21 
matters; he takes his own horoscope, and acts the wise part recommend- 
ed by Solomon: “A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself: 
but the simple pass on, and are punished.” To this extent, therefore, 
he may be regarded as a Semi-Woodrowite; and may the day be not 
far distant when we shall give him the right hand of fellowship, and 
welcome him into our full communion. There is this difference between 
the school which the Professor seems to be abandoning, and that to 
which as his friend I cordially invite him. The former, interpreting 
Scripture on scientific points, keeps one eye on the facts of science and 
the other eye on the sacred record, so as to interpret the one in exact 
“harmony” with the other; of course, this process has in the past and 
must in the future treat alternately the Bible and Nature as if they 
were noses made of wax, and hence the “variations” and “conflicts” 
must be provoking and countless until the harmonizing process is com- 
pleted and the residuum of harmony is at last discovered. The latter 
school treats both the Bible and Nature as respectable, independent, in- 
fallible witnesses of the truth of God, each supreme in its own divinely 
assigned department. Thus, in each department—independently stud- 
ied—we seek, not what they call “harmony,” but what we call ‘“non- 
contradiction’—the harmony of ‘“non-contradiction.” We have no 
need, therefore, to suspend our interpretation of the sacred record till 
the returns from the secular record are all in; neither therefore are we 
ever called upon to “import” into the sacred record the latest verdict of 
the secular. On the contrary, we believe that what the Bible teaches 
now it has always taught and always will teach; and that these teach- 
ings are and have been attainable by all students of the Bible without 
any aid from outside sources, if only we could lay aside prejudice, pas- 
sion, sloth, and pride. Having reached our interpretation, by which we 
are assured of “non-contradiction,”’ we then, so far as the Bible is con- 
cerned, rest without fears by day or alarms by night. and let the Nat- 
ural Scientist work out his conclusions without fear, favor, or affection— 
without any prejudice of mind against the Bible on account of unneces- 
sary friction between the Scripturist and the Naturalist. In reaching 
this happy posture—of “non-contradiction”—“we do not need to show 
that our interpretation must be correct, but only that it may be cor- 
rect—that it is not reached by distortion or perversion, but by an honest 
application of admitted principles of exegesis.” (Woodrow’s Address.) 
Perhaps a comparative view just at this point may be profitable :-— 
General Assembly: 1. Adam’s body; miracle. 2. His body; not 
born. 
