moss-like branches, and shed their spiked cones." That is, fruit, "wherein is the seed thereof" (Gen. i. 2). These primeval forests developed in this and in the dawn of the next day-age, namely, the fourth, into most wonderful luxuriance. The solar nebula was now turning into a true sun, and ere the fourth day- age concluded its course God sent His sunshine upon the rapidly progressing creation. Ere the beams of sunshine, however, attained any power, the vast forests 51 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE of that era had sunk down beneath the frequent shift- ings of sea and land to form the great coal-fields, which to-day yield us so much heat and light and power. Sunshine would have been fatal, as Sir Charles Lyell has shown, to the formation of coal upon the colossal scale found to-day. And as we find a nearly uniform temperature from Equator to Poles, we can only account for this condition by admitting, that a great hot- water system in oceanic currents, diffused heat gained from the internal heat of the earth, through frequent fractures of its contracting crust, due to strains caused by the moon's nearness to the earth at this period. We have already seen that by all calculations re- garding the ages of the sun and earth, the sun is accurately placed by the Bible in the fourth day-age. These calculations, having to do with the relative ages of the earth and sun in the same system of things and their forces, cannot be affected by any influence arising from the presence of radium or radio-active matter in these bodies. In due order both the Bible and science place the great "sea-monsters" (R.V.) or saurians and birds in the fifth day-age, and mammals and man in the sixth. The accompanying photo- graving shows these monsters, namely, Icthyosaurus and Plesiosaurus, and Sir A. Geikie mentions them as designating the very age in which the Bible places them. The birth of fowl from the waters is of much in- terest. To uninformed minds the idea offered so much difficulty that in most Bibles and Commentaries the translation of the Authorised Version is altered to the form, "Let birds fly," etc. 52 [To face page 52. Drawn by Augustus Cook, from a tracing from "Atlas Biologic" [To face page 53. GENESIS ORDER AND TIME-RATIOS Professor Taylor Lewis points out that the strict Hebrew requires the translation given in the Author- ised Version of the Scripture, and says: "The other rendering would require a different order of words. . . . The more modern rendering has come on account of what would seem gross materialism, namely, the eduction of the birds from the waters." The Hebrew word translated fowl, covers flying reptiles, etc., as well as birds proper. It is now almost universally accepted that the em- bryonic life of a creature is a compressed epitome more or less full of its past evolutionary history in the ancestral line of descent. The embryonic life of the chick in the egg is of profound interest. The de- velopment in the egg from the germ to the chick does not pursue a straight course, but proceeds by a cir- cuitous route. Early in its history the embryo de- velopes gill-slips corresponding to a fish (see the ac- companying plate) ; arrangements are also laid down for the required vascular or blood supply of the gills ; then, wonderful to relate, the mysterious Potter changes His hand, closes the gill-slips, effaces two lines of the blood supply, devotes the others to another use, and makes it, as it pleaseth Him, into another creature, even a bird! Dr. A. Miles Marshall says: "The fact that these structures, which are only in- telligible through their association with aquatic respira- tion, are present in the early developmental stages of the chick, must be held to prove the descent of birds from aquatic gill-breathing ancestors." This discovery is well regarded as the greatest triumph of ontogenesis, and on this triumph the Book of Genesis, as we have seen, distinctly puts its finger ! 53 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE The land relationships of birds are recognised in the next chapter. Geologists divide the genesis of the earth from an early period into Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary (or Paleozoic — ancient life, Mesozoic — middle life, and Cainozoic — new life). In these divi- sions they put primeval life, especially in seas and the primeval forests, in the Primary; the great sea- monsters and saurians and birds in the Secondary; and mammals and man in the Tertiary. The latter they have subdivided, and added a fourth called the Quaternary, with man as its most significant feature. It is a period so brief as to be not worth taking into account. Some geologists give us the time-ratios of these long eras. Thus the late Professor Dana gives the following : — Primary or Paleozoic life and time . 12 Secondary or Mesozoic " . 3 Tertiary or Cainozoic . 1 Professor Wolcott gives: — Primary ...... 12 Secondary ...... 5 Tertiary ...... 2 Professor Hull and Houghton, from British strata, give :— Primary . . 42.5 per cent. . 12.9 Secondary and Tertiary 23.2 " . 7.0 =(3.5... 3.5) The Bible, according to their rule for calculating these ratios, gives : — Primary ...... 12 Secondary ...... 3 Tertiary 3 54 GENESIS ORDER AND TIME-RATIOS We find the Bible time-ratio by taking days when the living organisms corresponding to these periods are recorded to have appeared in the first chapter of Genesis. Thus four days correspond to Sir Roderick Murchison's statements regarding life in the Primary or Paleozoic age. He is our greatest authority for that age; other geologists are in agreement with him. One day, namely, the fifth, contains the living creatures which correspond to and designate the Secondary age ; and one day, namely, the sixth, contains the life of the Tertiary age, with which all geologists are in agree- ment. This gives 4.1. 1X3= 12. 3.3. We have also the time-ratio of the age of the earth and sun according to estimates by Sir George Darwin, Professor Sollas, Professor Blyth, Professor Newcomb, Helmholtz, Kelvin, and others. The time-ratio of the age of the earth are 5.5, or 6, and of the sun 2.5. The Bible gives for the earth's age 6, and for the sun 2.5. What a striking and all convincing testimony to the fact of Divine revelation is here presented to us ! W T e have here a Biblical miracle permanently before us and continually open to our inspection. However, another consideration claims attention here in regard to the influence of radium. According to Professor Strutt (son of the distinguished physicist, Lord Raleigh), the influence of radium and other forms of radiant matter would lengthen these esti- mates for the earth, and let me add also for the sun. We have had the privilege of viewing the awful tempests of fire on the sun in the helium as well as the hydrogen line; and helium tells of radium. But, inasmuch as the value of a ratio remains unaltered, if the terms are multiplied or divided by the same 55 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE quantity; therefore the influence of radium makes no alteration: it simply means the terms of the above ratios multiplied by x. One of Professor Strutt's calculations as to the accumulation of helium in the mineral thoreanite indicates, he thinks, the age of the mineral to be about 240 millions of years. It may be so, but these millions take us back beyond life to the Azoic age, a period for which the Bible gives us no dimensions. Of course there is a difficulty in fixing the terminus a quo, or the point or cosmic state from which we start, in the stream of cosmic changes hav- ing neither beginning nor end, as they form themselves and flow into each other. The primeval condition which prevailed upon the earth, when darkness was upon the face of the deep and on a waste and empty world, now prevails on the great planet Jupiter, and probably Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, the immense size of these planets having retarded their cooling. Reviewing the ground tra- versed, the reader will perceive a wonderful agree- ment between revelation and scientific search, and will find that the living organisms mentioned in the Bible are placed in the exact order and position in which Sir A. Geikie (who has specially written on the use of fossils to this end) places them. The only differ- ence of importance is that the Bible makes the Tertiary to be equal length with the Secondary. However, present-day research tends in that direction ; the clos- ing phases of geologic changes, with energies much spent, must have moved slowly. In regard to the sixiold division in the six day-ages of Genesis, let me point to Professor Haeckel's Hve- fold divisions, in Table XIX. in his Evolution of Man. 56 GENESIS ORDER AND TIME-RATIOS Now his first division begins with such highly spe- cialised forms of life as the Acrania and Tree Algae; the first division of the Bible commences vastly earlier, before life existed, and reaches the dawn of life on the earth: this age, which is recognised by science, gives, with the other five periods, six m all. We are con- tinually hearing it said: "Of course the Bible was never intended to teach us matters of science." This is said in apology for the Bible, and in this sense, in point of fact, the reverse of these apologetic words represent the truth. As we have already said, when- ever the Bible touches upon a fact of science it pre- sents it with a grace, an accuracy and a philosophic form, unapproached by all and every text-book of science. But let us bear in mind that an important govern- ing principle pervades the Genesis record of creation. It was written for all classes of people ; for the learned and unlearned. The reverence shown for the masses is a manifest characteristic of the Bible, and without a parallel in other genuine ancient books. And when we perceive that this Scripture was written by the unlearned in science, and for learned and unlearned alike, and yet so as not to conflict with our most ad- vanced learning and knowledge, we find ourselves in the presence of the greatest miracle in the whole Bible. Throughout the evolution of life we must not as aforesaid consider that there was any special inter- ference or directivity from the Creator. We know, in the physical evolution of the Universe in forming worlds and mountains, rocks, land, and sea, there was no such interference or directivity. The original prop- erties conferred upon matter and energy sufficed for 57 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE all things and their forces. Even so, also, the original and peculiar dowry bestowed upon life, together with the environment "that shaped its ends," sufficed for all its forms, whether as transient in the course of evolution, or as finished and final as on the earth of to-day. Let it not be said we are in any sense divorcing God from His works. If we diverted a stream of sand in a given direction for one moment of time, it would be to us a longer space of duration in relation to our state of being than are all these millions of ages to the Creator. And we would not be the Creator of the sand, or of the energy and law by which it fell. After whatever mode, it is still "God working all in all." The fact we are here considering is one of profound significance. The difference between life and matter is abysmal. As I have said before, the material Uni- verse moves, so to speak, in adamantine ties, abso- lutely timed, easily calculated, and can be unfailingly forecast. Life, however, in addition to movements responsive to external stimuli, originates movements of its own and in times of its own — movements which no science can fathom and no wisdom can forecast. The movements and position of heavenly bodies can be determined through long ages past and to come, but the path that an amoeba or an animalcule may have traversed, or will traverse, some seconds past or to come is beyond us, and baffles all research. This unsearchable independence, freedom, and spontaneity (the forerunners of free will) conferred upon life are hedged by the laws of its environment. So that, at all places in Nature and at all times, it is required of 58 GENESIS ORDER AND TIME-RATIOS living organisms that they conform, adapt, or adjust themselves to the circumstances, the events, and forces of the world in which they live and move, and thereby reserve their existence. But, if they fail, death, or it may be degradation, are the only alternatives. Herbert Spencer has pointed out that even in the lowest actions of lowly organisms there is an ethical element, namely, their actions bring either good or ill to the race or themselves. The ethical elements may be questioned. However, when we remember that manifestations of mind have been shown to exist in the case of very low organisms, that Dr. Francis Darwin discovers a psychic element even in plants, we may well suppose that, where mind exists and governs the actions of organisms, there may also be an elementary ethical hue. Again, we are familiar with the fact that the dog exhibits the whole circle of ethical qualities, including the joy of a good and the misery of a bad conscience. The dog exhibits these qualities in a degree which equals the measure of his mental powers. Now the question arises, At what point in the genealogy of the dog and his ances- tors did these qualities commence? The human en- vironment did not create, it only elicited these ethical qualities. We are therefore warranted in believing that in every era and among all organisms, so far as the environment demanded, to that degree, there was conduct with an ethical colouring. And that we, with our scanty knowledge of life, can fix no beginning till we go' back to Gen. i. 2, and read: 'The Spirit of God brooded upon the face of the waters." And, moreover, we are aware that the preservation of the life of the lower animals on the field of Nature 59 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE demands the utmost tension of their senses, and the utmost strain of their energies. All great philosophers regard the reign of Nature and of natural law with which life is in correspondence as "manifestations of God," and we perceive that they are ever requiring obedience and ever visiting dis- obedience with death; and this order of events has attended life, in all its progressive developments, for nigh a hundred millions of years up to man's estate in being. "Philosophers and theologians have spoken of the solemn nature of our moral obligations. Man's re- sponsibility and the starry heavens impressed Kant with a sense of awe, but the violence adduced above vastly deepens the solemnity, vastly magnifies the awe. If the lowest creature in its lowly activities were in an important sense held responsible for its conduct, what shall we say of our responsibility, which has been ever increasing in importance throughout millions of ages, as the creature ascended 'the great altar-stair that sloped through darkness up to God' P" 1 From these facts we see that life might have as- sumed other forms than those known to us — Nature need not have been "red in tooth and claw." Neither need we attribute, as does the special creation theory, the ravenous beast of prey to the direct creation of God. And the time is coming when the beast of prey shall have ceased out of all lands, thus proving the transient permissive nature of the^r existence and reign. The following important passages from Her- bert Spencer's Principles of Biology, pp. 573, 574, are here in place: — 1 Bankrupt Views of the Bible, by the writer. 60 GENESIS ORDER AND TIME-RATIOS "But let it be confessed that, though all phenomena of organic evolution must fall within lines above in- dicated, there remains many unsolved problems. . . . Thus the process of organic evolution is far from being understood ... or, otherwise, we must conclude that since life itself proves to be in its ultimate nature inconceivable, there is probably an inconceivable ele- ment in its ultimate working." And let it be clearly understood that, so far as the requirements of this work are concerned, we are not dealing with theories, but with facts. The struggle for existence, the destruction of the unfit, the preserva- tion of the fittest, and a process of organic evolution already proved in degree, are great facts. The difficulties raised by Professor de Vries relating to mutation, etc., have an easy explanation. Life at the beginning must have varied indefinitely, and, as Professor Lloyd Morgan says, the more aberrant lines became extinguished by selection ; this would lead tb mutations qualified by a residuum of indefiniteness still remaining. Again, species are really the termini of evolutionary lines; so beyond varieties it is folly tb look for new species. In an important sense evolution belonged to life in times past, but to-day, in that sense, it is finished. 61 CHAPTER VI SOURCE OF THE COSMOGONY OF GENESIS IT is an accepted canon with- the critics, and even with Professor Sayce, who regards the views of the critics as a bundle of fancies, to trace the cos- mogony of Genesis to an absurd ''Babylonian epic," which a candid critic confesses reads like "the ravings of a madman." It is an unheard-of course of reason which tries to establish the strange idea that the people with whom the cosmogony had most to do, did nothing to originate the record. And, on the other hand, the people to whom it had no due relationship whatsoever did everything in this direction. That a people who preserved their genealogy, the names and ages of their fathers', from the dawn of history should have to crib from a people who present us with no such record. As the astronomer, Mr. E. W. Maunder, says : "The knowledge of the natural object must pre- cede the myth founded on it. . . . It is the Babylonian story that has been borrowed from the Hebrews, and has been degraded in the borrowing." And then, to add to the confusion of all sound reason, we are told that the writers of the Scriptures took the crude, Bedlam-like, polytheistic epic and remodelled it into a monotheistic document. Tfyey fail to recognise suffi- 62 SOURCE OF THE COSMOGONY OF GENESIS cientl}* the fact that this is, in a sense, the smallest section of their achievements. For the chaste, refined, consummate perfection of the cosmogony is even still more clearly in evidence, and makes it manifest that the Babylonian epic is only a travesty of a tradition current in early times, that has meandered into many nations, and become much altered in transmission ; while in the Bible we have the only genuine inspired record of the genesis of the earth and heavens. And that it must have been written from Divine revela- tion is the only possible explanation of a record which to-day, in a full light of modern science, is without fault or blemish. Of all people on the face of the earth the Semites in Babylon or elsewhere were the most polytheistic. Now what was the influence which com- pelled a few of them, a thin line of Semites, to be purely monotheists ? Dr. Freeman says : "The Semitic nations were much more polytheistic than th«j Arian." Herbert Spencer, in opposition to his own strong prejudices, arrives at a similar judgment. Delitzsch says: "The fact that the natural heathen. disposition of Israel unceasingly reacted against it (monotheism) shows that it was no product of nature, but a gift of grace." The monotheists of Israel suffered the fiercest per- secution at the hands of their fellow-countrymen. "Which of the prophets," said St. Stephen to the Jews, "have not your fathers persecuted?" From passages in Genesis we perceive in the earliest times — by the names given to Lamech's wives, Adah, and Zillar, signifying a jewel and a shadow; and the sister of Tubal-Cain, Naamah, the lovely or beautiful — that we are in the presence of culture and refine- 63 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE ment. And if we look at another end of the long line of Biblical people, we find that Aaron, who had no training in Pharaoh's house, yet nevertheless, as written, it is said of him "He can speak well" and for cultured kings to hear, showing that he had ability and had received an education. So that the people of God, the line of "prophets which have been since the world began," did not require to borrow from Babylonian sources. Lastly, the sober facts of history prove that a true monotheism preceded polytheism. The testimony from Egypt, from Babylon, from China, from India, from Greece, settles this point, which is well presented in the line of the Vedic hymn : — "The gods themselves came later into being." The astronomer, Mr. E. W. Maunder, adds here to our knowledge in his interesting work, The Astronomy of the Bible. Mr. Maunder shows that the constella- tions were designed at a very early period, and that they could not have been designed in Babylon, in a latitude 2>2 l / 2 ° . The outline of the mapped and un- mapped regions of the heavens shows a latitude of about 40° away up at the cradle of our race. Again, when the slow movement of the axis upon which the earth rotates, known as "precession," is taken into account, it enables the astronomer to calculate the constellations visible and invisible in a given latitude at a given period. From this data Mr. Maunder cal- culates that the constellations must have been designed about 2700 years B.C. This was either just before or after the Flood. Now, inasmuch as some of\'these constellations are clearly based upon facts recorded in Genesis, therefore these facts must have been known 64 SOURCE OF THE COSMOGONY OF GENESIS and were probably on record before that early date. The cosmogony of Genesis is too perfect to have been derived from tradition; we are shut up, therefore, to a very ancient document or to verbal inspiration. Not only does the Bible owe nothing to Babylon, but, as' with Amalek, there is eternal war between them. After the Exile the Jews borrowed certain things. In relation to these points a question of chronology arises in regard to Egypt and Babylon. It is now fashionable to regard Egyptian civilisation as going back ten thousand years. Now there may have been men in North-East Africa fifty thousand years ago, but you cannot have Egyptian anything before Egypt proper came to be. From geological data, Sir William Dawson estimated the limits of the Egyptian Delta at five thousand years — a statement in harmony with one made by Herodotus, on the authority of the Egyp- tian priests, who said the Delta did not exist before Menes. The chronology of Babylon comes later than that of Egypt. A late book by the Rev. F. A. Jones shows interesting evidence from' the Hindus, China, from Egypt and Babylon, when rightly understood (explaining the remarkable Pavement of Naraam's Sin), confirmatory of Biblical chronology, and show- ing that it could not have been borrowed from Baby- lon. This evidence requires sifting. Man's estimates, especially from his own arm-chair, are never to be trusted ; he would have told us that to turn Rome from mud to marble would have re- quired centuries. It was accomplished, however, in the reign of a single emperor. Charles Darwin, a high and cautious authority, viewing the Fijians (a savage race, regarding which every ship and naval 65 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE station bore a notice warning sailors against landing upon their inhospitable shores), said it would take centuries to civilise them. However, by the preaching of a single Evangelist, these terrible savages had their native instincts so changed, that they presented a better bill of moral and civilised health than the home counties of Kent or Sussex. No wonder Darwin became a subscriber to that Mission to the end of his life. The ten thousand years offered us for the foundation of Babylon, and still more for Egypt, may •be dismissed as entirely chimerical. Like organic processes, so also in history, changes when once initiated, progress rapidly, and defy all our means of measurement. 