178 



THE MUSEUM. 



i 



the Rev. Edward Everett Hale, D.D., 

 of Boston, says that ministers, to the 

 proportion of five out of six, do not be- 

 Heve what they preach. It may be 

 well to mention a httle incident which 

 went the rounds of the papers some 

 years ago. The late Dean Hook was 

 with a coterie of Fellows of the Royal 

 Society, England, and the conversa- 

 tion ran on the cosmogony of Cienesis 

 versus Science. Prof. Tyndal cornered 

 the Dean so close that in desperation, 

 he said: "Well never mind, the major- 

 ity had rather swallow than tackle it." 

 When the Dean saw what a dangerous 

 statement he had made he tried to 

 draw it back, but it fell on good ground 

 and got out into the world. 



But I am digressing. Mr. Whiting 

 says the Bible and geology agree; if so 

 why does he not quote at least one 

 good scientific authority to that end. 

 But what do we find? Every author- 

 ity he quotes proves quite the other 

 way, viz: Lord Kelvin, the president 

 of the Royal Society of London, gives 

 the age of the world from eleven to 

 400,000,000 of years, and De Clarence 

 King, of America, 24,000,000 years. 

 Prof. John Perry, F. R. £. , of Lon- 

 don, he says, increases Lord Kelvin's 

 estimate by over a hundred million. 

 Then he quotes Newcomb and Hum- 

 boldt's theory as to the age of the sun, 

 and all of these authors our reconciler 

 mentions, state facts directly opposed 

 to the account of the Mosaic creation. 



According to Genesis, the" world is 

 6,000 years old, viz; 4004 B. C. and 

 A. D. 1 896 makes near enough the 

 6,000. So that how Mr. Whiting 



claims his case proved, I cannot tell. 

 His only loophole seems to me to be 

 the very stale one, viz: That the day 

 then was a thousand, or it may be a 



million years in duration If so, how 

 does it come in when the words run, 

 " and the evening and the morning 

 were the first day," and these same 

 words were used several times in the 

 same chapter, after the toil of world 

 making on the days depicted. Again, 

 if the days of Genesis were so accom- 

 modatingly long for the reconcilers, 

 how does it work in the wording of the 

 fourth commandment, in the words 

 " Remember that thou keep holy the 

 Sabbath day, " etc. Then the Mosaic 

 writer goes on to say "for in si.x days 

 the Lord made Heaven and earth, and 

 rested on the seventh," etc. Or, 

 again, when Joshua told the sun to 

 stand still while he beat his enemies; 

 of course Joshua did not know that it 

 was the earth and not the sun that 

 moved, but the point answers all the 

 same for my purpose. Old Methusa- 

 lah, too, must be an old man anyway, 

 to live, according to the Bible, 999 

 years; but I will not stay to reckon up 

 what his age would be if our friend's 

 long days were in fashion then. 



What does Prof. Huxley say about 

 the Mosaic account of creation in the 

 book I previously referred to.' He 

 says; " My belief is, and long has been 

 that the Pentateuchal story of the 

 creation is simply a myth. I sup- 

 pose it to be a hypothesis respecting 

 the origin of the universe which some 

 ancient thinker found himself able to 

 reconcile with his knowledge, or what 

 he thought was knowledge, of the 

 nature of things and therefore assumed 

 it to be true. ""•■ 



Again Prof. Huxley says; " It may 

 seem superfluous to add to the evi- 

 dence, that Mr. Gladstone has been 

 misled, in supposing that his interpre- 

 * Order of Creation. See page 147. 



