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IS THE BIBLE TRUE? 
 
 FAMILIAR DIALOGUES 
 JAMES WHITE AND EDWARD OWEN, 
 
 A 
 CONCEENING 
 
 BISHOP COLENSO 
 AND THE PENTATEUCH, 
 
 AND 
 
 THE TESTIMONY OF GEOLOGY TO 
 THE BIBLE. 
 
 SEELEY, JACKSON, & HALLIDAY, FLEET STREET. 
 LONDON. MDCCCLXIII. 
 
The First Part op 
 IS THE BIBLE TRUE? 
 
 containinq 
 
 Dialogues on the "Essays and Reviews, 
 
 IS STILL on sale. 
 
 Price Is. sewed, or Is. Gd. bound in cloth. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 aTRANGEWATS AND WaLDEN, PrINTBRS, 
 
 28 Castle St. Leicester Sq. 
 
IS THE BIBLE TEUE ? 
 
 BISHOP COLEKSO AKD THE PENTATEUCH, 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. The Appeal to German Criticism . 1 
 
 II. The First Objection . . . . . 12 
 
 III. Objections on Arithmetical Grounds . 21 
 
 lY. Disregard of the Special Promises 
 
 made to Israel . . . .30 
 
 V. The Number of the Israelites in the 
 
 Wilderness . . . . .37 
 
 VI. General Review 50 
 
IS THE BIBLE TKUE ? 
 
 Part II. 
 
 JAMES WHITE : EDWARD OWEN. 
 
 I. — THE APPEAL TO GERMAN CRITICISM. 
 
 Owen. Good morning, friend White ; I am glad 
 to have fallen in with you. I have wanted, for 
 several days past, to have a little talk with you 
 about Bishop Colenso's book. ^ Have you seen it ? 
 
 IVhite. Yes ; I met with it the other day, and 
 turned it over, and noted down most of its leading 
 points in my pocket-book. 
 
 Oiven. Well, and what did you think of it ? 
 
 White. I thought it an exceedingly weak 
 affair. It seemed to me to be the work of a well- 
 meaning man, who had given very little time to 
 the study of theology ; and who, when circum- 
 stances obliged him to take it up, went to a wrong 
 quarter for information, and so got himself com- 
 pletely perplexed. The book, I fancy, will be 
 utterly torn to pieces before many months are 
 over, and will only be remembered as having 
 wrought the downfal of its author. 
 
2 IS THE BIBLE TRUE ? 
 
 Owen. Well, I am rather glad to hear yoa say- 
 so ; for, in truth, it had somewhat startled me. 
 You know that, since our conversations on the 
 Essays and Reviews, I have only gradually reco- 
 vered, in some degree, my footing ; but this book, 
 insisting so strongly on the absolute untruth of all 
 the first five books of the Bible, not only appalled, 
 but did, in some measure, shake me. I saw that 
 either its writer was altogether in error, or else 
 the Bible must be given up. And, as I said in 
 the first conversation we had, if we have no Bible, 
 to be relied upon and believed, I do not see how we 
 can have any Christianity. 
 
 White. You were not deceived, then, by the 
 bishop's assurances, that Christianity could do 
 very well without the Bible ? 
 
 Oiven. Why, no ; I had long since made up 
 my mind, that "if we have not a Christianity 
 resting on written documents, we have none at 
 all." The idea of "a message from God" — as 
 Bishop Colenso deems the Bible — large portions 
 of which are absolutely untrue, seems to me to be 
 profane as well as absurd. That God's Holy 
 Spirit should have inspired holy men of old to 
 write a parcel of incredible fables, surely is a most 
 preposterous as well as a most irreverent thought. 
 
 White. On that point we are quite agreed. 
 But what, then, has perplexed you, in the bishop's 
 volume ? 
 