66 CHAPTER VII THE GENESIS OF MAN, THE LIMITS OF NATURAL EVOLU- TION, AND THE IMPORTANCE, PLACE, AND FUNCTION OF THE BIBLE THE record of creation in Genesis concludes with the creation of man ; male and female. As long ago as 1650 a writer, Peyreyries by name, pointed out that the Bible recognised the existence of a race of men before Adam. A glance at the Scripture will confirm this view. In Gen. i. 26-29 we find them "male and female" on the open Held of nature, and we know Eve was never on the open field of nature until she fell and was driven out of Paradise. More- over, this early race are there given by their Creator fruit without any restriction, and "every herb" as food. Such, however, was not the instruction given to, nor the food of, Adam in Paradise, and you will notice that the "herb" as food was even made part of the curse on account of his transgression (see hi. 18). We may present the scriptural evidence as fol- lows : — To the "Male and Female" To Adam in the second of the first chapter: — chapter:— "And God said, Behold, I "And God commanded 67 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge is the fruit of a tree yield- \ of good and evil, thou shalt ing seed; to you it shall be \ not eat of it, for in the day for food." \ that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." After the Fall and as part of the Curse: — "And thou shalt eat the herb of the field." Lest the reader's familiarity with these Scriptures should make them miss the important points, I have put them in black type. It is not to be understood that the words of the first chapter were addressed to the ears of those early men, any more than were the words of verse 22 addressed to the hearing of the "sea-monsters" and "fowls." They were God's benediction; that Adam heard the words of God is evident from chap. iii. 17, etc. In the face of this scriptural evidence, in which the record of Genesis (even to a writer of over two centuries ago) recog- nises the existence of a primitive race, antedating Adam, Canon Driver writes : "Yet the narrative of Genesis takes no account of them, and indeed leaves no room for them." How strange a thing is this ! It may be asked, If Adam were of woman born, why does not the Bible say so? It was necessary to make manifest the fact without any confusion or ambiguity that God created man. And as the Bible especially considers the humble and the ignorant, it presents this fact, not only in a way which meets their case, but also in a way which commends itself to 68 THE GENESIS OF MAN every mind unclouded by prejudice and unmarred by defect of intelligence. The second chapter of Genesis is regarded as con- taining a second Creation story. However, high au- thorities reject the idea, for which there is no right evidence. And now, as before stated, from the trenchant article of Professor B. D. Erdmans in Hibbcrt's Journal, from the chair of Kuenen, we have these documents, labelled J, E, D, P, thrown over- board, after having misled scholars for ages. This, early race of men were the outcome of the great majestic and Divine ordinance of Evolution. Little wonder that the clay turned to the impress of the seal of God's law, and brought forth a creature in His image (Job xxxviii. 14). We have evidence to show that, even before the days of Adam, man had become possessed of a brain capacity larger than the men of the present age. There is also evidence to show that they were preceded by lower races of men, going back in links to generalised forms related to anthropoid or man-like apes. The thoughtful and inquiring public are being greatly misled by books which give a kind of an assent to the doctrine of Evolution, but assure their readers that in the case of man "there is not a single link" in relation to his evolution. Now not only for a long time have we had the fossil ape-man of Borneo, but we have also in succession to him the Heidelberg man (Homo heidelbergensis) from Middle Pleistocene, the Le Moustier man (Homo mousteriensis hauseri) of the Dordogne, next the links between the Pithe- canthropus erectus and the Neanderthal man (see photograving). next the La Chapelle-aux-Saintes, or 69 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE Correze man, linking on to Neanderthal men, and through them on to Homo sapiens, or the perfect man. We are glad to mention that Professor Klaastch has for years upheld the theory that, "to discover the roots of the human race, we must go very far back, perhaps even to the roots of the mammalian genea- logical tree; and additional probability is lent to this idea by the Heidelberg find."! 1 This is a view which the writer has for some time also held. The accompanying photograving shows a series of skulls which I was permitted to have taken, from a collection in the South Kensington Museum. At the top is a skull of the average man of to-day; next below is a skull of the man of Spy; next, the Nean- derthal man; and, lastly, the link with the ape, the Pithecanthropus ere etas, or the erect ape-man, from the Upper Pliocene of Borneo. The rude formation of the three lower skulls is obvious. The exceedingly low forehead of even the man of Spy and Neanderthal is manifest, as also their great length (dolichocephalic shape), a feature they shared with the lower animals of the Early Tertiary. Of the men of Spy, Huxley writes: "They were powerfully built, with strong, curiously curved thigh-bones, so that they must have walked with a bend at the knee. The difference is abysmal between these rude and brutal savages and the comely, fair, tall, and long-headed (i.e. high- foreheaded) races of historic times." We would say, instead of "brutal savages," simple, immature, human creatures. Yet it would be absurd to say these men were made in the image and likeness of God; to this consummation the vital clay was coming. 1 Nature, 29th July 190?. by Mr. A. C. Haddon. 70 [To face page 70. THE GENESIS OF MAN • They lived long before the days of Adam; the man of Spy and the earlier human links lived with the rhinoceros, mammoth, and cave bear — they represent closing links in the evolution of man. To those who, reading Gen. i., and finding it difficult to admit this natural process of evolution in the creation of man, let me point out that the Biblical use of the Hebrew word "to create" outside that chapter is for produc- tion by natural causation. The one exception, Num. xvi. 30, confirms this fact, because, in order to make it signify a "new thing," or to "make a new thing," it requires to be used twice, namely, in a verbal and nominal sense. If we compare Gen. ii. 7 with Job x. 3-11, and several other Scriptures, we shall find that Job affirms of himself, and therefore of all men, the very things, and even more strongly, than are written of the formation of Adam. And we must remember that even the Hebrew word "to create" is oftenest used for the production of things by natural causa- tion ; and observe, Scripture is its own best interpreter. Later in time, according to Professor Wright, we come to the men of Cro-magnon and Mentone. Broca says of the Cro-magnon skull : "The great volume of the brain, the development of the frontal region, the fine elliptical profile of the anterior portion of the skull, and the orthognathous power of the upper facial region, are incontestable evidences of superiority which are met with usually only in the civilised races. On the other hand, the great breadth of the face, the alveolar prognathism, the enormous development of the ascending ramus of the lower jaw, the extent and roughness of the muscular insertions, especially of the 71 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE masticatory muscles, 1 give rise to the idea of a violent and brutal race." Dawson says: "The Cro-magnon sculls of Aqui- tania, in the valley of Vezere, and the Mentone skele- ton, show the god and the demon were combined in these races, but there was nothing of the mere brute." Of the same age, and doubtless reaching to later times, we meet with the Truchere race. The Truchere skull reveals to us a man of a still higher and more elevated order. The race is regarded by Quatrefages as undoubtedly contemporary with the mammoth, and indicates men of high and refined cerebral endow- ment. 2 In pondering the characteristics of these men, we must allow for the influence of an almost exclu- sively fruit and vegetable diet upon families of men living for long periods of time in the tropics or sub- tropics. Man by his ancestry was a vegetable-eating animal. The influence of food of this description would undoubtedly give rise to another race, or even undo the brutal attributes of the Cro-magnon man, and give rise to the Truchere race, with their high and refined cerebral endowment. "Broca has measured," says Dawson, "the cubic contents of the Cro-magnon skull, and gives as the result 1590 cubic centimetres, or 119 centimetres more than the average of 125 modern Parisian skulls." Quatrefages mentions the skull of the Truchere race having a capacity of 1925 cubic centimetres, or over 400 cubic centimetres be- yond the average Parisian skulls. 1 Later research shows that this was due simply to their being vegetarians. 2 Hommes Fossiles et Hommes Saiwages, pp. 76, 77. 72 THE GENESIS OF MAN The researches of Venn and Galton upon skull capacity give the following results : — ( 1 ) In the masses of the population the brain ceases to grow after nineteen, but not so in University men ; (2) That men who obtain high honours have had considerably larger brains than others at the age of nineteen ; ' (3) But not to the same extent at the age of twenty- five. Doubtless the latter point is owing to the fact that the high honours men, having gained their ultimate ambition, rested while the others plodded on. Pro- fessor Sollas, in a communication to the Geological Society, admits that when we go back in time the brain capacity increases in dimensions; and adds that the fact possesses, intellectually, no significance. This, as we shall see, is a mistake. When we couple with the evidence adduced above in regard to high honours men, the fact that after W. E. Gladstone entered upon his parliamentary labours his head increased in size so as to require three increased sizes of hats, what becomes of Professor Sollas's contention? It is a grave mistake to regard the men who have attained to fame and fortune as the most intellectual. Very successful men are too often ambitious plodders with restricted intelligence and brains. All the evidence, rightly understood, is opposed to Professor Sollas's views. Canon Driver is anxious to make the Adamic man 'of low intelligence, and writes as follows : — "A time arrived when man's faculties were sufficiently developed for him to become conscious of a moral law, and having become conscious of it, he broke it; he may have 73 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE done this without possessing any of those intellectual per- fections with which he has been credited, but the exist- ence of which, at such an early stage of history, would be contrary to the whole analogy of providence. . . . Gradual advance from lower to higher, from the less perfect to the more perfect, is the law which is stamped upon the entire range of organic nature." — Genesis, p. 56. The Higher Criticism requires another universe than the present one, and another circle of science unknown to man, to fit its findings. We cannot push history back ten thousand years, but man had forty times as much as that in which to develop his mind before the Adamic man. And it is an entirely new system of mental and moral science which declares the moral faculties to have been de- veloped before the intellectual. Verily, "the shifts, the resorts, the assumptions of the critics are end- less." In regard to early man, his high brain develop- ment was, I believe, owing first to the fact that the brain having begun to change, developed rapidly, as has been observed in the case of other structures in organisms ; and, secondly, to the superabundance of nutrition. These facts enable us to understand the high, noble, and refined race of man presented to us in the first chapter of Genesis, who are there said to have been created in the image and likeness of God. It is wholly impossible to account for the decay of the whole historic man, both in brain capacity and physical perfection, without we believe that some depraving influence, such as "The Fall," entered the race at an early date. Adam was no doubt of this noble race (see Gen. v. 1, 2), formed, as the Scrip- ture reads, outside Paradise; and having received in 74 THE GENESIS OF MAN addition to his perfected humanity .the Breath, that is, the Spirit of God, he became the "son of God," and was then "taken possession of" and placed in Paradise, from which after his disobedience he was driven out to the earth "from which he was taken." We can thus understand the Scripture, which writes that the "sons of God" 1 (i.e. the descendants of Adam) "saw the daughters of men that they were fair, and took of them for wives," and makes clear to us also from whence Cain obtained his wife. No doubt these races of men, of different degrees of development, like all other forms of life in Nature, not only succeed each other in time, but also over- lapped at each end of their several racial histories, thus making them contemporaries for a time in the order of their descent. Ou appreciation of the expression, that man was made "in the image and likeness of God," is ob- scured by the universal view that this refers only to the mind, or moral, or spiritual nature of man. This and many another view is owing to accepting a plausible notion without searching the Scriptures. The Hebrew words used signify a shadozv, an image, a likeness — from its shadowing forth; again, simili- tude, likeness, appearance, and is affirmed of man subsequent to the Fall, when the moral resemblance has been effaced. From the Scriptures we learn that it has pleased the Lord to be manifest to men in a visible form. It 1 Some contend, following certain notions of the Fathers, that the expression, "sons of God," is only applied to the angels. This is a mistake, arising from not remembering that the Hebrew word is sometimes translated in our Bible chil- dren as well as sons. See Ps. lxxxii. 6, etc. Angels are never called "sons of God" in the Pentateuch. 75 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE is declared as a special favour to Moses that he "be- held the similitude of the Lord." It is also said of the elders of Israel at Sinai, that "they beheld the God of Israel." Now from these and other Scrip- tures we are compelled to say, not that God mani- fested Himself in human form, but that there is an eternal similitude or form in which God is personal- ly manifested, and that man is made in the image and likeness of that form. Indeed, the idea of a moral, mental, or spiritual likeness does not appear in the Hebrew words used. Returning now to an earlier place — in the case of the human organism, and especially when that or- ganism arose to the estate of a true man, we can understand that his evolution in brain and mind took a leading place. Deficient in physical strength and fleetness, demand was made upon him to think, plan, contrive, to foresee and forecast in some degree, that he might make many adjustments for his safety amid impending dangers,, competitors and foes. "Their heroic struggles with Nature and its fierce beasts bred in them hardiness of frame, alertness of sense, readiness of resource, endurance, superb self- reliance, a courage that grew with peril." 1 It is even to-day mainly the men country-bred who become the intellectual leaders in our great cities rather than those reared in towns. And at the highest eminence of this progress in mind came the capacity to think about himself, to call again to remembrance the past, and to regard the future in the light of the present ; to reflect about his own ex- perience of life, and not to think only, but to feel 1 Ralph Connor on our Colonials. 76 THE GENESIS OF MAN also ; for the mind's advances had developed the volume of feeling and emotion, so that in man every- thing else became inconspicuous in the presence of overshadowing thought, feeling, and emotion. To this point Natural Evolution had conducted the greatest offspring of its long and mighty travail ; but this point falls far short of the goal of its glori- ous ministry. "Evolution," says Spencer, "can end only in the establishment of the greatest perfection and the most complete happiness." Now mark the profoundly significant place in human history which we have here to consider. Any advance which the great process of Natural Evolution can confer on man, only intensifies every element of the difficulties above recognised without in the slightest degree bringing him any release. Does Evolution enlarge man's mental powers? It but enlarges and widens desires which there are no natural means of satisfy- ing. Does it increase his happiness? It but makes the perception of its transient duration awake emo- tions of keen misery. Does it make life more desir- able? It but makes the certain loss of it the more woeful, and death the more dreadful to contemplate. Does it enlarge and develop his intellect? It but in- creases his mental "representativeness," so that all these affections of his mind become the more vivid and powerful in experience, and press with multi- plied force upon his whole nature, making happiness and life itself but well-springs of woe. If it be said all this unhappiness arises from our not resigning ourselves to the 1 inevitable, that can only mean that if we tricked ourselves as to the realities of exis- tence, falsified as with a fruad our truest intuitions 77 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE and aspirations, and thus sought the bliss of a luna- tic to beguile the evil day of our brief life, we should reach the utmost goal which philosophy can forecast for man. But vain is the thought. It would ever be as with the philosopher whom Rasselas followed, who taught that wisdom which enabled men. to be happy under all events of their life history. However, upon a certain day Rasselas sought and found the philosopher in a room half darkened, with his eyes misty and his face pale, in the deepest sorrow and distress for the death of his daughter. "Have you forgotten the precept," said Rasselas, "which you so powerfully enforced? Has wisdom no strength to arm the heart against ca- lamity?" "What comfort," said the mourner, "can truth and reason afford me? Of what effect are they now, but to tell me my daughter will not be re- stored?" Thus "Death remains the fatal bar to all great plans, the Nemesis of all great happiness, the standing dire discouragement of human nature." * In the bitter cry of Buddha: "All is miserable, all is perishable, all is void ! Oh ! woe to youth which must be destroyed by old age! Woe to health which must be destroyed by so many diseases! Woe to this life where a man remains so short a time ! If there were no old age, no disease, no death ; if these could be made captive for ever !" We perceive, from the great heart and intellect of this man, the voice of a great cry for a revelation which he had not re- ceived, and the forerunner of the advent of a new order of things which arose and influenced the mind and heart of Adamic man. Darwin testifies to the 1 Ecce Homo. 78 THE GENESIS OF MAN inadequacy of natural factors. He says : "Natural selection tends only to make each organic being as perfect as, or slightly more perfect than, the other inhabitants of the same country with which it comes into competition. And we see that this is the stand- ard of perfection attained under Nature." Yet, doubtless, man's competition with man and with Na- ture as mentioned above led further. We have thus reached a dilemma, and have to inquire the way out. Has Philosophy nothing more to offer us? Have we reached the limits of the manifestations of that "Power" to which we are bidden to place no limits? Does Evolution conduct its greatest offispring to a place where its fondest desires, its loftiest aspirations, are met only by blank disappointment? Having developed the feelings within us to a high and' exalted place, and amplified their volume to a sense of infinity, is there nothing in this vast uni- verse — is there nothing in eternity — with which they can come into correspondence? Is the closing scene of millions of years of marvellous workmanship, even to the limited yet legitimate conception of men, present only in the manifestation of weakness and impotency and the ill-adaptation of all nfeans to any great or useful end? What has gone before has been "Nature, red in tooth and claw," and what has fol- lowed after has been illusion, false and misbegotten ! This, according to some thoroughgoing Evolu- tionists, is the sum-total of the whole matter ; verily there is something wanting in Synthetic Philosophy as it now stands. Spencer says : " 'A constant pro- cess of adjustment is going on, which is bound soon- 79 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE er or later to reach a complete adjustment which will be perfect happiness.' In this reasoning Spen- cer appears -to have overlooked the possibility of an expansion of the ethical environment. If this is as rapid as (or more rapid than) the rate of adaptation, there will be no actual growth of adaptation, and so no moral progress j" 1 but, inasmuch as the en- vironment is infinite and infinitely receding, com- plete adaptation is impossible through the influence of the natural factors of Evolution, and we must look elsewhere for the possibility of complete ad- justment and perfect happiness. "Gone for ever! Ever? No — for since our. dying race began, Ever, ever, and for ever, was the leading light of man. Truth for truth, and good for good! The Good, the True, the Pure, the Just, Take the charm 'For ever' from them, And they crumble into dust." "The man of the future," says Professor Dana, "is man triumphant over dying nature, exulting in the freedom and privilege of spiritual life." We see the important crisis reached in the descent of man. Influences, classed as physical and vital, had done their work, and were now to give place and to be supplemented by new influences of an- other order. Yet the advent of these new influences brings no real break in the uniformities of the uni- verse, is marked by nothing to shake the tender soul of the most rigid uniformitarian. The new are but the old transformed into an intellectual form. 1 Encyclopaedia Britannicr art. "Herbert Spencer." 