V MR. GLADSTONE AND GENESIS 165 



But it is exactly because I do not shun that risk, 

 but, rather, earnestly desire to be judged by him 

 who cometh after me, provided that he has the 

 knowledge and impartiality appropriate to a judge, 

 that I adopt my present course. 



In the article on " The Dawn of Creation and 

 Worship," it will be remembered that Mr. Glad- 

 stone unreservedly commits himself to three 

 propositions. The first is that, according to the 

 writer of the Pentateuch, the " water-population," 

 the " air-population," and the " land-population " 

 of the globe were created successively, in the 

 order named. In the second place, Mr. Gladstone 

 authoritatively asserts that this (as part of his 

 " fourfold order ") has been " so affirmed in our 

 time by natural science, that it may be taken as 

 a demonstrated conclusion and established fact." 

 In the third place, Mr. Gladstone argues that the 

 fact of this coincidence of the pentateuchal story 

 with the results of modern investigation makes it 

 " impossible to avoid the conclusion, first, that 

 either this writer was gifted with faculties passing 

 all human experience, or else his knowledge was 

 divine." And having settled to his own satisfac- 

 tion that the first " branch of the alternative is 

 truly nominal and unreal," Mr. Gladstone continues, 

 " So stands the plea for a revelation of truth from 

 God, a plea only to be met by questioning its 

 possibility " (p. 697). 



I am a simple-minded person, wholly devoid of 