 Owen. Oh ! you know that he has selected 
 about a dozen cases, in the five books of Moses, 
 to which, he says, it is impossible for any man, 
 seriously considering the statements made, to give 
 credence. He therefore concludes that these books 
 are "unhistoric ;" by which he means, untrue; 
 
THE APPEAL TO GEEMAN CEITICISM. 6 
 
 and that they could not have been written by- 
 Moses, or by any other person living at the 
 time. Now he has not, I think, made out his case 
 in all respects ; but to some of the objections he 
 has taken, I do not see what answers can be given. 
 And therefore I said that I should like to talk 
 with you on some of these points. 
 
 White. Well, I shall be glad if I can clear up 
 any difficult passage. I myself saw little, in 
 turning over the book, which seemed likely to 
 give much trouble. What chiefly struck me, on a 
 hasty reading, was, the absurd way in which the 
 poor bishop, when he got into perplexities, sought 
 to get out of them. He sent, forsooth, for a lot 
 of German books ; as if a consultation with a num- 
 ber of infidels could have any tendency to restore 
 his faith in Christianity ! 
 
 Owen. But is not this the course generally 
 taken, now-a-days ? I remember that, on turning 
 over the great Dictionary of the Bible, which was 
 published last year, I found constant references, in 
 most of the principal articles, to German critics 
 and commentators. 
 
 White. Oh, yes ! I am well aware that, with 
 most of the younger men of the present day, this 
 is quite the fashion ; but I am not in the habit of 
 considering that fashion decides the right or wrong 
 of any question. Twenty years ago a bias towards 
 Popery was the prevailing fashion at Oxford ; now 
 the opposite extreme of Rationalism is in the as- 
 cendant : but I do not believe that Truth was in 
 either of these hostile camps. And when men 
 now turn, in any theological difficulty, to Germany 
 for a decision, I merely ask. Why they do so ? 
 
 Owen. Surely it must be because Germany 
 
4 IS THE BIBLE TRUE ? 
 
 possesses greater scholars and more competent 
 theologians than our own country can show. 
 
 White. If this be so, there is something very 
 strange in it. I do not find a like inferiority ad- 
 mitted in any other department of science. I never 
 hear our lawyers or our physicians referring to 
 the superior knowledge of the men of Germany. 
 Our statesmen and politicians, I fancy, deem the 
 Germans rather behind than before us in political 
 wisdom. As to literature, I am told, that for five 
 works which England borrows from Germany, 
 Germany borrows from England at least fifty. 
 Nowhere, therefore, do I meet with this alleged 
 German superiority, except in theological matters. 
 And how can I help suspecting that there is some 
 mistake here, and that this supposed or assumed 
 supremacy, in all questions of theology, is,* after 
 all, mere pretension, resting ujoon nothing ? 
 
 Owen. But surely this can hardly be. Looking 
 at the high mental rank of the men in England 
 who have agreed to make Germany the arbiter of 
 all theological questions, you can hardly attribute 
 to them the folly of submitting to an incompetent 
 authority. Surely, if they turn in every difficulty 
 to the doctors of Germany, it must be because they 
 have tested their quality, and found them practi- 
 cally the superiors of all the theological students 
 in the world at the present day. 
 
 White. I admit the reasonableness of such a 
 presumption ; but I cannot shut my eyes to certain 
 other facts. " Do men gather grapes of thorns, or 
 figs of thistles?" If a nation produces, beyond 
 all other nations, great theologians, it must be 
 because that nation is pre-eminently a religious 
 nation. An inland empire seldom produces a fine 
 
THE APPEAL TO GEEMAN CRITICISM. D 
 
 race of sailors, nor should we expect a Laplander 
 to be greatly skilled in the production of wine. 
 Are the people of Germany, then, far above the 
 people of England in their love for religion ? Did 
 you ever hear any one assert such a thing ? 
 
 Oiven. No ; I do not remember that I have. 
 
 In fact, it occurs to me that R , who was 
 
 resident for some years in Germany on railway 
 business, told me that he thought that the people 
 generally had very little care for religion. On 
 Sundays, they got over a service at church as 
 quickly as they could in the forenoon, and then 
 devoted the rest of the day to pleasure — in the 
 parks and gardens, in the concert -room and 
 theatre. 
 