80 THE GENESIS OF MAN Spencer says : "The adaptation of man's nature to the conditions of his existence cannot cease, until the internal forces we know as feelings are in equili- brium with the external forces they encounter." Now, manifestly this equilibrium can only be reached in one of two ways, namely, Evolution must advance men to eternal life, or it must turn its hand upon them, strip them of their loftiest representa- tive thoughts and emotions, and thereby degrade them in the scale of being. But this would be Dis- solution and not Evolution, and it cannot be enter- tained. Men's desires widen with the processes of the suns; and increased temporal well-being can have but one effect, increased desire for more, and immortality alone can complete the equilibrium. We thus see that Natural Evolution, as it concludes its course, forges an important link for the new in- fluences of mental and moral, Or in a word, Spiritual Evolution, under a Divine personal government. Agreeable to the conclusions of science, in looking for the future evolution, we must look along each given frontier — we must regard the trend of evolu- tionary advance. Now throughout the evolution of life, when any series of changes were incident upon living things, the responses they made had often a tendency to anticipate some secondary alteration in their sur- roundings; and in the higher grades of life, such responses were principally in the right direction, namely, that of equilibrium. To quote from p. 44: "A characteristic of the self-adjustment of life is its constant trend to what is sometimes called purpose. Animated objects are 81 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE observed to adjust themselves to their own advan- tage, that is, so as to prolong their individual exist- ence or that of the species. The more we knew of them, the more completely appears this trend in their reactions." "The life of all the geological pe- riods is full of minute prophecies to be read only in the light of subsequent fulfilments." 1 "In the evolution of life, every age, every generation of liv- ing creatures, has been closely related, not only to their past and future generations, but also to the events and circumstances of their environments. So much is this the case that organisms of a given age show in their structure prophetic indications of an age not yet born. When man appears on the scene the same law holds good, yet our divines have been interpreting man's position while they have been ignoring the great lesson contained in the millions of years of his genesis." 2 When life arose to the highest estate of a perfect man at the summit of all living; when men pos- sessed the highest brain capacity in all history; when the natural factors of evolution could do no more for man — could not advance him to a state of complete adjustment to his environment, but left him to struggle for existence, to baffled aspirations, to decay, to decrepitude, and death: What, let me ask, were these things prophetic of? In evolutionary 1 These, remarkable to say, are the words of Sir William Dawson in a passage in which he is opposing the doctrine of Evolution. He was unmindful that Spencer had the same ideas in his exposition of Evolution! 2 From a letter of the writer's in the Guardian, December 2, 1908. 82 THE GENESIS OF MAN language, what new answering changes sure to arise in man's environment, did these facts point to? They pointed, of course, to changes which would meet his condition, satisfy his aspirations, and ad- just him to his environment. Now there was one, and only one change that could achieve these de- mands, namely, the change from God's conditioned order of nature to a Personal revelation of sufficient definiteness to afford men that guidance and help which would enable them to make these efficient ad- justments that would preserve their being and well- being in a limited environment of infinite change. Now what, let us inquire, was the character and direction of the response which the latest influences in natural evolution called forth from man? — From a mind trembling with awe in the presence of ma- jestic scenes and mysteries, from a mind appalled by the resistless might and sway of powers which moved the heavens over him, and the earth beneath his feet ; in sorrow, in suffering, in bereavement, and in death, in all lands and among all peoples, kin- dreds, tongues, the universal response of man has been his cry to a Personal God. Thus, then, with this response the time had come in the genesis of man, if there were a Living God, who could hear and answer, to help His creature. "He who planted the ear, shall He not hear? He who formed the eye, shall He not see?" But, if the sceptics are believed to be right, and as from Baal to his prophets, "There was no voice nor any that answered," then herein is a marvellous thing, more unnatural than anything which lunatic 83 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE fanaticism has ever offered us. The mighty travail of the Universe, bringing forth a response of such power, persistency, and universality, and yet unlike the responses of the creature for millions of years, it meant nothing, anticipated nothing, referred to nothing! The closing manifestations of the Inscru- table Power, to which no limits can be imagined, the "form of Being above personality," taunts its off- spring with high and lofty hopes, and then puts it to death ! This is too much for honest scepticism ; ridiculous credulity may swallow it, but true rationalism can- not. "Here, therefore, we behold a most transcendent crisis in the evolution of life and man, and the waj? in which this crisis is met and adjusted is one of the most beautiful, rational, scientific, and philosophic measures recorded in all history." "The same Ineffable Being, who, under the form of natural manifestation, in natural factors had been disciplining life up to the high estate of man, now manifests Himself to His intelligent personal crea- ture in a personal form; offers him His guidance and help, so that the wisdom and power which were vehemently demanded for man's complete adjust- ment, but were impossible to him by nature, easily became his in converse with a Being all-powerful and all-wise. And thus, in the simple narrative of Genesis instead of myth or allegory, we have gen- uine history recording the solution of one of the pro- foundest philisophieal difficulties known to the hu- man intelligence. We have the advent of new fac- tors which continue, perfect, and perpetuate the stu- 84 THE GENESIS OF MAN pendous ministry of the evolution of life." * In short, we have the first words of the Scriptures which go to form the Bible. We have, as said at the beginning, the great principles or factors of Na- ture being transformed into an intellectual form suitable to an intellectual being. Verily, duty, humility, and our intelligence, all demand an unqualified acceptance of the distinct history, that in answer to man's highly representa- tive thought and emotion, the Infinite of thought and of feeling revealed Himself to His rational creature. We therefore accept the simple statement of Scripture, against which there is no evidence or reason whatsoever, and for which there is all the sense of science, the whole substance of the tradi- tions, inscriptions, and monuments of the nations, besides definite history, all converging to the same truth, namely, that God did manifest Himself to man, did enter into converse with him to instruct and guide him. And this converse continued until an event occurred which temporarily altered the na- ture of this converse between man and his Creator, but which exhibits its own instructive evidence of scientific truthfulness. So conclusive is all evidence upon this point, that the late Samuel Laing, in the face of his deeply opposed prejudices, confesses: ''There is not a single instance of any people having by themselves arisen from a state of savagery. Even the most advanced nations trace their knowledge of civilisation and the higher arts to some divine stranger." "Moreover, almost all barbarous races, 1 From The Bible in the Full Light of Modern Science, by the writer. 85 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE if not wholly without tradition, believe themselves to have been once in a civilised state, to have come from a more favoured land, to have descended from ancestors more enlightened and powerful than them- selves." 1 Another important point requires attention here. By this advent of Divine personal government, the goal of. Evolution is reached, and in no other way could it be reached. The ultimate goal of Evolu tion for man is a state of being in which he would be in equilibrium with universal existence ; to attain this he would require to be endowed with infinite wisdom and power, so that no change could possibly occur in the universe without his being able and wise to adjust himself to it. Now suppose, as the Bible records, this finite being is brought into cor- respondence with an Infinite Being, who guides and helps him in time of need, then the difficulty is solved, and the goal of perfect and eternal life, other- wise impossible, is reached. Spencer says : "As affording the simplest and most conclusive proof that the degree of life varies as the degree of correspondence, it remains to point out that perfect correspondence would be perfect life. Were there no change in the environment but such as the organism had adapted changes to meet, and were it never to fail in the efficiency with which it met them, there would be eternal existence and universal knowledge." 2 1 The Bishop of Ely (Dr. Harold Brown), Speakers Com- mentary, p. 43, note A. 2 First Principles, H. Spencer. This scientific requirement for eternal life was fully discussed in my earliest work, namely, The Bible and the Dor+rine of Evolution, 1873. 86 THE GENESIS OF MAN Manifestly, the ultimate limit contemplated by Spencer could only be reached by endowing the creature with infinite power and wisdom ; nothing less than this could give it perfect correspondence with limitless space, and time, and change. But manifestly this is impossible, and therefore the ul- timate limit of evolution can never be reached, un- less God comes to the direct aid of man, and gives him that guidance, protection, and help in time of need, to enable him to adjust efficiency to the in- finite states and changes of eternity. But this can- not be accomplished unless He reveals Himself to man, and we are persuaded and are sure that this is the meaning of the new mental and moral in- fluence which for the relative brief period of about six or seven thousand years has become incident upon men. And let us here take notice of the important fact that God, in thus coming to the aid of His creature, in answer to the demands of the high position to which the course of evolutionary changes has con- ducted him, fulfils the grand principle of helping others, calls forth and gives existence to the im- portant principles of faith, of confidence, of love, and obedience ; creating the fountain-head of these most excellent virtues which were designed to flow to all peoples and bless and beautify all kindreds of men. And on the part of men it gave rise to the golden rule which runs through the lives of all saintly men and women, namely, entire abandon- ment to God, so that the good pleasures of His will is fulfilled in their life, walk, and conversation. These facts manifest the deep meaning of the 87 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE events recorded in the next chapter of Genesis, the profound meaning of the government of God. Nor was Spencer wholly unmindful of these things. In his reply to Mr. A. J. Balfour he says: "Nowhere have I either directly or indirectly denied that out of the depths of unfathomable mystery there may . . . emerge the certitudes of religion ; and it would be wholly inconsistent with my expressed views were I to deny that they may." 1 As to the ultimate destiny of pre-Adamite man, the lines of Euripides may be in place: — "Growths of earth, return to earth; Seeds that spring of heavenly birth, To heavenly realms anon revert." 1 Mr. Balfour's details, The Contemporary Review, 1897, p. 870. 88 CHAPTER VIII THE EISE OF NEW FACTORS TO SUSTAIN AND ADVANCE THE ESTATE OF MEN THE second chapter of Genesis opens with the appointment of a day of which it has been well said, no evening and morning have as yet been mentioned. The writer of the Hebrews appears to regard the seventh day as still running its course of time (see Heb. iv. 1-10). The original -creation and the progressive evolution are beautifully mentioned in verses 3 and 4, where it is said He "rested from all His work, which God created to make/' and "These are the generations of the heavens and the earth." Having referred to the barren state of the earth in its first creation, verse 2, it is then said: "And the Lord God had formed man (dust from the earth), and breathed in his face the breath of life ; and man became a living soul." This translation best ex- presses the original. Following Rosenmiiller, De- litzsch, and Rabbi Leeser, we translate had formed, and it has the support of Canon Driver's axioms on the Hebrew tenses. Obviously this connects Adam with the race of men mentioned in the first chapter, as does also chap. v. 1-2. The words "of the" are not expressed in the original, and in the absence of the status constructus the text is best expressed by 89 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE the parenthesis which I have introduced. The word used for the formation of Adam is the weakest that could be used; stronger words are used of all men- Canon Driver says "formed" (Gen. ii. 7) is used more generally of nations, and of shaping or pre- ordaining events of history. The word of life, being in the plural, signifies supreme life, and to translate "nostrils" would have required, as H^-muth points out, a different word. The Septuagint has "face." The moral condition of man at the highest place to which the factors of Natural Evolution brought him, has been represented by objectors as bad. The evidence which we have tells the other way. The anthropoid ape, to the measure of his abilities and rule of his life, might well put many modern men to shame. He is not a cannibal — nor a polygamist, but is a vegetarian and a monogamist. While the strug- gle for existence drove the early men of the higher latitudes to consume animal food ; in the tropics and sub-tropics, where fruit, nuts, and vegetables were in abundance, there was less of struggle and few or no flesh-eating men. In consequence, there was a much milder type of- man ; there was also much more leisure; and with their great volume of brain, these men must have become the subject of deep, mental longings, of perplexing mysteries, of far-reaching aspirations, finding expression in a language that came up before God. Of such was Adam, whom God perceiving to be the most perfect of all men that would be — offering the highest promise of keep- ing his high estate — He chose him as He did Abram, in times-later centuries, to be the head of a new and higher race of men. 90 THE RISE OF NEW FACTORS The course of events which best satisfies the whole record in all its parts is one in which we perceive that the Lord selected a man — the fittest of all men to receive the revelation of Himself, in order, as we have seen, that the perfected man might be pre- served and the progressive evolution of the race in a new and higher form might continue. Upon the man thus selected He bestowed the gift of the Holy Spirit, and he became the "son of God" — became a living soul. This spiritual enlightment placed the man in a position to receive that knowledge of God which was necessary for his guidance and preserva- tion. It is obvious that this knowledge must em- brace a revelation of the goodness and kindness of God, a sense of His power and supremacy, and of the duty of implicit obedience ; without which the efficient and unfailing response demanded of the man for the continued preservation of his being and well-being, were impossible. "The natural life of struggle, of suffering, and of death, is owing to the inability of all living organ- isms, including man, to make unfailing adjustments in an environment of infinite change. We have seen that Herbert Spencer points out that were such ability possible, then life would be everlasting. Now since life united to genuine happiness is the suprem- est good conceivable, that some way should arise of making life and happiness continuous, and thus ever accumulating their riches and their knowledge, is of all. conceptions the most rational, of all aspirations the most desirable, and of all good the most valu- able. Behold, therefore, how rational and how con- sonant with the great Natural Law of Progressive 91 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE Development, is the Scripture history which tells us of the advent of new factors to accomplish this, the most desirable of all conceivable consummations. As I have already shown, this revelation was ab- solutely necessary in order to deliver man from the pains of Natural Evolution, to satisfy the demands and aspirations of his ever-widening mind, and to open up a path in which Evolution, working with new factors, would still continue the progressive ad- vancements of the life which had been flowing on through channels of flesh and blood for millions of ages, and now welled up in man. The several links of the great chain of life presented an unconscious and unintelligent register of the evolution of living organisms. But when we reach man, a consciously intelligent Registrar of Existence, it is no longer necessary to continue the chain of suffering life, as man is able to accumulate and continue in his own person all knowledge and experience possible to a creature, and thereby achieve a much nobler purpose than could be accomplished by continuing a chain of life in which one link was perpetually effacing an- other, or perishing one after another. Hence the necessity for a ministry of new factors to be super- added to the ministry of merely natural factors. What, then, were the new factors? They were higher forms of manifestation of God — a revelation of God to man, the breath or inspiration of God be- stowed upon man, and the Word of God for his guidance, to enable him to make the right adjust- ments which were necessary to preserve his life and well-being in an infinite and infinitely-receding en- 92 THE RISE OF NEW FACTORS vironment," 1 Canon Driver (Genesis, p. 57) con- siders that man arose independently in different centres of the globe; and "each race independently passed through similar moral experiences and each similarly underwent a Fall." The idea of so highly developed an organism as man arising at a number of centres is opposed to modern zoological principles and the views of the anthropologist. And the many Falls which Canon Driver imagines, are in point of fact, no Fall at all, and as we shall see later, give no place whatsoever for the Incarnation or Atonement. Subsequent to this transcending event of the first revelation of the living God to man, we read of the planting of Paradise. It is a fair inference that Adam was a spectator of this special Divine work, which, however, was not the work of a moment, but was intended to make him sensible of the goodwil and kindness towards him of a Being whom V natural instincts would incline him to dread. We read: "And the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden." And we have here a fulfilment in a governmental form of the great nat- ural and evolutionary principle of isolation, which some authorities place on an equality with natural selection. 2 On the world's broad fields, natural bar- riers, by fencing off living organisms from certain influences and shutting them in to others, contrib- uted to their preservation and progressive develop- 1 This and some of the following passages are from The Bible in the Full Light of Modern Science, by the author. 2 "Isolation is an essential factor in the production and maintenance of divergent types." — Rev. J. F. Gulick, in Evolution, Racial and Habitudenal. 