188 REV. JOHN TDCKWELL, M.R.A.S.^ ON MODERN THEORIES 



nation from which Abraham came and long before his time, 

 there was not much room, especially on the ethical side of 

 human life, for the operation of any principle of evolution from 

 the days of the patriarch at least until He came in whose 

 name the new dispensation was founded. 



From these principles applied by modern criticism to account 

 for the composition of Holy Scripture, it is evident that 

 throughout the supernatural is being lost sight of. But every 

 system of religion offered to the acceptance of man hitherto, 

 has been offered with a view to his safe guidance into the super- 

 natural and eternal life of the future. How this can be done 

 by a religious system shorn of its supernatural origin and 

 stripped of its supernatural power not even the most brilliant 

 exponent of the Higher Criticism has yet explained. We wait 

 to know. 



Discussion. 



The Chairman. — I am sure I may thank Mr. Tuckwell in all 

 your names for his most lucid account of the conflict that is now 

 going on amongst us, in which we are all more personally interested 

 than we sometimes think, because the literary side of Christianity 

 is a very important one. God has chosen, in His providence, to 

 give us a literary side to it. It might have been otherwise. The 

 whole of Truth might have been confined to tradition, but it is not 

 so, for as Mr. Tuckwell says, in one of his later pages, " It would 

 seem, therefore, not improbable that the Scriptures of the Old 

 Testament especially were given for the preservation of truth as 

 well as for its revelation." We owe a great deal to that. Perhaps 

 Mr. TuckwelFs paper has the effect, rather, of destroying the 

 destroyer. My own personal aim is to be constructive rather than 

 destructive. I have thought it might be well for us to consider 

 what is the best method of dealing with this great subject for 

 practical purposes. It seems to me that the first thing is to assure 

 ourselves of the historic Christ, to stand firmly on His work and 

 mission, and to make sure of the New Testament before dealing 

 with the abstruse subjects of the Old Testament. 