 White. I have heard the same from two or 
 three people. In fact, Mr. Palmer, in his Trea- 
 tise on the Church, does not hesitate to say, that 
 " Lutheranism and Calvinism, as religious systems, 
 seem to have nearly perished in the countries 
 where they arose." (Yol. i. p. 389.) One test 
 of this is found in the little interest they take 
 in the cause of missions. The Protestants of 
 Great Britain and Ireland raise. I believe, year 
 by year, about five hundred thousand pounds for 
 the propagation of Christianity among the heathen. 
 All the Protestants of Germany — 'more numerous, 
 I think, than the Protestants of these islands — 
 do not raise, I have heard, so much as fifty 
 thousand. 
 
 Owen. But what has this to do with the 
 question ? Will not Bishop Colenso tell you that 
 here are a body of learned men — Ewald and 
 Havernick, and Kurtz and Kalisch, — and that 
 they have, in fact, produced a body of Biblical 
 
6 IS THE BIBLE TRUE ? 
 
 criticism for which England can show no coun- 
 terpart ? 
 
 White. I shall not question the fact, that a 
 mass of learned books have been produced ; but 
 the real question is, their value. And that ques- 
 tion cannot easily be decided, even by learned men 
 in England. Half-a-dozen scholars may say, " We 
 value Ewald's works very highly;" and half-a- 
 dozen other scholars may say, " We deem them 
 great rubbish." And seeing that neither I nor 
 you, nor any one else, can decide this point, I 
 adduce the other facts as bearing upon the main 
 question. I say, first, that in nothing but Biblical 
 criticism does England ever dream of sitting at 
 Germany's feet ; and, secondly, that it must be a 
 very singular and anomalous circumstance, if a 
 people who are less religious than the English 
 should have produced a higher class of theological 
 writings. Such a thing, if it could be, would 
 directly contradict the rule that "men do not 
 gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles." 
 
 Owen. Yet, after all, you have not disposed of 
 the main fact. There the books are — a proof of 
 German industry, at least ; and i f they are not 
 valuable, can you explain how they ever found 
 their Avay into the high esteem of many English 
 scholars ? 
 
 White. I might reply, generally, that they 
 have owed their success mainly to their proud 
 assumption. " In this wicked world," says Gold- 
 smith, " respect is paid, where respect is claimed." 
 But there is another and an especial reason to be 
 adduced for the favour with which Ewald and his 
 fellows have been received among many English 
 scholars. They offer something iiew ; something 
 
THE APPEAL TO GEEMAN CKTTTCISM. / 
 
 which England has never, or but rarely produced; 
 i.e. learned, painstaking criticism of a book which 
 the critic still holds to be human and untrue. Of 
 this we have little in England. Our infidels 
 reject the Bible, scoff at it, and then leave it. 
 But German unbelievers first dismiss the idea that 
 the Bible is a Divine Revelation ; and then, having 
 lowered it to the rank of Homer and Herodotus, 
 they proceed, dealing with it as a curious old 
 document, to spend upon it long years of critical 
 labour. And thus a sort of Biblical literature has 
 sprung up in Germany, like which, I grant, we 
 have nothing in England. And it is certainly 
 true, that if a man desires, as a mere Deist, to 
 spend time on the study of the Scriptures, without 
 at all believing in them, it is to Germany that he 
 must go for helps. But to a Christian, these 
 books must necessarily prove most nauseous and 
 offensive ; because they freely and rudely handle, 
 as human, that which he believes to be Divine. 
 
 Oiven. But do you not err in classing together 
 as infidel or semi-infidel all the German Biblical 
 critics ? Have you forgotten that Bishop Colenso 
 found and studied German writers on both sides — 
 defenders as well as assailants of the Pentateuch ? 
 
