210 LIGHTS OF THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE yj 



same place, performed the unusual feat gf leaving 

 the faith of old-fashioned Christians undisturbed. 

 Yet many things have happened in the inter- 

 vening thirty-one years. The Bampton lecturer 

 of 1859 had to grapple only with the infant 

 Hercules of historical criticism ; and he is now a 

 full-grown athlete, bearing on his shoulders the 

 spoils of all the lions that have stood in his path. 

 Surely a martyr's courage, as well as a martyr's 

 faith, is needed by any one who, at this time, is 

 prepared to stand by the following plea for the 

 veracity of the Pentateuch : 



Adam, according to the Hebrew original, was for 243 years 

 contemporary with Methuselah, who conversed for a hundred 

 years with Shem. Shem was for fifty years contemporary with 

 Jacob, who probably saw Jochebed, Moses's mother. Thus, 

 Moses might by oral tradition have obtained the history of 

 Abraham, and even of the Deluge, at third hand ; and that of 

 the Temptation and the Fall at fifth hand. . . . 



If it be granted as it seems to be that the great and stirring 

 events in a nation's life will, under ordinary circumstances, be 

 remembered (apart from all written memorials) for the space 

 of 150 years, being handed down through five generations, it 

 must be allowed (even on mere human grounds) that the 

 account which Moses gives of the Temptation and the Fall is to 

 be depended upon, if it passed through no more than four hands 

 between him and Adam. 1 



If " the trustworthiness of our Lord Jesus 

 Christ " is to stand or fall with the belief in the 

 sudden transmutation of the chemical components 

 of a woman's body into sodium chloride, or x on the 



1 Bampton Lectures, 1859, pp. 50-51. 