93 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING -THE BIBLE ment. So here also this natural law passes on in a governmental form to further the estate of man. We perceive here that two great .natural prin- ciples or factors, namely, "natural selection" and "isolation," are, in a new form — a Biblical form — continuing to influence man. Inside Paradise the next factor in human develop- ment is implicit obedience to the only- Being in the universe who is in a position to give safe guidance amid the multiform changes and chances of infinity and eternity. Again, we find in the form of obe- dience prescribed the fulfilment of a great natural law. "The struggle for existence," or more closely "the struggle for the means of existence," was in all ages at the basis of the evolution of life. This food- test had reigned along the myriad ages of life's pro- gressive development. Man, having been isolated in Paradise, is now also given a food-test. "Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it ; for in the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die." The element of prohibition here mentioned was present also in Nature; poisonous herbs, insects, fishes, were prohibited, and the guid- ance of accumulated instinct preserved the life of or- ganisms. Thus the transition from natural law and environment to the sphere where governmental law is added to the natural influence afTecting man shows no real break of continuity. There is only change of form. The ancient factors in geologic ages are re- garded as manifestations of God, the new are a higher order of Divine manifestations. In the old order, in millions of instances a single organism was 94 THE RISE OF NEW FACTORS naturally selected to be the head of a new and high- er race; in the new, an individual man, Adam, is placed in that position. In the old, "isolation" by natural barriers was an important factor in the ad- vancement and preservation of living organisms ; in the new, the man is isolated in Paradise. In the old, a food-test was at the basis of the evolution of all life. The struggle for existence, namely, for the means of existence, was the great fundamental fac- tor in the evolution of living organisms. In a new, a food-test is the governmental factor for the preser- vation and advancement of men. In the old, a right response or adjustment to natural conditions were rewarded with a more extended life ; in the new, a right response or adjustment to the new factor, the Word of God, was rewarded with continuous life. In the old, the penalty for failure was death ; in the new, the penalty for failure was death. Thus the continuity of Divine governmental rule with natural law is perfect — the Bible is the text-book of this new Divine regime, and embodies in an intellectual form the great principles of Nature — in point of fact, the Word of God embraces in a natural form the substance of the previously existing natural fac- tors, as the following diagram illustrates : — X D abed 95 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE Let the long horizontal line represent the evolution of life and of man ; let the thick cross line X repre- sent the dawn of history about the time of Adam; let the lines A B C D represent the factors of Na- ture engaged in that evolution — then the lines a b c d in italics, represent the intellectual or historic correlatives of the factors A B C D in the form of language, and constitute our Bible. Thus for the first time in all history we are enabled to understand what the Bible really is. The manifestations of God must be distinguished from the immanence of God. The Divine immanence is that permanent presence which is everywhere — "lives through all life and extends through all ex- tent," and yet is beyond the reach of the conscious- ness of any finite being — is to them absolutely nega- tive. There is some error in distinguishing the im- manence of God from His transcendency — the im- manence of God transcends all existences and all manifestations. We must distinguish between the immanence of God and His Spirit. In regard to the Spirit of God, the Bible uses the words "sent forth," "gave," "proceeding," connoting a person or persons from whom the Spirit proceeds according to the will of God. Again, He who requires to humble Himself to behold the things which are in heaven, even to be- hold cherubim and seraphim, has an Existence to which the coming into being of angels and men adds no society, nor does their existence ever invade His most August Presence. According to the greatest array of philosophic authorities upon any kindred subject, and according 96 THE RISE OF NEW FACTORS to the Bible and the Lord Jesus Christ, God is un- knowable except by revelation or manifestation. Na- ture reveals His existence, power and supremacy (Rom. i. 20), which, however, is only a mere in- ferential knowledge. And, inasmuch as the "nat- ural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them" (1 Cor. ii. 14), how much less can he have any knowledge of God or of the immanence of God, of which we know absolutely nothing. Again, the Divine immanence is as true of any living creature as of man; but, inasmuch as there can be no such thing as a moral substance, and as a substance cannot influence moral qualities, which lie only in the dispositions of a free mind; therefore the immanence of God in all, and through all, is, as we have said, absolutely negative in relation to us. And to presume to claim anything on man's behalf on that account is folly and ignorance. Moreover, the claim to a knowledge of God from the creation, or from the human mind or soul only, is the source of most of the errors, most of the follies, and most of the fatal guidance, which have beguiled and be- trayed our race. Hence the necessity for the au- thoritative, infallible revelation contained in the Bible for the safe direction of our erring race. When we contemplate the Bible as fulfilling the principles and order of Nature, we find a complete answer to those who represent God as presented in the Old Testament as hard and cruel — who thereby dishonour "the God of Abraham." Here, as else- where, they find fault with the Bible for its fidelity to the facts of existence. "The opening flower, the 97 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE falling dew, the sleep of the green fields in the sun- shine," the peace that lies among the lonely hills, are sweetly beautiful. "But the barren rock, the blasted trunk," the hurricane, cyclone, and earth- quake hurling thousands to destruction, are also facts of Nature, are also from the God of Nature. Now the Bible would be but a poor replica of Na- ture, if in its revelation of God these manifest facts had no recognition. Let us understand the sense in which the severity of many stern Scriptures belongs to God. All the penal sufferings endured by men and women, and the sufferings of their more num- erous relatives in the kingdom, all took place in the name of that most genial and kind-hearted man, King Edward VII. Let us extend a like rational consideration to the God of Abraham, who is ever doing what no other earthly sovereign ever does, who is personally and continually working as far as the due liberty and independence of men will per- mit, to rescue them from the just penalties of fair and righteous laws set to secure their own happi- ness. The obedience of men had to be of a higher order than that of the lower animals. Organised instincts have necessarily a limited range, but with man in correspondence with the Infinite we perceive no limits to the possibilities of obedience. Again, it is essential to human happiness that this obedience should be free — that the freedom and independence of the human agent should be preserved. Agreeable to the nature of mind, these ends are best achieved by the influence of suitable motives addressed to the mind; and are further safeguarded by making lan- 98 THE RISE OF NEW FACTORS guage — spoken or written language — the instru- ment whereby these motives are presented to the mind. Hence the verbal commandment given to Adam in Paradise. His Bible was very brief, and required no writing for the sake of reference. The motives before his mind were of two orders, and the most influential of which we have any con- ception, namely, lavish kindness and life unending on the one hand, and the dread penalty of death on the other. In these two orders of motives we have the dawn of Divine dual government, namely, moral and legal, of which more anon. It is recorded that the animals of Paradise were marshalled before the man to receive names from him. No doubt the far-extended bounds of Paradise, of which the description in Genesis makes us sensi- ble, must have enclosed a multitude of all manner of living animals. And to study and classify these be- came the first lesson prescribed to the man. All these influences strengthen the man's heart in obe- dience ; yet all the circumstances involved demanded still more influential motives. The man was chosen by Divine omniscience; there never had been, and never could there be another having so good a promise of keeping his first estate, of being obedient to the Divine commandment. He was the Elect of God. Therefore, if he failed all was lost. He was the head of all God's creation, the outcome of mil- lions of ages of marvellous ministries, the highest- born son of the Universe. If he failed it was idle to think of another. Manifestly, therefore, the ar- ray of motive must embrace the most influential pos- sible. It is therefore not at all wonderful to read: 99 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE "The Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh thereof; and the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made He a woman, and brought her unto the man." It may be said, Could not the Lord God have found a woman also in the pre-Adamic race as well as a man? The Scripture saith, "One man in a thou- sand have I found, but not a woman in all these." However, the main object was the perfecting of mo- tive influence to secure obedience, while the special Divine act of differentiating the sexes was only a repetition of a natural event at any early date, in an earlier era in the evolution of life. To those who may think this a hard saying, let me quote from my earlier work, The Government of God, 1 new edition: "Be it observed, the special work of God accomplished at the turning-point of vast ages, which were, and which were to come, at the place where to God's conditioned mode of work- ing in the great past were to be added His personal revelation and governmental working in the greater future, makes this special work of God as rational, scientific, and philosophical as any operation in the whole field of Nature." No being has the right to impose his commands upon another without duly accrediting his right and authority to do so. The open manifestation of God in a visible form, however glorious, would not be a sufficient credential — could not impose moral obliga- 1 Out of print. This and some following passages much al- tered are from that work. 100 . THE RISE OF NEW FACTORS tions ; it would impress the beholder, but could not satisfy his intelligence: to Abraham the Lord ap- peared without anything extraordinary. However, the accomplishing of visible personal works of crea- tion, in which Paradise, its trees, and verdure, . . . and by which the woman was made, would link the instinctive consciousness, which the man already had, that God alone was the maker of all things, with the Person who gave him the word of com- mand and required his obedience. The man, like the Vedic writer of thousands of years ago, might well, from his own intuitions, ex- claim : — "Who knows the secret? Whence, whence this manifold creation sprang?" But when a manifested Personality accomplished the works recorded in the second chapter of Gene- sis, the man in whose knowledge they were wrought could have no doubt as to who He was who re- quired his obedience, and by all right reason, by all principles of law and government, these signs thus wrought were sufficient to impose legal obligations upon the man. The woman received them on the testimony of her husband, and such testimony legal- ly imposed obligation to obey. Most of our race are in like case with her, namely, receiving testi- mony from competent and credible witnesses, which imposes upon the hearers the obligations of faith and obedience. Eve was bone of Adam's bone, and flesh of his flesh ; she was partaker of the life which had been flowing on through flesh and blood for millions of ages. The beginning of the Kingdom of God upon the 101 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE earth was now entered upon in Paradise. Man ha been translated from the rude life of Nature, from its war, famine, and death, into new surroundings — an environment where another class of factors re- placed those he left behind, and now began to influence his mind and moral nature, so that his evolution might continue upon higher ground. We have seen that his isolation in Paradise was but a fulfilment of natural law. The food-test given for the purpose of teaching him unfailing obedience, that endless life might be secured to him, was also a fulfilment of natural law. It requires to be recognised that the ultimate death of all living organisms is owing to their fail- ure to adjust because of their limited powers, and is due at length to the waste of vital enegry in the several processes of life, and which nothing now can restore. Hence there was given to Adam a fruit which restored his vitality — not only protoplasm, but bioplasm. And the longevity of the Patriarchs was probably owing to the fact that he and Eve had eaten of the tree of life. From all indications, to these were added also the observance of the seventh day. The utility of one •day of rest in seven is now acknowledged on all sides, and yet, when first instituted, the rest it en- joined was not its sole or even its primary function. The seven days' division of time was known to Noah, who was nearly contemporary with Adam. Such a division implies the Sabbath, and is, together with Gen. ii. 1-3, evidence of its being known to Adam in Paradise. It was made for man, and rest was not its primary raison d'etre, but it was a sign • 102 THE RISE OF NEW FACTORS between God and man, that man may know it was the Lord who sacrificed him. that is, separated him through his observance of a day which God had separated from other days and thus sanctified, and in this fact lay the sign. It appears, therefore, to have been known and observed in Paradise, where mere rest was hardly needful. The Sabbath was no doubt instituted as forming a part of those new con- ditions affecting man for his progressive evolution. I agree with the late Sir William Dawson, that the days of Genesis are God's working days, so to speak, and not man's. The Bible speaks of the days of heaven as of long duration (Deut. xi. 21). And twice in the Hebrews (L, xi.) they are called eons, i. e. } long ages like unto eternities. The Fourth Com- mandment correlates the week of heaven with that of earth — day answers unto day, and the seventh day of heaven still endures (Heb. iv. 1-5), and the Sabbath day is the earthly correlative. When the human organism became less of the mere animal and more of the man and of his mind, we repeat it was fitting that in an environment prac- tically infinite he should become the subject of new influences. And when mind first answered mind in words, and desired with desire to know and express ; when man lifted up his eyes and "stared at the tent of heaven, and opened his ears to the winds and asked from whence and whither." And above all "the strange fear that embittered his soul," how reasonable is the testimony that to the craving mind — to the new and exalted thoughts and emotions — there came from the infinite mind of the 1 Chips from a German Workshop, Professor Max Miiller. 103 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE Universe a corresponding revelation according to the Scriptures. And, in agreement with which, in one form or another, the histories, monument re- mains, traditions, myths, records of all peoples, na- tions, tongues, have been ringing for thousands of years. And so among these new influences appeared the institution of the Sabbath. Heretofore, man was subject to natural conditions. Night and day, shift- ing of the seasons, assaults of enemies, hunger and thirst, and other cravings and incentives, called fourth certain activities. So far man was con- ditioned similar to an ox. Every seventh day came, and the sun went up the sky like any other day, and all things happened on earth and sea and heaven just as on other days. There was not anything above, below, around, to show to show to human sense that the Sabbath day had come ; nothing to affect man's animal appetites, desires, senses, proper. But there was now present in his mind the mental representation of the ordinance, for it had been re- vealed to man that the great earth and sea and heaven upon which he looked had not existed for ever, neither had they come into existence suddenly or in a day; but they had been elaborated in six successive days or periods. He was to count seven, and observe the seventh day by a total alteration in his conduct, by reason of influences affecting his mind and his mind alone. Now what more fitting mode of influence can be imagined than this: that man was to calculate time and observe every seventh day, to put away the obstructives to thinking, such as muscular activities, etc.; not because of any changes, physical or cos- 104 THE RISE OF NEW FACTORS mical, such as had theretofore affected his ancestry, hut because of the word of the Lord God incident in his mind. "Whatever," says Dr. Johnson, "with- draws us from the power of our senses, whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future predomi- nate over the present, advances us to the dignity of thinking things." Manifestly his evolution must have been furthered by such highly representative thoughts, for it was a day when man walked not according to the course of this world, for there was nothing in the world to teach him to regard the seventh day. But, inde- pendent of the world, he walked according to the word of the living God. Like everything else in the Bible, this ordinance puzzles us with its simplicity and overwhelms us with its sublimity. It is not without significance that, after the degeneracy of the race, in order to gain the observance of the Sab- bath in the case of Israel, a physical link had to be fastened through their senses by the regulated giv- ing of the manna in the wilderness, and also by the enforcement of the legal penal sanctions. This, then, reveals the primary and most impor- tant function of the Sabbath ; as the Bible says, "A sign between Me (the Lord) and you throughout your generations, that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you" — that is, separated or differentiated them by the higher influence of such an ordinance from other races. With us to-day both this function as well as rest are cryingly needed. This new factor for man's progressive evo- lution at first sight does not appear to be a fulfil- ment of any natural law of the geologic earth, as 105 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE were the others ; neverthless, it is strongly based on natural law. Darwin adduces evidence from the physical environment of life to show that the or- igin of the marked correlation which exists between living organisms and the time-ratio of our week of seven days is based on the solid ground of Nature. It is well to know that the terms in time of the in- cubation of eggs and of the gestation of animals are ever in multiples or submultiples of the week. And we may go a step farther, and remember a septennial order prevails in atomic forms of elementary matter, discovered by Newlands and MendeleefT. 106 CHAPTER IX DUAL GOVERNMENT THE LAW OF GOD THE TEMPER THE TEMPTATION THE FALL, AND THE RITE OF ANIMAL SACRIFICE WE mentioned at a former place, that with man's introduction to Paradise there arose the dawn of Divine dual government, 1 namely, moral and legal. The nature of this mode of rule throws so much light upon the Scriptures and upon God's ways with men that it is necessary here for the reader to understand something of its nature. We are all familiar with the expression, "the laws of Nature," and although the inaccuracy which attends all language in expressing the facts of existence is present here also, yet in the last result, however, we may trim our words ; it is just as good as if perfectly accurate, so we must not waste time on endless quali- fications in a world where things are never what they seem. The order of Nature is one in which all things exist and flow in harmony with the relative values of Matter and Energy engaged. A stone thrown up will ascend in proportion to the energy imparted to it; it will return to the earth agreeable to the law of grav- itation at an increasing and easily calculated velocity. 1 This form of government was more fully explained in the author's larger work, entitled Divine Dual Government, out of print. 107 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE From the fall of an apple Newton was able to extend his research and calculations to the moon and to the planets, and to-day not only have the planets and the sun been weighed, but some of the stars also, and all because of the unfailing harmony and proportion which prevails among all masses of matter and all forms of energy according to their relative values. Now this same law extends to everything — to mind and morals, as well as to matter and energy. The man who is in- sisting upon "his rights" is demanding what he regards as his due or proportionate return according to the value of his work, service, or position. The Psalmist, in bringing his case to the Lord, says, "Let Thine eyes behold the things that are equal." And Israel at one time thought they had discovered the inequality of the Lord's dealing, and said, "The ways of the Lord are not equal." And the Lord reasoned with them this very rule of action, and points out to them the truth, saying, "Are not My ways equal, and are not your ways unequal ?" Thus the idea of proportionate equal- ity in moral actions according to their relative values is abundantly recognised both in the Scriptures and out- side them. And such is the basis of the law of God, in which we are commanded to love (or regard) the Lord with all our heart and soul and mind, and our neighbour as ourself. Here we have the due proportion recognised, namely, God as supreme, and our neighbour, as having rights equal to out own. This universal law, is, in the natural world of matter, the law of necessity, hence, as Hegel says, "Natural things do nothing wicked ;" but when we ascend to the realm of life and mind, there is an independence and liberty to do, or 108 DUAL, GOVERNMENT, ETC. not to do — to fulfil this law or to disobey it. "The natural and moral constitution of the world are so constituted as to make up together but one scheme." 1 It will be seen that the law which is commanded us in the Bible from God is a moral form of the self- same law under which we have been created. It is therefore the law of Evolution under which we have been evolved. From the first moment that life took and dwelt in a material body upon the earth, it required ,to balance outer changes in its environment by inner changes in itself, according to this law. It had con- tinually to adjust or adapt itself after a like rule. Now in the course of this converse between living organ- isms and their environment, the individuals which con- formed to this law were preserved, while those that failed died. Obedience or death were the only alter- natives. But as the outer changes to which living creatures had to conform themselves were ever becoming more and more complex, demand was made upon life for a more and more complex organisation, in order to keep the balance and correspondence between life and its environment agreeable to the selfsame law. Hence Herbert Spencer says: "Evolution under all its aspects, general and special, is an advance towards equilibrium." Now in the course of this advance the same great law was being fulfilled in the destruction of the unfit, namely, of those that failed to efficiently adjust themselves aright; and in the preservation of the fittest, namely, of those who did adjust themselves aright. And as there was a continuous accumulation going on in some creatures of fit, and more and more 1 Bishop Butler. 