392 
Mr. Gosse’s arguments are, I must confess, not all new and not all over- 
powering. Those which he urges against Colenso are to be found, I think, 
in the late Dr. M‘Caul’s able and interesting defence of the Pentateuch. Those 
which more nearly concern me fail to convince me that my views, as a whole, are 
erroneous, whatever be the correct way of applying the principle to details. 
I will say this much, that the careful weighing of his and Mr. Graham’s 
remarks, inclines me to think that I have been hasty in putting the number 
of the Israelite warriors so low as I have done, and that the words of the 
sacred narrative are, as he suggests, too strong to be applied to a tribe con- 
sisting of only two or three thousand. But I cannot see that I am giving up 
my Bible and all its blessed teachings, its comforts for the present and its 
hopes for the future, if I decline to believe that a son was two years older 
than his father (2 Chron. xxii. 2), and at the same time eighteen years younger 
(2 Kings viii. 26), or that 40,000 (1 Kings iv. 26) and 4,000 (2 Chron. ix. 25) 
are the same number. If any of these numbers are incorrectly transcribed, so 
may others have been. 
I must repeat and adhere to the principles I laid down in my original 
paper, viz. : 
1. Many, though not all, of the numbers which we find m our 
present text of the Old Testament, are not the numbers given by authors of 
the various books, but have in some way become incorrect or are misunder- 
stood, some being greater, some smaller than the real numbers. 
2. Numbers and facts stand on a different footing, the latter being capable 
of none but intentional falsification, the former being easily corrupted. 
3. While we fully believe that the Deity can do, and does, whatever Re 
wills, and that all miracles recorded in Scripture as such, did really take 
place, still we must also hold that He is not lavish of unnecessary miracle. 
The “ fallacy of quotations ” is one into which I always am reluctant to 
run the risk of falling ; but I cannot forbear saying that if a want of reliance 
on the correctness of Old Testament numbers, as at present understood, be 
a mark of declension from the faith— if it be an article of the Christian belie, 
that 50,070 men were smitten for looking into the ark, or that Samson slew 
one thousand in an afternoon— I am an unbeliever in excellent company. 
The late Rev. T. H. Horne is not usually considered to have identified himselt 
with the sceptical or even the “ Broad ” schools of his or any other time, but 
I find in his well-known “ Introduction to the Scriptures ” the following :— 
“ Many of these numbers which to us appear almost incredible in some 
places, and contradictory in others, are owing to mistakes in some similar 
letters.” u The corruption may be accounted for from the transcribers having 
carelessly added or omitted a single cipher” (Append. III. i. § 3). “ If there 
be no mistake in the numbers, which probably are incorrect ” (Append. 111. 
viii. 6). “ It is possible that there may be a corruption in the numbers 
(' ib . 8). Exactly my view. 
