THE BIBLE AND SCIENCE. 373 
The object of this third expedition does not differ essentially from that of 
the two others. It is, in the first place, an enterprise for practice ; in the second 
place, it is a patriotic undertaking, its object being to continue the work of its 
ancestors and to render homage to their memory by raising modest monuments 
in the places which they have discovered and which bear their names; lastly, it 
does not lose sight of the interests of science, for it is intended to continue 
researches, discoveries, the operations of sounding, the meteorological and mag- 
netic observations so successfully inaugurated by other expeditions, and, if cir- 
cumstances will permit, the explorations will be pushed in the direction of 
Francis Joseph Land, at Barents Harbor, and of the Kara Sea, or in any other 
direction that is expedient. 
The Willem Barents left Amsterdam on the third of June by the new canal 
which connects this city with the North Sea. No news has yet been received 
from her. 
Ua IMU NaI Mes) 
THE BIBLE AND SCIENCE. 
BY PROF. S. H. TROWBRIDGE, GLASGOW, MO. 
The first and chief object of Scripture is to teach man his destiny and his 
relations and duties to God and his fellow men. While we recognize it to be 
man’s first and highest duty to study the Bible with this end in view, we see 
nothing irreverent—but rather a privilege and duty—in studying it secondarily, 
as an exponent of the purest history, rhetoric, literature, morality, principles of 
practical life, and also as a text-book of science. 
It is generally agreed that the Bible was not intended to teach science; and 
assuredly it was not primarily. But if we study it as a teacher of science we 
shall find that it yields us no inconsiderable information; and the more we search 
it for this purpose the more of brilliant and instructive scientific allusion shall 
we find lurking in it everywhere. And there is no danger that the correctly in- 
terpreted Word of God will mislead us into false science. 
While we admit that physical science, strictly, has to deal only with physical 
facts, and Scripture has for its object to teach man the plan of salvation through 
Jesus Christ, we would allow the widest range in a prescription of the legitimate 
sphere of each. Let the Bible student study nature to gain a more complete 
understanding of Scripture, and let the scientist study the Bible for clearer light 
upon the phenomena of nature. Yet due allowance must be made for the teach- 
ings of each out of his special line of study. His authority should be measured 
by knowledge and reason and not by dogmatic statement. The province of 