109 FACTS AND FALAOIES REGARDING THE BIBLE fit conditions, these creatures progressively advanced in the scale of life ; and advanced through the sacrifice and death of others, until man himself was brought forth at the summit of all life. Again, this law is at the basis of all righteous law and government. It is the law of our intellect, for all right reasoning must be in accordance with the due value of the terms involved. And, as Spencer says: "Let it be noted that what we call truth guiding us to successful action and the consequent maintenance of life, is simply the accurate correspondence of sub- jective to objective relations; while error, leading to failure and, therefore, towards death, is the absence of such accurate correspondence." The law of God is, therefore, founded upon the solid ground of Nature, and, as Lightfoot has pointed out, St. Paul saw this truth; saw "behind the Mosaic law itself an imperious principle antagonistic to grace, to liberty, to spirit, and in some aspects even to life." To Adam this law was given in a form of obedience to the word of God, in which he was required to show a right and true regard for Him. We have already seen that when living organism made the right adjust- ment, offered the right adaptation, namely, balanced outer by inner changes, they were preserved, but when they failed the penalty was death. And we perceive that, agreeable to the law of Nature, the same ancient penalty of death, with the same ancient rule of a food- test, which had reigned all down the long millions of ages, became the law, the rule, the penalty, in the Divine commandment given to Adam in Paradise. This .constitutes Legal government ; and legal rule reigns in that law which is set to safeguard the life, 110 DUAL, GOVERNMENT, ETC. the well-being, and the possessions of the subjects of God's Kingdom, and of civilised nations. But its influence is only negative, and although it comprehends the all of human governments, it falls very far short of the government of God. Because, in addition to legal rule, we have presented in the Bible a colossal system of Moral government which, unlike legal rule, has no penalties, and which at times even conflicts with legal government. It embodies a vast system of moral and moralising influences, of considerations, commands, percepts, reasonings, temptations, trials, discipline, and chastisements, intended to reveal good and evil, develop the conscience, strengthen the mind to abhore evil and choose the good; so that a high order of moral character may be developed, and that the subject may have an obedience which springs from inner instincts developed in mind and heart, and not from the outer coercion of legal rule addressed to his fears. The statute-books of civilised nations contain their laws without a single motive to obedience excepting the several penalties attached. The statute- book of God contains motives drawn from every influential and moving consideration which can rightly affect the human mind. Again, legal government has no moralising influence; on the contrary, it of tens embitters the minds of the wicked and the weak. And it is only in the last few years that the perception of these facts has led our London magistrates to call to their aid the missionary, and to assign him a seat in their courts, as a valuable agent in dealing with the criminal classes. Now this fact demonstrates the utility of moral government; and observe, inasmuch as it is only in the last few years that the most en- 111 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE lightened nations of the world have understood this fact, what a testimony it bears to the Divine and supernatural origin of the Bible! what a confirmation of all its claims to an inspiration from beyond our bourne of time and place! seeing it records the exer- cise of moral government for more than six thousand years in the past history of our race. Moral rule first influenced the man Adam when he received the revelation of the Lord and the breath of His Spirit, which turned him, as it did Saul at a later date, "into another man." Under a like experi- ence, the Christian to-day feels inspired with a spirit of love and of power. Next, as recorded, there was the planting of Paradise, and then man's introduc- tion to that garden of delight. Next, the assembling of the animal creation to receive names from their sovereign-head ; and as we have seen, the last and greatest and most influential of all considerations, the formation ot Eve and her being brought as a gift to Adam. The moral influence of all these events, as well as their reasonableness to gain allegiance and confirm obedience, is manifest. But moral government permits of temptations and trials, and the environment of man included intelligent beings who, according to the Scriptures, existed pre- vious to man, and some of them had a much wider range. In terms of infinity, man is but of yesterday. The researches of several of our most leading men of science confirms the Bible as to the existence of these unseen spiritual beings. Thus Sir William Crookes, Dr. A. R. Wallace, Sir Oliver Lodge, Professor James (of Harvard) and others, testify to legitimate research having disclosed a class of intelligent spiritual beings 112 DUAL, GOVERNMENT, ETC. invisible to us. who nevertheless endeavour to influence our conduct. Research has also shown that their influence is often of an evil nature. The Bible reveals to us one powerful being of this kind who form several indications of Scripture and the infallable testimony of our Lord must have fallen from a high estate. What his exact condition was at the era of Paradise on the earth is not shown to us; however, we find, at a much later date, he is still privileged to roam through immensity, to appear in heaven itself among the sons of God and in the presence of the Lord ; and, when permitted, to exercise powers similar to those of God Himself. This great prince was not excluded from Paradise. Moral rule, as we have seen, allows temptations to reach the sub- ject. It was no doubt necessary; because man, in common with all finite beings, is liable to question the ways of God. Who has ever lived to man's estate and has never done so ? The best and greatest of men, as Job, Moses, and David, have questioned the ways of God. Lucifer appears simply to have carried this disposition to an uttermost degree. It is evident we are here considering a being very different from the personality of popular thought. Wickedness cannot be the supreme aim of his conduct, but is rather a reproach to his kingdom. His rule of moral action has received the sanction of several leading writers and philosophers. This rule is simply, "enlightened self-interest" or "qualified egotism." It is, therefore, the very opposite to the law of Christ, which enjoins, as the supreme rules of mind and conduct, the love of others. The prince of the world knew that his rule of life wocld be most popular; by it he has seduced 113 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE multitudes to bow to his sceptre. Nevertheless, by whomsoever advocated, it is false. Nobody approves of a man the moment they discover that he, is seeking his own interests, even though they practise nothing higher themselves. The law of Nature, discussed pp. 107-110, rejects it. When he entered Paradise, the innocence and obedience of the human pair must have been an offence to his state of mind. The vast possibilities for them and their descendants which lay in the future was obvious to one so wise. He therefore conceived the thought of attempting to detach them from the Lord, and of leading them to put to their own hand and to seek their own interests supremely in accordance with his own principles of moral action. But there was a difficulty which the researches of the Psychical Society throws light upon. Adam and his wife were in possession of a supreme perfection of human nature, and were therefore beyond the reach of any efficient influence from an invisible spiritual being. It has been discovered that, unless weakened by fasting or illness, a perfect human body completely walls-in the human spirit, and shuts out, almost, though not entirely, the impressions of spiritual beings. Hence in the early history of our race all Divine communica- tions were made through outward instrumentalities vis- ible or audible to the seer, of which the child Samuel is an example. Therefore Lucifer required an instru- ment. Hardwick says : : "I appeal to universal heath- endom in favour of the ancient exposition of the sa- cred record — as seen in the rites, symbols, and legends of the ancient Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, in East and West, in North and South, in 114 DUAL, GOVERNMENT, ETC. civilised and semi-barbarous countries, in the Old World, and the New, not only to the fact that serpents were somehow associated with the ruin of the human family, but that serpents, so employed, were vehicles of a malignant personal spirit, by whatever name he was described." We can easily understand that a being of unusual powers could give a voice to any kind of instrumen- tality, w r hen we remember what we can do in the case of the telephone, microphone, and phonograph. But the question arises, Why the serpent? The following considerations are obvious to our minds. Adam and Eve lived for a time in Paradise before the transgression. They must have been on most familiar terms with the other inhabitants of that widely extended province, with its large and beautiful river. All exploring naturalists, including Darwin, affirm the truthfulness of Cowper's lines on Alexan- der Selkirk's island exile, when the latter says of the animals of the island — "They are so unacquainted, with man, Their tameness is shocking to me." Therefore, Adam (before whom all the creatures of Paradise had been reviewed and named) and Eve must have been on familiar terms with this animal creation, — may have made "pets" of some; an idea I first heard from the lips of the Rev. W. D. Moffat of Edinburgh. We know in our own time that several ladies have taken a strange fancy to large serpents as pets. Most of us have seen photographs of them with these creatures coiled round them. However, leaving what is conjectural, it is sufficient to know with cer- 115 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE tainty that the man and his wife were familiar with their animal friends. And this being so, it was open to Lucifer to use some of them as his instrument in order efficiently to reach the minds of this perfect man and woman. Now, from a psychological point of view, and there is a psychology of the minds of animals, the serpent was specially suited to the Tempter's purpose. In serpents, as in other reptiles and fishes, the inner ends of the nerves of vision have not become connected with the grey cortex of the brain by a great number of nerve fibres, as in the case of birds and mammals. From these and related reasons there is an imperfec- tion in the reptile brain. And from experience gained in various ways and from experiments upon the brain, the serpent is in a somewhat similar position to higher animals whose brains have been damaged in part, and their condition bears a resemblance to persons in the mesmeric or hypnotic state. They are freely open to impressions from others, while a certain mental stag- nation distinguishes their own condition. Turning now to what evidence we can gather from spiritual posses- sion and influence presented to us in the New Testa- ment. In the case of the Lord's visit to the country of the Gadarenes, we perceive the man He encoun- tered who was possessed by many Spirits, was yet still able to exercise his own power: "When he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped Him." Then the pos- sessing spirits cried by him, "What have I to do with Thee, Jesus, Thou Son of the most high God? I ad- jure Thee by the most high God that Thou torment me not." For He said unto him, "Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit." Here we perceive a duplex 116 DUAL, GOVERNMENT, ETC. personality — that of the man himself and of the spirit indwelling him, and these two in conflict. Next, when the spirits (for there were many) were permitted by our Lord to enter into the swine. The pigs, despised as they are, yet nevertheless would not accept them, and in the strength of their own powers plunged into the sea for deliverance. That this was the deed and act of the swine themselves is certain, because it is so said. There is not here, as elsewhere, the expression of a spirit "driving" or ''leading" them. We conclude, therefore, that no bird or mammal of any kind, with their completer brain and self-assertive- ness, could have supplied the fitting instrument to the spirit of Satan. They might have marred, resisted, or traversed his purposes, and therefore the serpent, with its passive mentality, became the fitter channel for com- municating clearly the seductive terms of the tempta- tion. It will be said, These views conflict with the words, "Now the serpent was more subtle than any of the beasts of the field which the Lord God had made." Here we are dealing with one of many human histories which we said, at the outset, the Bible contained, and not with revelation proper. To the human historian the serpent seemed wise. And for the time being, this particular serpent was the wisest of all creatures. The Tempter understood Eve's position, knew the dual nature of the motives before her mind. He there- fore opposed to the dread penalty of the law the direct untruth. "You shall not surely die," and to the benign moral influence of God's goodness to her and her husband, the idea that the Lord was denying them a good which it was most desirable and wise to 117 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE obtain. The temptation, however well conceived, could have put but little pressure upon her will to act as she did without consulting her husband ; he doubt- less had more of a struggle, but nothing to hinder him from consulting his Divine Friend. The destiny of the human race lay not with the woman, who was but of yesterday, and could (excuse the ungallant fact) have been more easily replaced, but with the man whose descent was coeval with the Universe — was, so to speak, from everlasting, whose responsibility was infinite. In the foregoing pages we have been treating of the failures of living organisms and of man, and the consequent death. But let us be careful to under- stand, that when we rise to man in relation to God, failure to adjust becomes an offence of a much more awful character — becomes sin, with more awful con- sequences. On the broad field of Nature, not only do we find that failure to adjust aright issued in death, but sometimes it led to the degradation of certain races in the scale of life, and this because of their failure bringing them under depraving influences, and who, failing, fell, and fell for ever to a lower form of organ- ism. Similarly, in the case of man in relation to God, his failure becomes sin, and drives him from a circle of ennobling influences through vital religious com- munion with God, and brings him under a circle of de- praving influences that leads to the degradation of his nature to something less than human ! Nature, in its review of Mr. W. Benet's book, Ethical Aspect of Evo- lution, says : "He advances biological evidence to show that the organism that has attained the finest adjust- 118 DUAL, GOVERNMENT, ETC. merit to its environment, is the organism which can be most easily thrown out of adjustment, and the one to which misadjustment, when it comes, is most dis- astrous." Thus did man fall from his high estate, and we who were in his loins fell with him. And the Fall was from the awful eminence it required millions of ages to reach, and could only in Nature be regained again through the same stupendous course of cosmic changes and events. But be careful to observe, the sting of the offence of Adam did not lie in his eating the forbidden fruit, and it did not lie merely in his disobeying the com- mandment of God. But it did lie in the fact that in doing so he violated the only ordinance or principle by which any finite being could possibly preserve its well-being in an infinite environment of infinite change sweeping on in eternity. And doubtless it was the vast wisdom and power possessed by Lucifer that tempted him to violate this law, and to rely upon him- self apart from God. They sinned under governmental law, and therefore had a governmental judgment. It may have been a coincidence, but it is an interesting one, that as the serpent was probably one of a large size, it would likely belong to the family which carry with them the indications of having fallen from a higher to a lower place in the scale of life, or of having failed to attain the higher place. The Boidse carry the rudimentary remains of a pelvis and of limbs. Fit instrument for Lucifer. In the judgment given, this fact appears to be recognised; and as no evolutionary change shall ever give to the serpent limbs, but on its belly it must go and eat of dust-stained food while life remains to 119 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE the species, so there was conveyed to Satan in his assumed disguise, now at least if not before, the knowledge of the awful fact that he had fallen, and that for ever! I have noticed somewhere a singular passage, the creation of the mind of a self-deceived critic, endeavouring to make out that the serpent's food was perfectly free from the touch of dust! I say "self-deceived," for no man who has ever seen or had eye-witness testimony of a serpent arranging its victim, and dragging it along the ground in the slow process of swallowing, could write such nonsense. We should regard the scriptural record as from the standpoint of an eye-witness, who considered the con- duct of the serpent on this occasion as showing it to be "more subtil than all the beasts of the field which the Lord God had made." The most probable belief is that some of Adam's numerous descendants wrote the record -of the temptation and Fall from his lips. The points which arise here in relation to the principles of Evolution are most interesting. In Paradise, man reached a goal to which all evolutionary changes were tending, namely, that of "Equilibrium." Hence, in Paradise "the struggle for existence" ceased, abundance of food was provided, and death ceased, while the man obeyed a Being of infinite power and knowledge, in and through whom he could have adjusted himself to every change that could possibly reach him for ever. Evolution has been called by Herbert Spencer a process of "Equilibration," in which living organisms by ever-increasing adaptation were being brought into harmony or equilibrium with their environment. This process was said to be either direct or indirect. It was direct when the organism either by 120 DUAL, GOVERNMENT, ETC. inheritance or its own modification achieved this equilibrium. But when such an achievement was im- possible to the organism itself, Natural Selection came into operation, and by destroying the most unfit of sev- eral generations and preserving the more fit, the race came in due course by this circuitous route to a po- sition of equilibrium, and is therefore called Indirect Equilibration. Thus when the direct process fails, the indirect comes into operation, and of course in Nature they co-operated. With man's entrance into Paradice the indirect process, with its pains and struggles, ceased, and henceforth direct equilibration was to be the rule of his life. The man, upon the incidence of the temptation, or new force, which reached him in this new province, did not invoke the aid of his great Friend, the Lord of heaven and earth. He failed to make the right response, as millions of his ancestors had done, and like them he incurred the unchanging penalty of all past ages. Mark now the nature of the sentence this in- curred. It puts them back to the antecedent conditions of the Indirect Process, namely, to — The multiplied offspring (chap. iii. 16). The struggle for existence (ver. 17). To eat herb of the field (chap. i. 29). The reign of death. So far was death from the purpose of God for the children of Adam, that in the law given by Moses everything connected with death, even to a grave or a bone, defiled those who touched them — sacrificial death being the only exception. But, moreover, since under the indirect process in past ages the hope of future evolution lay in the appearance in 121 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE the race of individuals more or less perfectly adapt- ed, or perhaps in one individual, so it was told to this man and his wife that a Seed should appear in their race which would overcome the occasion of their fall. Hence we have to add another correlated fact to those of the Indirect Process, namely — The coming equilibrate Seed (chap. iii. 15). All this is simply perfect, uniting the whole of God's ways, natural and revealed, into one great system, modified only by changing time and circumstance. The way in which the knowledge of good and evil was reached in this narrative agrees perfectly with the view of Darwin and others, that conscience is a product of the exercise of government of some kind on the human mind. To regard, therefore, this third chapter of Genesis as simply a record of historic fact, in which the narrator gives us a plain account of what really happened from the standpoint of Adam and Eve, who had no knowledge of the eso- teric side of these events, but regarded the serpent as the cause of their fall, and described him as "the most subtil of all the beasts of the field which the Lord God had made," has, for the honest, rational, and well-informed mind, far fewer difficulties than any other interpretation which has ever been of- fered to the religious world. I have before mentioned that the sentence of judgment passed on man involved putting him back again, as it were, to an earlier stage of his descent, so that he again came under that indirect process of evolution known as "Indirect Equilibration," or adaptation; and that also, in accordance with the principles of Evolution, it was said that a Seed 122 DUAL, GOVERNMENT, ETC. should arise in the race which would overcome the evil by which it had fallen. It is a great principle of organic evolution, and of very life itself, that the ideal conduct of organisms should be a balancing of outer by inner changes. The creature itself is a bundle of adaptations in relation to its surroundings, and its whole life is made up of a number of active adaptations to changes in its surroundings. It has to recognise, as it were, the nature of the world and of the altera- tions going on outside itself, and adapt itself to them, or balance them by its own responsive ac- tions. All this is manifest, from the zoophyte that rolls itself up at the incidence of a passing shadow, to the deer which takes encouragement or warning by an odour coming down the wind, or to man, who, as we have seen, at a much loftier place in being, recognised his Creator and the Creation by observ- ing every seventh day. Man's altered relationships through the Fall, and the sentence visited upon him, together with the promise to his race, necessarily involved new relationships, which, in accordance with the aforesaid principles, had to be accurately recognised. When man went forth from the Paradise of God his relationship to the law of the universe was that of a transgressor. He was numbered with the trans- gressors that for millions of years had failed and had forfeited their lives. But he was more valuable than many of these, and means were devised agree- able to God's second form of government, namely, Moral Government, based on the natural process of Indirect Equilibration, for his redemption; and 123 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE accordingly we find him practising a singular rite with a singular significance, namely, "animal sacri- fice." Attempts have been made to explain by natural causes the origin of animal sacrifice. Had it arisen from the natural instincts of men it would be in full force in operation to-day, as are several other heathen practices ; but it is a spent force and a dying rite ; which proves that it must have become inci- dent upon the race from without, and could not have originated in it. Others speak of a covenant of blood, which has had an early existence, and is alleged as an indication of a natural origin. To this and to many other scriptural ordinances, etc., in re- gard to which attempts have been made to trace them to various external sources, there is one all- sufficient answer. These alleged sources are simp 1 y crammed with all sorts of puerility, folly, and su- perstition. Now if the Bible arose like any other book, and was continually borrowing from all these sources, as it is alleged to have done, it would bor- row also like any other book, seeing it arose in ages of concentrated superstitutious ignorance and credul- ity. But the sober matter of fact is, the Bible has none of these things. Wellhausen and others regard sacrifice as originating from the idea of bringing gifts of food to God, and quote the expression a "sweet savour" in support of this view, but the whole weight of scriptural evidence touching sac- rifice is in favour of the more radical and archaic meaning, namely, a savour of rest or satisfaction, 124 DUAL, GOVERNMENT, ETC. arising from the idea of propitiation and satisfaction thereby. 