THE ATLANTIC OCEAN. 195 



we honour the earnestness with which he expresses them. 

 But he unhappily does not see that in forcing Scripture to 

 the interpretation of physical facts, he is mistaking the whole 

 purport of the sacred Books. In thus appropriating their 

 language, he annuls its bearing on matters of deep concern 

 by applying it to objects and cases of totally different nature. 

 This pia deflexio, as it has been termed in instances of more 

 serious import, must ever be regarded as an injury done to 

 real religion ; and we are anxious now, as at all times, to 

 enter our remonstrance against it. 



The passages thus misapplied are chiefly taken from the 

 Old Testament the Psalms, the Book of Job, &c., which, 

 in the pictures they give of the works and wonders of crea- 

 tion, need borrow nothing of that science they do not profess, 

 to render them to all ages the most sublime eulogies of the 

 power and wisdom of the Creator. One example only we 

 will cite, to show how much of error may enter into this loose 

 method of dealing with scriptural authority. After a pas- 

 sage, too laboriously ornate in its diction, where our author 

 speaks of the allusions in the Bible to the laws of nature as 

 involving, under figurative language, hidden meanings which 

 are only disclosed by the later revelations of science, he 

 quotes among other instances the striking text from Job 

 (xxxviii. 31), ' Canst thou bind the sweet influence of the 

 Pleiades ? ' or, as he gives it, ' Canst thou tell the sweet 

 influence of the Pleiades ? ' And this sublime but obscure 

 interrogation he considers as solved by the recent views 

 of Professor Madler of Dorpat, which represent the star of 

 Alcyone in the Pleiades as the centre of gravity of that vast 

 sidereal system, to which our globe belongs as a small and 

 subordinate planet. 



Here we must remark, but without wonder or reproach, 

 that he is ignorant of the controversy as to this text, which 

 has engaged the learning of Gresenius, Rosenmiiller, Mason- 



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