652 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



that he had been vastly embarrassed by the discovery that many 

 strata of lava, each covered deeply with earth, overlaid each other 

 on the mountain-side. " Moses," said he, " hangs like a dead weight 

 upon me, for I have not the conscience to make the mountain so young 

 as that prophet makes the world." " The bishop," adds Brydone, 

 " who is strenuously orthodox for it is an excellent see has warned 

 him to be on his guard, and not to pretend to be a better historian 

 than Moses." 



The worthy Bishop of Catania was not alone in his views. Near- 

 er home it was the generally-received opinion that to doubt the lit- 

 eral accuracy of the chronology supposed to be involved in the Mo- 

 saic account was a grave impiety. The poet Cowper, mildest of men, 

 became fiercely satirical under the provocation of geology. Though 

 few people read "The Task" nowadays, the lines will no doubt be 



remembered : 



" . . . . Some drill and bore 

 The solid earth, and from the strata there 

 Extract a register by which we learn 

 That He who made it, and revealed its date 

 To Moses, was mistaken in its age." 



Fortunately, it is no longer considered impious to try and " ex- 

 tract a register " from the earth. Those who were inclined to be afraid 

 that the Mosaic record would be discredited have long since laid 

 aside their fears. It has been found that, far from being upset by 

 scientific inquiry, the Bible account of the Creation accords in a very 

 remorkable manner with modern discoveries ; and long before Max 

 M idler put the feeling into words, it was felt that only " by treating our 

 own sacred books with neither more nor less mercy than the sacred 

 books of other nations, they could retain their position and influence." 



When once the plunge was made, it was soon found, as might have, 

 been expected, that the fault was not in the oracle, but in the inter- 

 pretation ; and it is very remarkable in how many and unexpected 

 directions the testimony of Moses has been strengthened by the criti- 

 cism, not always friendly, which it has received. Of course, when 

 the anciently-accepted date of the Creation was proved to be incor- 

 rect, and chronology was, as it were, thrown open to the public, 

 there was nothing to prevent philosophers from allowing the freest 

 scope to their imagination. In proportion as the six thousand years 

 formerly assigned as the age of created matter was too small, the 

 reaction of opinion claimed for it an antiquity which workers in other 

 branches of physics feel it impossible to concede; and at the present 

 moment there is among scientific men a revolt against the extreme 

 views of the geologists. The latter affirmed with truth that creation 

 in six solar days was demonstrably untrue, not because God could 

 not create the world at a stroke, but because the world bears ample 

 evidence that he did not so exercise his power. It was inconsistent 



