MODERN GEOGONIES EXAMINED IN TIIEIR BEAR- 
INGS ON THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN. By the Rev. 
Professor Birks, M.A. 
I. — Introduction. 
T HE charge of error, freely brought in these days 
against the statements of the Bible concerning 
Creation and the Origin of Man, has been based on alleged 
scientific proofs of the high antiquity of the human race. 
When full allowance has been made for the various readings 
of the Hebrew and the Septuagint, it is perfectly clear that 
the Bible date for Adam's creation cannot be placed further 
back than seven or eight thousand years ago. These aro 
no separable accidents, but main and integral parts of the grand 
message, that Adam was the first father of all men, that in 
him all die, thi’ough a common fall from innocence and up- 
rightness, and that all are brought within the range of one 
great redemption, wrought by Jesus Christ, the Second Adam, 
the Lord from heaven. 
Clergymen, as well as laymen, are now found who set aside 
these statements, as if they were only superstitious errors, 
which growing light and knowledge have disproved. A 
special sanction and currency has lately been given to this 
view, which many Christians must regard as a blow aimed 
directly, however unwittingly, against the historical foundation 
of the whole message to sinful man in the Word of God. The 
importance of the question thus raised is extreme. I propose 
in this paper to carry further the course of thought in two 
former papers read before this Society, and to analyze the data 
upon which some have reared a conjectural pre- Adamite human 
history of two hundred thousand years. 
2. The modern doctrine of Man's high Antiquity rests 
mainly on two premises, though these aro supplemented by other 
