212 



OEDINAEY GENERAL MEETING * 

 Lieut.-Gen. Sir H. L. Geary, K.C.B., ix the Chair. 



William J. Horner, Esq., was elected Associate. 



THE BIBLE IN THE LiaHT OF MODERN SCIBNCE.-f 

 Abstract of a Lecture delivered by A¥illiam Woods Smyth, 

 Esq., F. Med. Soc. Lon, (with lantern illustrations). 



THE interest of truth and tlie aims of the Victoria 

 Institute will be liest satisfied by presenting to you as 

 concisely as possible the leading and essential facts revealed 

 and recorded in our Bible ; and side by side w4th these, the 

 correlative facts which have been reached by modern scientific 

 research. 



In this Excursus, I have tlie support of the Bible itself, 

 which forbids mucli of present-day theological disquisitions, and 

 points us to the knowledge of Natural Science, as you may 

 read in the Book of Job (cli. xxxviii, et seq.), as the true path to 

 the knowledge of God. 



To begin with the Book of Genesis, let us understand it. It 

 does not teach a " special creation " doctrine. The Hebrew 

 verbs tell of a stately flow of God's creative work such as you 

 see around you to-day in the wide field of Nature. The 

 " special creation theory " is a very late post-Reformation view. 

 The Churcli in its best days held a doctrine of Evolution. 

 St. Augustine, St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory of Nyssa, 

 St. Thomas Aquinas, held Evolutionary views. St. Augustine 

 speaks of the animals ])eing created l)y a process of growth, 



^ Monday, Api il <)tl), 1906. 



t Tliis subject is fully treated of in the Avriter's work, Dirivc Ihud 

 Gnverhment : a Key to the Bible and Evolution. Horace Marshall and Son, 

 London. 



