THE BIBLE IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. 



47 



coeur a des raisons, que la raison ne connait pas." Would not the 

 title of the paper have been more fittingly " Thoughts in the 20th 

 Century on the Bible ? At any rate the Bible, like the sun, is 

 the same as ever, and holds serenely on its way in spite of storms. 

 As for the Imprecatory Psalms and similar difficulties, does not 

 Augustine's dictum explain much, "Distinguish the dispensations 

 and you harmonise the verities." I nowhere find that God 

 approved of the mean character of Jacob. God loved Jacob because 

 he valued spiritual blessings, but his meanness brought him through 

 many a trying chastening at the hand of God. It really puzzles 

 me how anyone can read such passages as Leviticus 18, 24, 25, and 

 Chap. 20, 23, also Deut. 18, 12, in their context and yet find an 

 insuperable ethical difficulty in the extermination of the Canaanites. 

 The question of the future destiny of all is nowhere raised. It was 

 good for the world at large that such a hideous moral cesspool 

 should be hygienically and drastically dealt with. Experts, 

 especially those who go out of their province, are the worst of 

 witnesses. Their triumphs in their proper domain are apt to 

 engender a certain dogmatism, which is very impatient of a con- 

 trary opinion. In the Dreyfus case M. Bertillon, who had made 

 a name for himself as the inventor of the criminal authropometric 

 system, undertook as a professed expert of orthography to prove 

 on a black board in open court in Paris that Dreyfus had written 

 the " Bordereau." Doubtless he fully believed in his own infalli- 

 bility, as the higher critics seem to do in theirs, and thousands of 

 Frenchmen, hypnotised by his reputation in other spheres, did not 

 believe he could be wrong, and accepted his conclusions ; but it was 

 afterwards proved that Capt. Dreyfus did not write a letter of 

 the famous document. The reverse is, I believe, true of Deutero- 

 nomy ; it is one of the foundation books of the Bible. No other 

 book is more oft^n quoted in the New Testament, no other so often 

 in the Old. It is woven into the very warp and woof of the Scrip- 

 tures, and if Moses did not write it, as is asserted all through, then 

 the whole book is a patent forgery. According to the lecturer all 

 these things are the shell merely, but I cannot think the illustration 

 very happy ; though, of course, the kernel is the essential. Experi- 

 ence teaches that though you may find many a bad kernel in a good 

 shell, you never find a good kernel in a rotten shell. 



Mr. HosTE concluded by quoting Professor G- Dana's testimony to 

 the profoundly philosophical character of the first chapter of 

 Genesis. 



Lieut. -CoL. Mackinlay said: — 



A most valuable paper. I am m hearty agreement with its 

 general trend as far as I understand it. Our warm thanks are due 

 to the author for her careful description of the condition of a 

 young Christian, taught to shrink from the consideration of 



