VI LIGHTS OF THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE 217 



to result from it ; that determination wears an aspect of scepti- 

 cism, which, however much soever it may be unintentional in 

 the mind of the writer, yet cannot but produce an evil im- 

 pression on those who are already predisposed to carp and cavil 

 at the evidences of Revelation (pp. 8-9). 



The kindly and courteous writer of these curious 

 passages is evidently unwilling to make the geo- 

 logists the victims of general opprobrium by 

 pressing the obvious consequences of their teach- 

 ing home. One is therefore pained to think of 

 the feelings with which, if he lived so long as to 

 become acquainted with the " Dictionary of the 

 Bible," he must have perused the article " Noah," 

 written by a dignitary of the Church for that 

 standard compendium and published in 1863. 

 For the doctrine of the universality of the Del- 

 uge is therein altogether given up ; and I permit 

 myself to hope that a long criticism of the story 

 from the point of view of natural science, with 

 which, at the request of the learned theologian 

 who wrote it, I supplied him, may, in some degree, 

 have contributed towards this happy result. 



Notwithstanding diligent search, I have been 

 unable to discover that the universality of the 

 Deluge has any defender left, at least among those 

 who have so far mastered the rudiments of 

 natural knowledge as to be able to appreciate the 

 weight of evidence against it. For example, when 

 I turned to the "Speaker's Bible," published 

 under the sanction of high Anglican authority, I 



