Nature and tlic Bible. 299 



made in exegesis ; but if ever the time comes when 

 it is plainly convicted of error here, its infallibility 

 is gone. But it is not enough for the sceptic to 

 overturn any attempted harmony of nature with the 

 Bible ; he must show that there is an actual contra- 

 diction between them. And we are not disposed 

 to take refuge in pictorial representations and alle- 

 gories, t. escape the danger of his criticism. If 

 the first chapter of < can be explained away 



into an airy nothing, the same may be true of the 

 the Bible. If the Bible is what it claims to 

 be, we believe that a real correspondence will be 

 found 1 its description of creation and the 



structure of the earth as perfect a correspondence 

 as the laws of language and the object in view 

 would allow. 1 important here to discuss 



the date of the II ripturcs. We have no 



doubt Moses was the author of the Pentateuch ; but 

 if it were written at a later day, even as some self- 

 confident critics affirm a - the time of David, 

 there would be no explanation given how such a 

 Book could have been written by the men of that 

 time. We look in vain, among the surrounding 

 nations, for evidence of the exalted notions of God 

 and the creation which are found in every portion 

 of the Bible. 



We are to remember that this Book is not the pro- 

 duct of one man, nor of one school of philosophers. 

 It is the collected writings of ages of men in the 

 highest and lowest stations of life of those versed 

 in the sciences of their times, and those among the 