1 The original and scriptural view, be it observed, is correlated with the evolution principle of equili- brium. We have seen that when a living organism did not attain to an efficient equilibrium with its environment by its adaptations or responses to sur- rounding circumstances, Nature found it by over- throwing, that is, by slaying, the organism, and thus finding equilibrium or rest by restoring it 'Must to dust." In sacrifice it was the rest of "ashes to ashes." The silence of Scripture about the origin of animal sacrifice is in perfect harmony with its methods of writing. It leaves many important things unsaid whfch, however, can be inferred from other passages. Thus, for example, the expulsion of Eve from Paradise is not told us. So in the follow- ing chapter we not only find Eve outside Paradise, but»also that the Lord points out to Cain in regard to this rite, "that if he does well he shall be accepted" Cain, therefore, must have known what he ought to have done in this connection, and must have had the light of instruction in regard to it, to have been obli- gated to do it in a given way. We know from an orig- inal derivation of the word (though it is not the one used here, the nature of Cain's offering requiring another) the chief thing in animal sacrifice was the slaying of the victim, and this must have occurred 1 The Chief Rabbi, Dr. Adler, says, in reference to the in- terpretation here given, "that the phrase 'sweet savour' is literally a 'savour of rest' is quite correct, as the Hebrew word rendered 'acceptable' or 'sweet' is derived from the Hebrew root to rest." 125 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE in Paradise after the Fall, for it is recorded that unto Adam and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skin, and clothed them. Now, observe, this slaying of a victim was just what Cain had not done, and on account of which he had not, therefore, done well. For man, if unexplained by instruction or un- hallowed by sacred tradition, the right of animal sacrifice was meaningless and unnatural. "When one or his contemporaries wished to do away with the offering of a lamb as a meaningless formality, Confucius reproved him." 1 In the first place the rite was wholly without con- nection with anything visible. Like the observance of the Sabbath, there was nothing to prompt its observance in any way whatsoever, and it referred to nothing which was seen or did appear. Man was, therefore, the most unique animal upon the whole earth when he performed this strange rite of sac- rifice, which was wholly without visible relationship to anything. The rite, therefore, was a highly representative one, and unconnected with the simple surrounding things of man's environment. But it was connected in mind with the unseen God. Next, it was a per- fect adjustment of internal relations to external re- lations. We have seen that the relationship of the man to the law, natural and governmental, was that of a transgressor, yet that nevertheless a hope of salvation was promised to him; now we shall see that the rite signified the recognition of and the adjustment of all the circumstances involved. 1 Chips from a German Workshop, Professor Max Miiller. 126 DUAL, GOVERNMENT, ETC. We find that the unfit man raised an altar or mound of earth or rough stones ; and of which it was afterwards said, "If thou lift up thy tool upon it thou hast polluted it." This could only refer to the virgin earth of the long geologic ages, upon which had been shed the blood of millions of organisms for the preservation and development of the race — "The great altar-stair that slopes through darkness up to God," upon which the creature had ascended to the august presence of its Creator. The man then took a fit animal, even the fittest, "with- out spot or blemish." ... If the victim selected had a blemish, it was unfit by reason of this blemish, and its death could only atone for this blemish ac- cording to the natural and governmental laws of the world. But when the victim was fit and without spot or blemish, then its peculiar and unnatural death — since it was not slain for food, nor as an enemy or as a competitor or inadvertently, was necessarily sig- nificant of some other unfitness, because the law reigns to the "preservation of the fittest." Through- out the descent of man the ordinance of Nature had shed the blood of millions, because they were unfit, and had failed to adjust to the incident forces around them. Now man himself had also failed, and had become unfit, but there was salvation provided for him in the race. There was a fit Seed of prom- ise in the human family, and the spotless victim the man selected signified this ; so the unfit man with the fit victim arose and drew near unto the Lord God of heaven and earth, of whom are all things and by whom are all things. 127 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE The death this creature died was unique and different from all former ways of death. Heretofore, organisms died as prey, as enemies, or competitors, or by some cosmic changes, or inadvertently. This however, was a new kind of death. This creature died for unfitness, yet not his own. for another con- fessed his unfitness over its head and then it was slain. Its blood, which is an excellent type of life, was taken instead of the man's life; the earth out of which the man was taken received the blood in- stead of his ; it was sprinkled on the altar of virgin earth, and thus, so far as the nature of the case ad- mitted, the laws, natural and governmental, were in a vicarious way satisfied. Like the Sabbath, orig- inally belonging to moral government, the rite did not become an element of legal rule till 2500 years later, and then indifferently (see Ps. 1. 8, etc.). Legal government would protest against the inno- cent suffering for the guilty, but, as we shall see later on, legal government itself opens the way for this administration of moral government. The body of the victim was placed upon the altar and burnt, so that its complete dissolution was accomplished — dust to dust, ashes to ashes ; and thus, in a vicarious form, according to the doctrine of Evolution, an equilibrium was reached — an equilibrium or rest common to the natural law of geologic eras, and to the spoken and written law of the government of God. (See the accompanying photograving illustra- ting Abel's sacrifice and its acceptance.) It is in- teresting to find Herbert Spencer using the term "sacrifice" in regard to the order of events on the field of Nature and in geological eras. He says: 128 Drawn by Rimbault of Maidstone. [To face page 128. DUAL, GOVERNMENT, ETC. "That under conditions such that by the occasional sacrifice of some members of a species, the species as a whole prospers, there arises a sanction for such sacrifices." It is also interesting to find this law of Nature to which Spencer refers mentioned in the Bible. Thus : "The wicked (the lawless) shall be a ransom for the righteous, and the transgressors for the upright" (Prov. xxi. 18). Of course, in the vicarious sacrifices of the law and of Christ, the object being the salvation of the transgressor, this order was vicarious, by a higher law of mercy and goodness, the fit became a ransom for the unfit, the innocent for the guilty. Yet to fulfill the law, Christ, "Who knew no sin, was made sin for us." "He was numbered with the transgressors," and as in Nature the transgressors died, so Christ died. We perceive that with the advent of Divine per- sonal government upon the earth there was no break in the uniformities of the universe, nothing to which the true man of science could take excep- tion, but very much at which he ought to bow his head and worship. The multitudinous sacrifices ordained] by God appear unnecessary, but when we remember the intense religious and superstitious nature of the Semites, we see all these manifold rites were neces- sary to occupy their attention, satisfy their in- stincts, and keep them from idolatry. 129 CHAPTER X SYMBOLS OF THE CREATION AND OF THE STUPENDOUS NATURE OF THE FALL A RATIONAL RELIGION THE doctrine of Evolution, when we recognise its principles and come forward from the long ages of geologic time into the periods of his- tory, furnishes us with some interesting illustra- tions of the relationship between legal and moral governments. These illustrations are in the form of a strange but perfectly accurate symbolism. When by reason of disobedience Adam and Eve were ban- ished from Paradise, it is declared that there was "placed at the east of the Garden of Eden and Cher- ubim, and a flaming sword which turried every way, to keep the way of the Tree of Life." From the de- scription of the Cherubim found at other places in the Scriptures we perceive them to be represented as composite creatures, with the faces of a man, lion, ox, and eagle; in short, general or synthetic types of living organisms such, in some degree, as appeared in early geological ages and became differ- entiated to the specialised types of to-day. Now it is not sense or reason, but nonsense and unreason, to believe that, in such a connection as this, involv- ing the most remarkable conditions and combina- 130 SYMBOLS OF THE CREATION AND OF THE FALL tions of all human evolution, and never to be paral- leled till the Lord appears on the earth again, we ought to expect nothing but the commonplaces of ordinary history. If utility and efficiency leads us to make use of material figures and symbols for in- struction, why should not God make use of them in such a connection as this? Traditional representations of these figures after- wards guarded the entrance to Assyrian palaces, and are to-day to be seen in the museums of Eu- rope. As before mentioned, in the opening chapter of Ezekiel the prophet presents to us a vision : "And I looked, and, behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, with a fire infolding itself, and a brightness about it, and out of the midst thereof as the colour of amber came the likeness of four living creatures;" then follows the description of the Cherubim as above. The four living creatures which enter into this symbolism are, as a matter of fact, according to modern science, the four ultimate twigs on the great tree of organic life, the limits of organic evolution. That the prophet's vision is of the Cosmos there can be no doubt. It is called "vi- sions of God." Professor Huxley, in speaking of Evolution, says : "That just as the cloud of our breath condenses on a frosty morning on a window- pane into beautiful fern-like leafy forms, so, in the process of Evolution, the flora and fauna of the globe have come forth out of the great nebular cloud." 1 (See photograving of symbol of Evolution, p. 48.) The nebular fiery cloud infolded itself, and 1 Quoted from memory. 131 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE this and similar processes led onward to the four creatures which rightly stand at the head of organic life, and which unitedly compose the Cherubim. Ezekiel, doubtless without knowing it, saw what we to-day cannot help but recognise as a very per- fect vision of the great process of Evolution, pre- sented between its extremes of nebular cloud and finished forms of life. Later in the chapter the in- troduction of wheels and a wheel within a wheel in the vision is also singularly in place ; they may rep- resent the starry circles of the stellar universe, or, as according to the doctrine of Evolution, a locomo- tive engine or an Atlantic liner is as much a prod- uct of evolution and a creation of God as is a lion or an ox: all are outcomes of Divine workmanship by certain ministries. The lilies of the field have been in great measure clothed and perfumed by the ministry of insects; yet it was God who clothed them with their glorious hues, and gave them their sweet perfumes. The few additional points men- tioned by the prophet are accurate. The nebula of the solar system was probably related to those of the north, was a spiral nebula ; the colour of amber or brightness simply belongs both to the ascending and descending stages of an evolution of a star or planet. The revisers have substituted "stormy wind" for "whirlwind" in the Scripture from Eze- kiel. They have translated the same word "whirl- wind" in the Book of Job, and they could not be ex- pected to know that every stormy wind is a circular — a whirlwind. It cannot be said that this interpretation is either forced or far-fetched. It is by no means so — it is 132 [To face page 133. SYMBOLS OF THE CREATION AND OF THE FALL perfect in each particular. Herbert Spencer has given us a representation of Evolution on the front cover of his several volumes of Synthetic Philoso- phy. Upon a few crystals rests a foundation of earth, and rising upon these a plant bearing a flower; to the former is attached a caterpillar and its chrysalis, and on the flower rests the butterfly. It is very good, but distinctly much less perfect than the symbolism of Ezekiel (see protograving, p. 48). Very slightly, if at all altered, these are the figures declared to have been placed at the east of the Garden of Eden to keep the way of the Tree of Life, namely, the sword of flame and the Cherubim. Bishop Hellmuth translates the Hebrew here as fol- lows : Turning itself over and over in permanent commotion. They were placed there because of the disobedience of Adam ; they barred his way to Para- dise and the Tree of Life, and they symbolised per- fectly the awful dimensions of his fall. The accom- panying photograving of the nebula in Canes Ve- natici shows the resemblance to a revolving East- ern scimitar or sword. Let not the critic despise these symbols. What are words but symbols of thought, and what are thoughts but symbols also, and what are all things known to us, but symbo 1 s of a great reality which to us is unknown? If exh perience proves the great utility of symbolisms in illustration and in writing, by what principle, let me ask, do we cavil at it when found in the Bible? The winged bulls, lions, men, and eagles of the monu- ments of antiquity are doubtless traditional repre-, sentations of the Cherubim, and are now seen in our museums. 133 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE For a man to reach by natural law that exalted place again and have access to a tree which not only contained the physical basis or plasma of life, but life itself, so that there could be neither ageing, decay, nor death, the great process of Evolution must again recommence its long travail of more than a hundred million of years ! For. the whole course of the evolution of the Cosmos, as commonly understood by its, lay between the revolving fiery cloud of the primeval nebula and the four leading living forms of the Cherubim. Bishop Lightfoot points out that St. Paul saw behind the Mosaic law itself "an imperious principle antagonistic to grace, to liberty, to spirit, and in some aspects even to life." This "imperious principle" is the law of Na- ture, upon which legal law and government are founded, and its stern character and demands were embodied in the symbolic figures which now stood between this fallen and unfit man and eternal life. The man of the Cherubim figure I regard as the pre-Adamic or geologic man, who here with the other living forms (all born under natural law) rise in judgment against Adam, and proclaim to him and to his descendants the colossal character of his transgression. This is well seen when we remember that in the direct line of Adam's ancestry the indi- viduals of which it was composed had, on the whole, never fallen, but agreeable to their rule of life they had been obedient. The Fall of Adam was there- fore a unique event, and far removed from a matter of course. However, it pleased God to institute an- other way, apart from law, whereby it would not be necessary for this long process of Evolution to have 134 SYMBOLS OF THE CREATION AND OF THE FALL to be gone through again, and in which the same race, though fallen, should be again to Paradise re- stored. In another form of government, namely, moral government, the Lord instituted a ministry for the restoration of the race. While Adam stood outside Paradise, in view of the awful sword of flame and strange guards placed to keep the way of life, he, or his children, reared an altar, and, as we have already seen, practised the strange rite of ani- mal sacrifice. 1 In that rite he poured forth the life of a living creature for his own, and placing it upon an altar; by fire he turned it, as far as the nature of the event admitted, and in appearance, into the original nebular state, into its ultimate elements again. The cloud of his sacrifice, the course of his procedure, were, in a figure, a reversal of the course of Evolution and of the vision of Ezekiel. Th^ prophet saw the living creatures coming out of the fiery cloud which was infolding itself. In animal sacrifice the living creature is again turned into a fiery cloud which unfolds itself. And let the critical reader 'remember we are dealing here with types and symbols, and symbols only. Before the critical reader rejects such an inter- pretation of these things, let me remind him it was necessary that Adam's relationship to God should be recognised according to some formal rite — his worship must assume some kind of religious serv- ice. We may well believe it was a reasonable serv- ice, and manifesting reasonable relationship, rather 1 The silence of Scripture as to Adam offering sacrifice is no evidence to the contrary; Noah sacrificed, and even knew the distinction between clean and unclean animals for sacrifice 135 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BtBLE than something without reason, sense, or signifi- cance. We have already seen that a leading princi- ple regarding life and conduct is a balancing of outer relations by inner relations, or a continuous adjustment of inner to outer relationships. A prin- ciple so important and far-reaching as this is surely of the greatest interest. The religions service of fallen man zuas in exact conformity ivith this great principle of life and conduct. The inner relations in question were the facts of the Fall; man had be- come a transgressor, he had failed to adjust at the incidence of a new force, the temptation, and had become, in evolution terms, unfit. Next, he had the promise of restoration. The outer relations in ques- tion were the revealed Person of the Lord, the great principle of natural law which was symbolised in the significant symbolism guarding the way of life, and the promised Seed of the woman who was or- dained to arise in the race and offer a vicarious sacrifice for the sins and transgressions of men. Spencer says : "That under conditions such t£at, by the occasional sacrifice of some members of a spe- cies as a whole prospers, there arises a sanction for such sacrifices." 