 White. I have not forgotten this circumstance; 
 but it does not much affect my opinion. Speaking 
 of Ewald and his followers, I wondered that 
 Bishop Colenso should expect to find his, doubts 
 quieted, and his mind set at rest, by consulting such 
 writers as these. As to the orthodox commentators 
 of Germany, who were also obtained and studied 
 by the bishop, my only remark would be, that he 
 might have found far more satisfactor}'- solutions 
 of his doubts in English commentators than any 
 
8 IS THE BIBLE TRUE ? 
 
 which he has cited from Havernick or Heng- 
 stenberg. Take his very first "difficulty" — the 
 family of Judah. It is poorly and inefficiently 
 handled by Kurtz and Havernick. But had the 
 bishop turned to English critics, he would have 
 found far more satisfactory answers in Kennicott, 
 Horsley, and others, who wrote towards the end 
 of the last century. And so throughout the whole 
 discussion. With the single exception of Scott, 
 Bishop Colenso scarcely ever refers to an English 
 commentator. He consults German critics on both 
 sides of every question, and decides as their nega- 
 tive or affirmative proof seems to preponderate. 
 Now I am ready to maintain that in this he is 
 clearly wrong. I readily admit that the German 
 defenders of the Pentateuch, who are quoted by him, 
 make a very poor figure. But this is just what I 
 should have expected. To my mind it decides 
 nothing ; for I do not believe that the Germans 
 have sole possession of the key of Biblical truth. 
 As in the first instance cited by Bishop Colenso, 
 so in most of the others also, the German de- 
 fenders fail, but we in England can find better 
 arguments than the Germans have used. And 
 hence I say, that in thus referring every question 
 to the decision of the German critics. Bishop 
 Colenso has done wrong. He has started with a 
 great practical error, and it is no wonder that he 
 went astray. 
 
 Oioen. Well, this, after all, is only your view 
 of the case: we shall see how it is borne out by 
 the facts, as we proceed with the inquiry. I have, 
 however, heard another remark made, to which 
 you have not referred — namely, that there is more 
 freedom of inquiry in Germany than in England : 
 
THE APPEAL TO GEEMAN CKITICISM. 9 
 
 that in England our clergy and university-pro- 
 fessors are all tied by pecuniary considerations, 
 so as to be compelled to stand by the infallibility 
 of Scripture ; while in Germany men have more 
 liberty, and can pursue their historical and philo- 
 logical inquiries with fuller liberty, and less fear 
 of personal loss. I have heard this reason de- 
 scribed as a very solid one, for deeming the 
 German critics preferable to those of England. 
 
 White. I have heard it also, but I think it 
 carries little weight. Let us look at the real facts. 
 It is not alleged that the German clergy are desti- 
 tute of any fixed standards of faith ; or that the uni- 
 versity-professors in that country are bound by no 
 obligations. In outward profession there is little 
 difference in these respects between England and 
 Germany. But what is asserted is, that irreligion, 
 indifference and unbelief, have become so nearly 
 universal, that the ancient laws have fallen into 
 neglect and desuetude, and every theologian " does 
 that which is right in his own eyes." And this, 
 it is assumed, is a peculiarly advantageous state 
 of things for the free study of the sacred writings. 
 
 Oiven. Yes ; I know that this is the position 
 taken ; do you quarrel with it ? 
 
 White. Certainly I do. I remark, first, that it 
 is a most transparent fallacy to imagine that in 
 Germany, or in any other country, you have a 
 people in an impartial and unbiassed state of mind. 
 The fact is quite otherwise. The morals of the 
 Bible are pure and elevated, and in most countries 
 the bulk of the people refuse to submit to them. 
 The demands of the Bible, too, on the proud and 
 arrogant, are intolerable. On these, and on other 
 grounds, there are many men who rejoice when they 
 
