68 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



upon steps more solid even than the buried slabs of Mneveh. 

 There are some splendid and powerful words in one of the books 

 of the New Testament which indicate the true value to be set 

 upon the demonstrable facts of Hebrew prophecy first, as a sup- 

 port to our faltering, or to our faint, beliefs, and then as a guide 

 to still deeper spiritual insight. I speak of the call which bids us 

 " take heed " to " the more sure word of prophecy, as unto a light 

 that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star 

 arise in our hearts." * They point especially to those Messianic 

 visions in which some Jews, speaking to other Jews, yet burst 

 through all the barriers of their intense exclusiveness, and tell 

 them to look to a Deliverer in whom the Gentiles were to trust, 

 and who was to be the Desire of all nations. Other men than 

 those who claim exclusively the name of critic must really be 

 allowed to have some inner consciousness of their own some 

 power to recognize voices which are full to overflow of intima- 

 tions from the spiritual world. It is impossible for any open- 

 minded man to follow those loft}'' strains without recognizing the 

 mystery and the majesty of their import. It is no more possible, 

 when doing so, to listen to the carpings of the verbal critics than 

 it would be to listen to the rasping noises of some petty mechan- 

 ical operation when the thunders of heaven are pealing overhead. 

 And here I may be permitted to express a very strong opinion 

 that in recent years Christian writers have been far too shy and 

 timid in defending one of the oldest and strongest outworks of 

 Christian theology. I mean the element of true prediction in 

 Hebrew prophecy. It may be true that in a former generation 

 too exclusive attention had been paid to it, and too much stress 

 had been laid upon details. Nay, more, it may be true that the 

 attempted application of prophecy to time still future has been 

 the cause of great delusions amounting almost to religious mania. 

 But the reaction has been excessive and irrational. A great mass 

 of connected facts, and of continuous evidence, remains which 

 can not be gainsaid. Even if the greater prophets could be 

 brought down to the very latest date which the very latest fan- 

 cies can assign to them, they depict and predict overthrows and 

 vast revolutions in the East which did not take place for cent- 

 uries. It is easy to see how and why this reaction has arisen. 

 Besides that mere swing of the pendulum which affects more or 

 less all progress in human thought, a false analysis of physical 

 science has intimidated men into a languid submission to that 

 greatest of all fallacies which is embodied in the very word " su- 

 pernatural." They tell us they can not believe in what they call 

 the supernatural. But neither need they do so. For my own 



* 2 Peter, i, 19. 