1 Accordingly, when this man took a living organ- ism, and vicariously on his own behalf slew it, and then by fire turned it back into its natural elements again, we perceive it was, as far as the existent cir- cumstances allowed, a perfect adjustment of inner to outer relationships : — His conduct in this religious service recognised his fallen state. } The italics are mine. 136 SYMBOLS OF THE CREATION AND OF THE FALL Recognised in a vicarious form from the penalty for failing to adjust rightly which had at- tended the whole course of organic evolu- tion, namely, death. Recognised the hope of restoration. Recognised the awful dimensions of his Fall, and, therefore, the transcendent greatness of his redemption as symbolised at Paradise. Recognised the approaching, appearing, sacrifice and death of the Son of God. I hold this to be a reasonable service, which prej- udice or ignorance alone can reject. Thus the situation before Paradise exhibits to us the Dual government of God. The fallen man under sentence of expulsion, the Cherubim symbolising forms of life which, having been brought forth un- der the iron rule of natural law, now witness and bar the way against the transgressor ; as also the revolving flaming sword, all typify Legal govern- ment. But standing before these at a distance in the foreground is an altar, on which in flame and cloud there rises to heaven an offering made by fire, which, with its transcedent relations, apprehended by faith, is "a savour of rest," of satisfaction, a res- toration of the balance which sin had disturbed, a meeting and an adjusting of the fatal discord of the Fall, in which we perceive the ministry of Moral government forecasting the redemption of men. I think it was one of the Bonars who long ago pointed out that the situation before Paradise was reproduced in the symbolism of the Tabernacle and Temple. The Holy of holies corresponds to Para- dise ; on the veil which barred the way were figured 137 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE the Cherubim, and at a distance in the foreground stood the altar. On the great Day of Atonement the High Priest, by virtue of sacrifice and shed blood, the type of death, was enabled to enter the Holy of holies. And now to this I may add, that the Cherubim which stood on the mercy-seat, gazing upon it, were placed there as the strict witnesses and spectators, in regard to the fact of natural and legal government, that death was necessary to ex- piate the sins of men. And the blood sprinkled on the mercy-seat over' the law, contained in the ark of the Covenant before their gaze, was the evidence of that death, and testified to the fulfilment (here in a vicarious form) of the great law which had reigned through all the ages of organic evolution. The reader will remember that at the instant of our Lord's death the veil of the Temple upon which the Cherubim were figured was rent in twain, for the barrier of human sin was then done away, and the entrance to Paradise and life opened to men. To quote from The Government of God, we may contemplate these vast events thus: "For m-illons of years, amid the shiftings of seas and lands, when the mountains were being brought forth, and the strong foundations of the earth prepared, the crea- ture was ever drawing nearer to the presence of the Lord. Every step down those untold ages was scrutinised, and every imperfection crucified and slain. The blood of every erring one, the blood of every imperfect, unfit, and unfavoured individual, was required and was shed upon the earth, until at length the mighty travail of the universe was end- ed, and the creature, having been made perfect 138 SYMBOLS OF THE CREATION AND OF THE FALL through suffering, out of great tribulation entered the presence of the Lord. Henceforth evolution was to proceed by 'Direct Equilibration' alone, and therefore, there was to be no more death, neithe sorrow nor crying, neither any more pain. But while vet on the threshold of immortality the child of all the ages failed By transgression he fell, be- came unfit, and was sent forth from the presence of God, the greatness of his transgression being typified by the awful symbolism of the Cherubim and flaming sword placed at Paradise, signifying the millions of years of creation's awful travail in work, in suffering, in life sacrificed, in death en- dured, — all, all, all, now lost through sin. "But a way of mercy is made manifest, and the whole system of sacrificial offering of the Mosaic and Christian dispensations, the shadow and the substance, is a new way laid down for the return of the creature by the old paths to the presence of the Lord. And accordingly, in the forms of all true religion, we behold the elements of past, present, and future relations, which have to do with the progressive evolution and the life of man. "The whole scheme is the perfection of simplicity. The pathway out. becomes the pathway back again ; then stained with sin, now sprinkled with the blood of atonement on account of sin. But still more wonder- ful and beautiful, the way back to God is the way the human organism had been traversing when for millions and millions of years it drew near to the presence of the Lord. Down the corridors of time, by altars of virgin earth sprinkled with the blood of the transgressors, the creature drew near to the awful presence of the 139 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE great and terrible God. And the man who stood forth at the end of days as the accepted companion of the living God, could he have looked back on the events of his long descent, would have beheld a great multitude of lower creatures which had suffered and been sacrificed on his behalf; sacrificed, that by their death they might take away from the countless organ- isms of his ancestry their unfitness and imperfections, that he might rise to his lofty estate. And now, since by unfitness or sin he had fallen from God's presence, and a way of return is opened anew through a re- ligion of vicarious sacrifice of lower organisms, we behold him again drawing near along the ancient path by which he first climbed to God." Thus by a stupen- dous ministry of animal sacrifice was man created, and by a stupendous ministry of animal sacrifice is man redeemed. There are some who will have us believe that in the struggle for existence there was very little suffer- ing, and they quote Dr. A. R. Wallace in support of their views. If Dr. Wallace had pursued exclusively the vocation of a hunter, he would never have written the passage they quote. As a medical man I know something of human suffering, but never have I seen depicted on the face of man or woman the horror and pain of suffering which I have seen presented in the limited power of expression possessed by the lower animals. Even the scream of a rabbit in the grip of a stoat should teach them more wisdom. To call this automatic is to store up prejudice at any sacrifice of right evidence and sober truth. 140 CHAPTER XI AFTER ADAM — THE DELUGE CALL OF ABRAM AND OF MOSES FOLLOWING the stream of time, as the children of Adam multiplied upon the earth, moral gov- ernment alone ruled the mind of his descendants, and this existed in the sufficiently influential form of the records of Paradise, the judgment of Cain, and the preaching of righteousness by such men as Noah, enforced by the moral suasion of the Spirit of God in their minds. The fusion of the theocratic family with the pre-Adamic race — "the sons of God" with "the daughters of men" — gave fuel to the worst human passions, while of legal restraints there were only threatenings, and, therefore, that "the earth became filled with violence" is perfectly consistent history. But, as we have seen, all mankind were now under the stern process of Indirect Equilibration, or the selec- tion and preservation of the fittest, and the rejection and destruction of the unfit. Therefore, that at this juncture the Lord should put in force governmentally this great law, is also perfectly consistent history; and accordingly the Deluge, of which so many nations have records or traditions, was sent upon earth. A few just persons, namely, Noah and his family, were selected 141 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE and preserved, while the many wicked and unfit fam- ilies of men were destroyed. That the account of the Deluge is, like that of Paradise, a record from the standpoint of an eye-witness, may be true. The lan- guage used is of that universal character common to the Bible when speaking of great events. To us to-day, honestly looking at all the evidence from various sources, while we deem it partial, it must have been very widespread. Even from the account in Genesis it would seem that a subsidence of land areas con- tributed to this long-remembered and wide-recorded flood. Sir Joseph Prestwich is one of our greatest authorities upon the conditions and events of the period to which the Deluge properly belongs. What he has to say is, therefore, of first importance. His biography, written by his wife, contains the following, from which we make some extracts : — "J. Prestwich to J. Evans. "I think that I shall be able to show that a deluge spread over part of England, and much (if not all) Europe in late Quaternary times, and that it destroyed palaeolithic man (in part). It approaches, in fact, singularly near to the tradition of the Noachin Deluge. This is between ourselves" (p. 110). "J. Prestwich to J. C. Scott. "I think that I am now in a position to show that the South of England, France, and probably the greater part of Europe, have been submerged during the early human period, and that palaeolithic man was thereby destroyed (in great part). It revives in a 142 AFTER ADAM curious way the tradition of the Noachin Deluge" ( P . in). . "S. R. Pattison to J. Prestwich. "I am reminded of one of the late Professor Phil- lips' last sayings to me : 'I believe, Pattison, after all. we shall be obliged to bring back the Deluge' " (p. 368). Professor Huxley's objection to the Deluge, namely, that the time specified in Genesis was too short to allow of the waters to disperse from off the lands, is of no consequence when the subsidence and rising again of widely extending land areas are taken into account. The record in Genesis favours this view of the occurrence, as does also the evidence from geology. The words of St. Peter (2. Pet. ii. 5), i.e. "Bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly," appear to refer to a partial deluge. Canon Driver raised several objections to the scrip- tural record of the Deluge. He declares it impossible that the ark could have contained all the creatures said to be sheltered therein. The entire fallacy of this is shown below. He rejects Prestwich's testimony to the Deluge because the latter was unable, from in- sufficient research, to adduce adequate evidence of the Flood in the region where the Bible specially places it — a very venturesome sort of objection. In Mr. Felix Oswald's book, Geology of Armenia (1906), he says: "Pleistocene lacustrine deposits are well developed in the basin of the Aroxes. . . . Lucustrine beds also occur on the S. side of the Aroxes plain." "In another 143 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE section, figured by Abich, of the edge of the neigh- bouring Kulpi Valley, the deposits, nearly horizontal fine volcanic conglomerate, ashes, rapilli sands and tuffs of the Diluvial age, which show that at the time of the volcanic outbreak, on the heights between Takyaltn and Ararat, the Aroxes plain was covered by water." Sir Henry Howorth, F. R. S., has written several works bearing upon the Deluge, namely, The Mam- moth and the Flood (1881), Glacial Nightmare and the Flood (2 vols., 1893), Ice or Water (2 vols., 1905). Speaking of the destruction of the mammoth, Sir Henry Howorth says: "The fact of so many of the remains being found in high ground seems to show that this high ground was a place of refuge where the beasts congregated in the presence of some common danger, such as a great inundation, which threatened to annihilate them. In this way, also, can we best account for the heterogeneous character of the collection of bones, mammoth, rhinoceros, bison, and Bos primigenius, musk sheep, and stag, etc., ani- mals that do not herd together." "Whichever way, in fact, we view the problem, as a zoological one we are forced to the same conclusion, namely, that the mammoth perished by a sudden cataclysm in which he was overwhelmed by a widespread inundation." The latest date which Sir Henry gives for this flood is not far removed from the Deluge of Genesis: but when we remember the uncertainty which belongs to these remote events, and the fact of the perfect preservation of the whole mammoth, flesh and hide, to our own time, we may have little doubt that they all refer to the same flood. It is probable that the 144 AFTER ADAM obliteration of the great Mediterranean Sea that lay east of the Ural Mountains may account for the change of climate from temperate to arctic conditions along Siberian lands. It may be useful to point to the fact that the Bible gives perfectly rational measurements for the ark as a ship of burden. Moreover, the space provided, with three decks, was 450' — 50' for the inclination of bow, stern and sides = 400' X 75' X 3 = 90,000 square feet. The steamers carrying live stock from New York to- day allow 20 square feet for oxen. At this rate there would be room in the ark for 4500 oxen, with plenty of ventilation, as the decks were 13 feet in the clear apart. Sir A. Geikie makes the number of the species of mammalia to be between 1660 and 1700. If so, the ark would carry on two of its decks and a part of its third deck two each of these species, even if all of them were of the size of an ox. But the average size, according to Professor H. A. Ward and Mr. Wallace's careful calculation of species, would be that of the grey fox or common house cat. Therefore, one deck only of the ark would suffice to take the entire family which it was designed to preserve. 1 The Deluge strengthened the influence of moral government, and the pronouncement addressed to Xoah, upon his leaving the ark, gives us the first germ of legal government since the Fall. Later on, we reach important manifestations of Divine government in the confusion of tongues, which had the effect, agreeable to a great principle of Evolution, of isolating sections of the human race. We have confirmatory 1 Dr. Howard Osgood, in the British and Foreign Evan- gelical Review. 145 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE evidence of the scriptural record regarding the Tower of Babel. The inscriptions show that attempts were made to rebuild it, and that it was called E-temen-an-ki, signifying "the House of the Foundation of Heaven and Earth." "It is worthy of note also/' says Dr. T. G. Pinches, "that the tower was to rival the heavens in height." 1 When we take into consideration the widespread knowledge of the true God which existed beyond the chosen line of Abraham, as exhibited in the lives of Job and his friends, of Melchizedek, of Moses' father- in-law, and the prophet Balaam, we must be convinced that a much fuller revelation of God was given to men at the fountain of our race than is recorded in the Book of Genesis. It was, however, in a state of decay when the great principles of Isolation and Selection were governmentally put into operation in the call of Abram and the treatment of himself and his descend- ants. They were idolaters and served other gods, but under the moral influence of the Divine selection, in- struction, and discipline they came to serve the living God. At one place we find an addition to legal rule, where the covenant of circumcision is given with the penalty of death attached (compare Gal. v. 3). The trial of Abraham's faith was another element of moral rule. Following the course of history, when the children of Israel in Egypt were suffering under the iron op- pression of the Pharaohs, we find an elaborate system of moral and legal government, beginning with Moses, and, through him, developed to the minds of the men of the new and rising state of Israel. Moses, having attempted by natural means the rescue of his people 1 Victoria Institute Transactions, 1909. 146 AFTER ADAM from the tyranny of the Egyptians, and failed, went to sojourn in Midian. Brought up at a Court which, for refinement and high breeding, is not surpassed to-day ; after years which brought no sign of the God of his fathers appearing for their help, he became, as we might expect in the case of a highly cultured and refined but disappointed man, sceptical, even to the neglect of the covenant of circumcision in his last-born son. But the time had at length fully come when that great system of moral government which had been influencing mankind in a fragmental form, should, to- gether with a system of legal rule, take under their sway a nation in order that the name of the God of heaven should be declared throughout all the earth, and that men should be constrained to trust in Him for everlasting life. An event wholly inexplicable, and calculated to arrest the attention of a sceptical mind, met the gaze of Moses as he was pursuing the vocation of a shepherd on the lonely mountains of Sinai — a bush on fire, yet not consumed. "I will now turn aside," he said, "and see this great sight." A voice from out of the fire calls him by name, declares the presence of the God of his fathers, and with touching compassion pictures the sorrows of Israel, and calls upon Moses to go for their deliverance, and free his people from their op- pressors in the iron furnace of Egypt. But a strong sceptical mind is not easily turned to faith, and natural ways and means alone arise to such a mind, and, of course, appear impossible. However, after a pro- tracted controversy, which, from the Hebrew, appears to have been of some days' length, in which Moses further betrays his state of mind by the questions he 147 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE presumes to ask God, and after special Divine works as suitable credentials to his commission, he reluctantly obeys the command. All this constitutes, of course, a piece of moral government pure and simple. On his way to execute the high commission thus given him, we read the Lord met with him and sought to slay him ! How strange a thing is this : yet the principle of dual government affords us a perfectly rational explanation. It was because he was a transgressor to that portion of legal government already enacted (p. 146) to his fathers. In such a connection as this we see the dual nature of the government of God — the moral, with its divers influences to sway the mind to adopt a given course of action; the legal, with its penalty, that respects not persons nor abrogates its claims ; the moral, with its boundless love, compassion, and grace, that "taketh no account of evil . . . beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, en- dureth all things," "never despairing of any man" ; the legal, with its stern but just requirements, and awful penal sanctions, banishing angels from heaven and men from Paradise, and not staying even at the Lord Himself when He interposed between its claims and the guilty. Legal government, as we have seen, is founded on the stern, inflexible order, or law, of Nature. Bishop Lightfoot, as already quoted, has well said : 'The dis- tinction between vopot and 6 vopoZ is very commonly disregarded, and yet it is full of significance. Behind the concrete representation — the Mosaic law itself — St. Paul sees an imperious principle, antagonistic to grace, to liberty, to spirit, and in some aspects even to life— abstract law which, though the Mosaic ordi- 148 AFTER ADAM nances are its most signal and complete embodiment, nevertheless, it is not exhausted therein, but exerts its crushing power over the conscience in divers mani- festations." This "imperious principle" is the stern inflexible law of Nature, under which the evolution of living organisms has proceeded, and which reigned throughout the descent of man, until moral govern- ment took him by the hand and placed him in Paradise. Moral government precedes legal in the order of time and revelation, although the natural basis of legal government, in the conditioned order of Nature, reigned from the foundation of the universe. And moral government will reign alone when legal rule finds no place. Moral government is an intensely personal form of rule, revealing, manifesting, bringing nigh to men the influential personality of the living God. It exhibit's to us the Lord God making Himself known to man by works which God alone could perform : by entering into personal correspondence with man, by providing him with the essentials of supreme human happiness in a home of such exquisite beauty and perfection as to be called a Paradise, a "Delight," and with the companionship of a wife, who, of all God's great creation, was the one solitary, matchless, and unique being ever formed directly by the hand of God. Arid in addition to this, the interest which lay in the companionship of the manifold forms of lower animals, which filled Paradise with life and with song. In passing, it is worth noticing that these forms of gratification still continue to constitute main elements in this life's happiness. It is just these very things with which men seek to surround themselves, whenever 149 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE wealth enables them to make provision for the gratifi- cation of their own desires and aspirations. The stately homes of England and other countries, and their ex- tensive domains of park and woodlands, peopled with many kinds of animals, are all in evidence, and bear their testimony to the reasonableness of the historic record of the Book of Genesis regarding God's deal- ings with man and His design to satisfy their desires. But that "goodness may not wound itself/' or the pleasures of life become "a spring of woe" at the outset of its administration in this life, it embraces also a system of moral tests and temptations, and when neces- sary of disciplinary chastisements and ministries of pain, suffering, and sorrow, developing to our minds a variety of motives, considerations, and influences de- signed to sway us in the way of righteousness, to establish us in all virtue. And in this ministry it is continuing the principles of Nature, under which, in life's long converse with its environments, in the stress and strain, in threatening pain, in awe-inspiring fear, endured by living organisms, our several feelings and emotions were called into existence and developed to the high compass of the perfect man. Moral government has no penalties ; on the con- trary, it takes hold of the sinner suffering the pains of legal rule, and works with his griefs for his good. Transgression as well as obedience furthers the ends of moral government. In its benign purview "every fall is a fall upwards," always and by all means en- deavouring to rescue the soul from the hand of legal rule and place it beyond the reach of its fiery law. And while legal government is sternly administered 150 AFTER ADAM by the principalities and powers of heaven, it is the Lord Himself who ministers in the benevolent realm of moral rule. "Art thou sunk in depths of sorrow, Where no arm can reach so low? There is One whose arms almighty Reach beyond thy deepest woe. God th' Eternal is thy refuge, Let it still thy wild alarms; You may fall, but underneath you Lie the Everlasting Arms." 151 CHAPTER XII THE DESTRUCTION OF THE CANAANITES IN THE CON- QUEST OF CANAAN THE FALL OF ISRAEL WE must pass over the events attending the de- liverance of Israel from Egypt, their Wilder- ness wanderings, all of which and much more we have treated of elsewhere, and introduce a word touching the conquest of Canaan and the destruction of its in- habitants. With the eighteenth chapter of Leviticus before their eyes, how any rational, right-feeling man xan wonder at their being destroyed is passing strange ; considering their practice, considering the character of the constitutional conditions both in mind and body produced by these practices, considering the far- reaching hereditary and contagious influences thus generated and passed into the human race, considering that for about four hundred years the Lord waited before arising to put governmentally into force the great natural law of the "destruction of the unfit" against this filthy, polluted race : it is blindness amount- ing to madness to accuse the Lord of cruelty in the exercise of this governmental act of legal government. To-day mankind are so much the better for its having been enforced, and making Israel in part (the forces of Nature were used also) the punitive force was 152 THE DESTRUCTION OF THE CANAANITES the best way of making them loathe and reject both them and their sins. At this place it is only possible to say that the Canaanites were steeped in crimes which, in the language of our courts of justice, "must not be mentioned among Christians." Moreover, they sacrificed their children in cruel deaths to devils. These practices had been increasing from generation to generation in the course of centuries, and must have suggested to thinking men of the time the inquiry: "Is there a living God anywhere in the universe who can suffer such nameless crimes and hideous atrocities to go on unpunished and unarrested?" And of course the same considerations apply to the world overthrown by the Deluge and to the cities of Sodom and Go- morrah. Let us hear Herbert Spencer on the prin- ciples here involved: "The well-being of existing humanity, and the unfolding of it into the ultimate perfection, are both secured by the same beneficent, though severe, discipline to which the animate creation at large is subject: a discipline which is pitiless in the working out of good: a felicity-pursuing law which never swerves from the avoidance of partial and tem- porary suffering." Xow in the Divine governmental execution of those principles to which, in the realm of Nature, our philosophers have so emphatically set their seal, there was the additional beneficence of centuries of patient waiting and delay of execution, and when at length stern necessity demanded the putting into execution governmentally the natural "felicity-pursuing law," it was demanded to be done swiftly and completely, so that the amount of suffering was designed to be reduced to the lowest limits possible. 