116 



PROFESSOR JAMES ORR^ D.D.^ ON THE 



fallacious argument, that a given writer always adheres to one, and 

 one only, style in language, composition, method, and illustration in 

 writing, when as a matter of fact most writers run through the 

 whole gamut of composition, the subject matter of discourse having 

 a potent influence in varying the style of writing. Carmichale of 

 Montreal showed the strata the Critics contend for in the Bible to 

 be present in Macaulay's writings. Someone has pointed out that 

 the principles of criticism upon which this farrago of " J," " E," " P," 

 offered us is based, would with more reason compel us to believe that 

 the writings of Burns show the existence of four or five men of that 

 name. 



St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans, for the name of our Saviour 

 in the early part of that Epistle uses the form " Jesus Christ." 

 After these chapters we find almost exclusively the form " Christ 

 Jesus" and "Christ," or "Lord Jesus Christ," till the last few 

 verses of the Epistle ; where a supplementary passage of three verses 

 occurs, and we have again the form " Jesus Christ." So far as any- 

 thing the Critics have to show, it is open to us to point out some 

 differences of style in connection with the different use of the sacred 

 Name. Even the Critics fail to convince themselves, unless they 

 are permitted to call in the agency of an unknown, unknowable, 

 unnameable, and unhistoric being called a " Redactor." 



Mr. Maunder said : May it be permitted to a practical astro- 

 nomer to express how the general methods of the Higher Criticism 

 strike him 1 It might seem as if astronomy had no bearing upon 

 such methods, but it follows from the nature of astronomy, which 

 necessitates the collation of observations made in different places 

 and extending over great periods of time, that astronomers are 

 continually obliged to make use of observations made by others. 

 This brings the written document into great importance, as it may 

 be necessary to use observations made a century or more ago. 

 And what is the light in which experience has taught astronomers 

 to regard the written document 1 Conan Doyle said of the British 

 mob of a hundred years ago that it had been bludgeoned into a 

 respect for law and order. It is hardly too strong an expression to 

 use to say that experience has bludgeoned astronomers into the 

 most scrupulous respect for the written document as it stands. 



I could give, if necessary, any number of illustrations from 

 astronomical history in which an account of some apparent contra- 



