232 LIGHTS OF THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE vi 



Abraham upward, consists of stories in the strict 

 sense unhistorical, and that the pre- Abraham ic 

 narratives are mere moral and religious " types " 

 and parables. 



I confess I soon lose my way when I try 

 to follow those who walk delicately among 

 " types " and allegories. A certain passion for 

 clearness forces me to ask, bluntly, whether the 

 writer means to say that Jesus did not believe 

 the stories in question, or that he did ? When 

 Jesus spoke, as of a matter of fact, that "the 

 Flood came and destroyed them all," did he 

 believe that the Deluge really took place, or not ? 

 It seems to me that, as the narrative mentions 

 Noah's wife, and his sons' wives, there is good 

 scriptural warranty for the statement that the 

 antediluvians married and were given in marriage ; 

 and I should have thought that their eating and 

 drinking might be assumed by the firmest 

 believer in the literal truth of the story. More- 

 over, I venture to ask what sort of value, as an 

 illustration of God's methods of dealing with sin, 

 has an account of an event that never happened ? 

 If no Flood swept the careless people away, how 

 is the warning of more worth than the cry of 

 "Wolf" when there is no wolf? If Jonah's 

 three days' residence in the whale is not an 

 "admitted reality," how could it " warrant belief" 

 in the " coming resurrection ? " If Lot's wife 

 was not turned into a pillar of salt, the bidding 



