474 Archaia. 



meanings of words, for example, within reasonable limits are at 

 once understood and accepted, but when it is demanded, in 

 obedience to scientific necessity, that words which appear as literal 

 as language can make them, should be received in a figurative or 

 tropical sense, then it is that the christian consciousness revolts, 

 and arms itself in defence of the foundations upon which it rests 

 its faith — it will not admit a principle of interpretation in Genesis 

 which is not equally applicable in the Gospels or Epistles. 



So long as Geology, or science of any kind, demands, as a con- 

 dition of its alliance to religion, that violence should be done to 

 the plain and obvious meaning of the words of Scripture so long 

 will science find that the common christian consciousness of the 

 world will be ranged against its authority. 



It is to be regretted, as our author more than once mentions, 

 that scientific studies have been so much neglected by the great 

 mass of religious teachers and biblical expositors. Still it must 

 be said in defence that our best divines were fully up to the 

 science of their own day. If judged of not by modern standards, 

 but by the standard of their time they will be found by no means 

 despicable in their knowledge of nature. With contemporary 

 physicians whose department was physics, they will bear a favorable 

 comparison as to their knowledge of Natural History and general 

 science. We allow that the science of the present day has rather 

 gone ahead of the great bulk of christian teachers and of most of 

 our popular commentators. Literary and theological studies have 

 in many cases altogether excluded the study of Natural Science. 

 In the regard of some, time is wasted that a student might 

 spend among the objects of nature. And there are good people 

 even now, who think disparagingly of a minister who is known to 

 cultivate for the enlargement of his mind a scientific acquaintance 

 with the works of the Creator. 



But this state of things is fast passing away. Divines of this 

 generation are treading closely on the heels of the professed culti- 

 vators of science. It is no uncommon thing to find the title of 

 Revd. attached to the name of distinguished authors in many de- 

 partments of science. Men are rising up as teachers of religion 

 who can bring to their professional studies all the collateral lights 

 of modern science. 



Natural Science is after all but modern. In the realms of thought 

 it is yet but an infant of days and has only recently been brought 

 out of the wilderness. Or to change the figure its diffused and 