153 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE So much for the consistence of agnostic philosophers. Israel's subsequent history we shall not here pursue, except to draw attention to the fact before-mentioned that the sanitary laws of Moses are now made the subject of legislative enactments in this and other highly civilised nations. The whole range of Mosaic law having to do with disease and sanitation, in the form of notification, inspection, isolation, aseption by water and by fire, and the dry clay method with sewage, have in the last few years become embodied in Acts of Parliament. Here again we have substantial evidence of the Divine origin of these laws. The legis- lation of Kammui-Rabi have them not. It is a sad and affecting picture as we contemplate the history of a nation which had climbed, under the fostering care of God, to a high place among the nations of antiquity, and yet higher and more exalted still, until the fire of heaven burned on their altars and the glory of God filled her temple, now turning back from her high and lofty estate, laying her glory in the dust, till her sun goes down at midday in darkness and dishonour. The Babylonish Captivity destroyed or absorbed into the Chaldean nation the apostate and pagan sons of Jacob; only the faithful, and they, regarded as few and indifferent, returned to the land of their fathers. Henceforth their relationship to God became of a qualified character, so that their history falls more into line with that of other nations of the earth. The prophetic voice and fire are heard and felt again for a season, and then sink into silence, till after the lapse of centuries the last and greatest of the prophets arises to herald the coming of the Son of God. 154 CHAPTER XIII THE SON OF MAX HIS CORRELATIVE IN ANCIENT AGES HIS ATONEMENT. IT may appear an astounding statement, but never- theless it is a perfectly true and justifiable one, that all down the ages of organic evolution there were times — we might say, times without number — when indeed, in an almost infinitely less, yet still real, degree, the races of living organisms might in a figure be imagined to take up the Scripture-voice, "Unto us a Son is born ; unto us a Child is given" ; when in the course of changing conditions, races of living organisms were no longer in harmony with these new changes, or fell out of correspondence with their en- vironment, so that the total destruction of the races in question was imminent : then the birth of a new variety in these races, having adaptations which enabled it to meet and adjust itself to the new conditions, was an occasion, as far as its limits reached, identical to the birth of the Son of Man. And yet this identical event must have taken place millions of times in the course of organic evolution. That men to-day are not in harmony or perfect correspondence with their environment is manifest. That they ought to be, is the pronouncement of our reason. That they were at one time, for a brief 155 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE period, and fell out of correspondence, is Scripture history; and has' so many correlations in philosophic thought, in organic evolution, natural history, and the experience of daily life, as to present nothing but what is perfectly rational, and as what might well have been, to our minds. That a new Variety of man has been born to the race, capable of meeting and adjusting Himself to all the conditions of our environ- ment, is now an almost universally admitted fact of history — "Unto us a Child is born; unto us a Son is given," and "of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end." We have learned the conditions necessary to endow a living organism with continuous existence or endless life, according to Spencer's analysis of life and its relations and possibilities. We have seen how im- possible this was to any creature, inasmuch as it requires infinite knowledge and ability. We have seen, however, that what was impossible directly to any living creature became possible indirectly by His becoming obedient to the Infinite and Eternal God. We have seen that a human pair were put in this relationship, and had, thereby, endless life put within their reach; that, however, they had failed in obedi- ence to God, and had fallen from this relationship. In the course of time, however, a new Variety of man appeared upon the earth, the "Son of Man." It is recorded of this Man that He was unfailing in His obedience to all the commandments of God, that His knowledge was unlimited, as also His power. He exhibited power over all the manifold evils before which men fail from inability to adjust themselves to them. Disease and death and the forces of Nature 156 THE SON OF MAN were under His control. Not being subject to death Himself, nevertheless, on behalf of others, He laid down His life, and then He took it again. And having taught men that He came into the world to restore men to God as their Father by regeneration, that they might become like Him, He showed His independence of the conditions of this world by ascending from the earth before the eyes of His disciples. The evidence we have thus before us in relation to this Alan satisfies all the requirements essential for endless life, down to the important fact that His range in space was not confined to this world. Science unites her testimony to the Bible in declaring that this world shall become unfit for human life, and, indeed, that all worlds of the whole stellar universe shall become unfit. Therefore, a living creature whose range was confined to any of them could not live for ever. Again, the extended range possessed by the ''Son of Man" is only in perfect harmony with one of the important principles of organic evolution. Ex- tension of range has all along attended the progressive evolution of living organisms. To-day the whole world has been freely encircled by a race which is finding it too small for its ever-widening desires and aspira- tions, as with longing gaze it looks away to Mars and other worlds; and conformity to the great Son of Man, and powers like unto His, alone can satisfy mankind, and give that equilibrium between internal feelings and external existences which is the goal to which all evolutionary life-changes for a space of about a hundred millions of years have been tending. The fact that the recorded attributes of the Son of Man satisfied the principles of advancing Evolution is evi- 157 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE dence of His being the new Variety of men which the race so cryingly needed. An agnostic once said to the writer, "Evolution must continue, but where is the stem in the human race?" I referred him to Isa. xi. 1-10, where his question is answered. If the student should have met with any books or papers in which the supernatural events relating to our Lord are attributed to Buddha and other East- ern sages, he will find a complete refutation of these fallacies in Kellogg's Light of Asia and Light of the World, and the channel through which they were transferred to Buddha. The credulity of the so-called rationalist in this connection is amazing, and they keep repeating them in the leading magazines without any sense of their folly. It is a profoundly significant fact that both the Higher Critical and the popular view of the Bible have no rational place for Atonement. The critics deem the events recorded in Gen. ii. and iii. as unhistorical. To most of them the progressive development of the race has proceeded without a break, and man along the ages of history and to-day is simply getting the better, more or less, of animal instincts derived by inheritance from its ancestors. Thus Dr. Dunkenfield Astley endorses the views of Crawley when he says: "Original sin coincides with human evolution — the elimination of he monkey from man." And Canon Driver posits several original races and several Falls, which, in point of fact, are no Falls at all. He also regards the Fall as being comprehended in man's having had his faculties awakened to a sense of moral law, and then having, when tested, broken the law. This mere mental exercise, which he imagines several 158 THE SON OF MAN men underwent, is really no Fall, is foreign to both Testaments, and to the facts of history. It is idle to think of an Atonement in such a nexus. By this view, all things considered, men have been doing fairly well — an average level best. It is mon- strous to contemplate the incarnation, sufferings and sacrifice of the Lord from heaven being demanded under such circumstances. To the critics, the Fall is simply seen in the common failure of all men, the consequence of their immaturity, as to which it is sufficient for a man to say, Homo Sum — scarce need- ing even forgiveness. "An attempt to punish us for our animal origin and ancestry would be simply comic, if any one would be found who was willing to take it seriously" (Sir Oliver Lodge). Their view of the Fail, however, is flatly contradicted by New Testament Scriptures. St. Paul very distinctly postulates the ''one man" and the "one- offence" ; and the "one man" and the "one act of righteousness." If they accept the latter, on what principle do they reject the former? The popular view believes that man was made directly out of the dust, taken in Paradise, given the commandment of God. In the course of a fortnight, or some short time, he transgressed the word of God. The offence of this mushroom man — this cost-nothing creation from clay — a thousand millions more would have cost nothing — is held to have plunged millions of human beings for thousands of years into wars and carnage, craft and madness, lust and spite — bitter cries that reach as high as heaven, and groans of misery as deep as hell. And, moreover, it is held that the offence of "so slight a thing" as this man, demanded the stupen- dous event of God manifested in the flesh, suffering, 159 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE dying to atone for his transgression ! St. Paul regards the "many offences" of mankind as simply thrown into the Atonement which mainly had to do with the offence of Adam. It is manifest that this creed of the so-called ortho- dox people needs only to be stated to be perceived to be wholly irrational, to be utterly unable to bear the weight of human sin, suffering, and death on the one hand, and of the Incarnation and Atonement on the other. If it were true, the foregiveness of God apart from all Atonement would have abundantly met the case. It is little wonder that men like Martineau and Henry Drummond were of this opinion — Drummond's Higher Critical views having shut him out from the truth to which Evolution would have led him. From these impossible vagaries let us turn to the truth. Man, created by a vast ministry of factors to which we give the name of Evolution, in which the most conspicuous factor was animal sacrifice. His creation cost in time, labour, in suffering, sacrifice, and death, in measures, so to speak, which must be multiplied by millions, so as to reach dimensions beyond all imagination inconceivable. In the direct line of Adam's descent the long line of his true ancestors, its members, were on the whole composed of individuals who had not fallen — who had overcome in the war of Nature, until natural decay against which they were unable to adjust themselves terminated their existence. Therefore, the Fall of Adam in the direct line of his genesis was an excep- tional occurrence. He fell from the awful eminence it took millions of years to reach, and at the cost of the suffering and sacrifice of myriads of living crea- 160 THE SON OF MAN tures. To meet so colossal a disaster there appeared to be no conceivable remedy. We could, of course, conjecture the creation of another man ; but after the order of Adam's creation that were impossible on this world. On any other planet it meant the total loss of our race and of these long millions of years of mar- vellous workmanship. The awful travail of the uni- verse, the strain, the struggle, suffering, sacrifice, and death in millions of living organisms, all, all, passed away and perished in vain. So that, in order for an- other man to be created and rise to the high estate of Adam and receive the revelation of God, it would be necessary for the vast procession of evolutionary changes commencing, as far back as is known to us. in a spiral nebula and continuing through eons of time in which a new gift of the Spirit of Life would have been required, — a new genesis of living organisms with all its attending suffering, sacrifice, and death of living creatures would have to be all gone through again. Or we could conjecture the creation of a new man in the present race who would be created free from all sin and defect of Nature, and who, if obedient, would become the head of a new unfallen race. This, however, would mean the total loss of the present race, and there would again be the possibility of his lapsing also. So, therefore, all imaginable conjectures which we might entertain fall short of the promise of everlasting life and felicity to the children of men. However, it pleased God to institute a way whereby every important circumstance involved in the present position of the human race could be met, and our fallen apostate race restored to their high privilege of 161 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BTBLE eternal life and felicity again. This ministry of restora- tion and reconciliation instituted by the Lord is in the form of a rehearsal and an epitome of the evolution of man. The evolution of life and of man which was consummated in Adam began with the Spirit of God brooding on the face of the waters. Now upon turn- ing to the Bible we find that this, the all-important, section of Evolution was traversed again in the Incar- nation of the second Adam, who was the Lord from heaven. Again through the Spirit of God a New Man — not conceived or born by natural generation, yet pass- ing through in epitome, as far as so ineffable an event permitted, the several phases of life's evolution to man's estate — was brought forth on the earth. So far, there- fore, the requirements for a new creation were fulfilled. Here, behold, is a "second Adam." However, we are yet far short of the requirements the position demands. And if we stop there, we have made no advance to- wards the redemption of our race. So, therefore, for our race there is no hope unless we admit to the full the Incarnation and this second Adam to be One, who beyond all time and circumstance could truly say, I Am. The fallen race of men owed to the law of God all the life which was given to the world at its founda- tion, but which was now lost: owed to the law of God all the suffering and sacrifice of life now lost and spent in vain. Who is there that can pay the heavy debt? "When the fulness of time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons." "Law" here being without the article, according to Lightfoot indicates the law of Nature. So far the order of 162 THE SON OF MAN creative evolution or genesis is fulfilled in epitome ; and next arises the question of the awful debt of life destroyed by transgression — of suffering endured in vain. For these we follow Him whose generation was from everlasting, who was God and man in unity of Person, — we follow Him, in His life of sorrow, in the darkness and horror of Gethsemane, the suffering and passion of the Cross, when there was yielded up a Life equal to all lives, when there was endured in flesh and blood a suffering equal to all suffering from the foundation of the world, and a death equal to all deaths ; and so completing perfectly in epitome the circle of events in the evolution of life. It is most strange that, apart from this view of the Atonement which I have the privilege to offer, the Church to-day is without a legitimate doctrine of the Atonement. Dr. Gore, Bishop of Birmingham, in his work on The Romans, struggles nobly to reach a solution of the difficulties presented by the idea of the expiation of the sins of the sinner by the innocent suffering for the guilty. The position is well stated by Professor Orr in a paper in the Life of Faith, Feb. 17, 1909. He says: 'The difficulty does not lie in the innocent suffering for the guilty ; this is common. And the world is full of substitutionary, of vicarious, of volun- tary suffering endured for the sake of others." "It is not there the difficulty lies, but here; how this suf- fering of Jesus, the innocent for the guilty, should become expiatory. . . . Suffering for another's sins has in and of itself no expiatory character. It is an aggravation of the sin, not an atonement for it." Professor Orr asks if we shall find the essence of Christ's sacrifice in the yielding of His will, as Dr. 163 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE Gore suggests; that, inasmuch as the sin of man lies in the exercise of his will in opposition to the will of Christ in all His unspeakable sufferings and death may be held to expiate the sin and sins of men. This, however, is a mistake. Because, in the vicarious and substitutionary suffering mentioned above by Professor Orr, there is also present sometimes a voluntary sur- render to the will of God, yet this fact adds no ex- piatory element to the suffering endured ; so this ex- planation fails us, a fact which Professor Orr admits when he says: "If, going farther, we press the ques- tion of hozv Chrisf; in this way bore our sins, — what made His endurance of suffering and death an atone- ment for sin, — we have to confess ourselves in presence of a mystery on which only partial light is available." Let us now turn to the Scripture in the light of modern science. The Incarnation of the Son of God, though instituted for man's redemption, was, never- theless, founded on an order of Nature. Often in the course of the evolution of life, when a race was in danger of perishing from failure of adjustment, the appearance in the race of a single individual more fit than its fellows saved the race. The natural fact is now fulfilled in the human race in a nobler form — "Unto us a Son is born ; unto us a Son is given." And we have seen that in His coming there was epitomised a new creation. Now we find that He took upon Himself the liabili- ties, the sins of men, and offered Himself and His sufferings to God ; that is, to the Legal government of God on our behalf. How did He do this? If we go back to the Fall we find that the execution of the penalty of the law on Adam was not by the course 164 THE SON OF MAN of Nature, but- that it was governmentally executed. The forbidden fruit was not poisonous, so Adam did not die as some of his ancestors must have died, before instinct and reason taught them to avoid the 'for- bidden fruits of the earth that were poisonous. On the contrary, had Adam and Eve been permitted to remain in Paradise and eat of the Tree of Life they would have lived for ever. But "He drove out the man." The death of Adam on account of sin was not by the order of Nature, but was by a governmental execution of governmental law under which Adam passed, and which came into operation when he left the open field of Nature for Paradise. As we have seen, this law was solidly based upon the law of Nature as exemplified in the food-test. We have seen that the government of God is a dual government, legal and moral. And it was under an act and deed of legal government that Adam and the race died. Now we find that it was under an act and deed of moral government that "God caused to meet upon Him (i.e. Christ) the iniquity of us all" (Isa. liii.). It was under an act and deed of moral government that the sufferings and death of Christ were accepted for the expiation of the sins of men. And, inasmuch as man was created by vast ministry of the sacrifice of life, and as the sufferings, sacrifice, anfi death of Christ fulfilled the suffering sacrifice, and death of man's creative genesis, and completed the epitome of a new creation ; therefore, it became legiti- mate for legal government to accept the sacrifice of Christ for the expiation of the sins of men, which by the act and deed of moral government were through the Eternal Spirit offered unto God. 165 FACTS AND FALACIES REGARDING THE BIBLE "The Atonement." says Professor Finney, "is there- fore a part, and a most influential part, of moral gov- ernment. It is an auxiliary to strictly legal govern- ment. 1 It is expedient above the letter, but in ac- cordance with the spirit of law, which adds new and influential motives to induce obedience. The Atonement is a higher expression of God's regard for the public good than the execution of the penalty of the law. It is, therefore, a fuller satisfaction to public justice." Again, as a new creation would have required a new gift of the Spirit of Life, so therefore our Lord re- ceived a new gift of life for the re-creation of men. "In order that He might be in a position to redeem our race, it was absolutely essential that the Son of Man should be legally by His nature and his own obedience free from all sin in every sense — should be without spot or blemish to atone for the sins of others. Therefore, as foretold at the fountain of our race in Paradise and in other prophetic Scriptures, and as recorded in the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Luke, the Son of Man was of Virgin Birth. The late Pro- fessor Huxley has said that "the Virgin Birth offered no difficulty to him, as virgin conception was a fact of Nature." Since His day the doctrine of the Virgin Birth has become even more thinkable. It has been discovered that the simple stimulation of the ova of certain organisms is all that is required to ensure virgin conception, and to a late period in the history of life virgin birth was the rule. Will the reader be able to contemplate with any gravity the position of men who have almost abso- 1 This is the only sentence in which it appears that Finney caught a glimpse of Divine dual government. 166 Si- ' It : < *-— *r: [7o fac