MEMOIR OF THOMAS BEWICK. 295 



when, had it been His will that such nations should 

 no longer inhabit the earth, the whole of such a 

 people thus devoted might have been annihilated 

 by a puff of pestilential wind, if Omnipotence had 

 pleased to do so. Although it does not become us 

 to scan what was, or what was not, His will, as we 

 can only judge of all such matters according to our 

 crude and weak conceptions. 



The next cause for suspecting the accuracy of 

 several parts of the Sacred Book arises from the 

 supposition that these may not have been cor- 

 rectly translated.* All these seemingly contradic- 

 tory passages, not being clearly understood, have 

 been a most fertile source of employment for self- 

 interested and bigoted men, who have attempted 

 giving their explanations and contradictory com- 

 ments and annotations upon them, and twisted 

 them into meanings, often to bewilder the common- 

 sense of mankind, to suit certain selfish purposes 

 subservient to their own ends. It would, I think, 

 have been much better to have left people to judge 

 upon these texts as well as they could themselves, 

 rather than trust to such explanations, or to pin 

 their faith on the sleeve of such men. I fear they 

 have done more harm than good. 



But all these and such like doubts seem trivial 

 and light in the balance when weighed against the 

 solid, sublime truths and valuable instructions con- 

 tained in the ancient, venerable Book. The mind 

 of man thus prepared by the sacred texts laid open 

 to him by the Bible, as well as by the help of other 



* The Rev. James Murray (before mentioned [p. 108]), showed 

 me a chapter of the book of Job which he had translated. It 

 was in poetry, as near the original as he was able to make it. The 

 sense and meaning was clear and easily to be understood, but not so 

 that of the chapter from which he took it. 