10 TS THE BIBLE TRUE ? 
 
 hear that a vehement attack is made on the Bible. 
 But to come to the more immediate question ; 
 Germany has a large number of schools, containing 
 a multitude of men; industrious, speculative, and 
 eager for distinction. In the prevalent temper of 
 the nation, little was to be gained by a mere defence 
 of orthodoxy ; such labours would produce no no- 
 velty, no distinction, no popularity or fame. The 
 minds of the ambitious were thus biassed in an 
 opposite direction. One scholar said, "I will show 
 that Genesis, instead of being the work of Moses, 
 is a combination of two old legends ; one by " the 
 Elohist," the other by " the Jehovist." Another 
 undertook a like task with the book of Isaiah. The 
 idea of a Divine Revelation was utterly cast aside ; 
 and crowds of scholars eagerly embraced the novel 
 idea, that the Hebrew Scriptures were nothing but 
 a parcel of old legends, which had come down to 
 us somehow ; and of which we were at liberty to 
 believe what we pleased, and interpret how we 
 liked. And this is the sort of study of the Scrip- 
 tures which has been going on in Germany. To 
 describe this class of critics as ingenuous, impartial 
 inquirers after truth, is to indulge in dreams and 
 fictions. Their motives, their bias in favour of a 
 reckless, licentious indulgence in speculation, are 
 quite as evident, and quite as strong, as any that 
 can be attributed to English defenders of the Scrip- 
 tures. And as to yielding them a preference, as 
 the more impartial, the more ingenuous of the two, 
 it would be utterly unjust. 
 
 Owen. Well, this is a matter which I must re- 
 flect upon. At present, then, we have got no 
 further than this, — that you question the propriety 
 of the bishop's course, in resting so exclusively 
 
THE APPEAL TO GEmrAN CRITICISM. 11 
 
 the whole case on the judgment of the German 
 commentators. 
 
 White. Yes. I remark, — 1st. That asldo not find 
 Englishmen bowing down to Germans in any other 
 thing — in law, in medicine, in science, in politics, 
 or in literature; it seems to me to be strange and 
 unnatural that they should make German critics 
 the arbiters of Biblical criticism. And, 2dly, I 
 add, that this anomaly might perhaps disappear, 
 if it could be urged that the Germans were the 
 most religious of all people. But that, as the very 
 contrary is known to be the case, the absurdity 
 becomes quite startling. Who would act thus in 
 any other case? There may be a nation nearly 
 destitute of musical taste and knowledge ; would 
 Italy refer a question connected with music to its 
 decision ? There might be another wholly desti- 
 tute of sea-ports and shipping ; would England 
 and America refer a point of maritime law to the 
 adjudication of such a people? 
 
 Owen. Ah ! but you forget that it is urged 
 that the less bias there is the better; and that 
 indifferentism leaves German critics free to decide 
 every question on its own merits. 
 
 White. I utterly deny the existence of any 
 such neutrality. No one of these writers ever 
 sat down to the study of Holy Scripture with a 
 mind absolutely free from purpose or bias. In 
 most cases fame, distinction, was palpably the 
 object; and bold and novel speculation the means 
 employed. And I entirely reject the idea that this 
 state of mind deserves more respect, and should 
 receive more deference, than belongs to the lucu- 
 brations of a Horsley, an Alford, or a M'Caul, in 
 our own land. 
 
12 IS THE BIBLE TRUE ? 
 
 DIALOGUE 11. 
 
 THE FIRST OBJECTION. 
 
 Owen. Welcome ! We shall now, I suppose, 
 go into the actual contents of Bishop Colenso's 
 book ; into the various objections he brings against 
 the " credibility" of the story told in Genesis and 
 Exodus. Our first conversation was occupied in 
 considering the propriety of gathering our views of 
 these matters from the German critics. 
 
 White. Yes ; and I shall often recur to this 
 point as we go along. I urged the absurdity of 
 supposing that the Germans must be our best 
 teachers ; and I shall have to insist upon it re- 
 peatedly, as we proceed with the inquiry, that, in 
 point of fact, better and more solid solutions of 
 Bishop Colenso's difficulties might have been found 
 in English authors than any which he has imported 
 from Germany. But now, do you begin. 
 
 Owen. Well, what do you say to his second 
 chapter, which propounds his first objection, that 
 Hezron and Hamul are named among the sixty-six 
 or seventy which '* went down to Egypt with 
 Jacob ;" whereas, they could not at that time 
 have been born ? 
 
 White. I say, first of all, that if the facts were 
 as Bishop Colenso states them, the objection would 
 still be a petty and trivial one. These family lists, 
 given in the Bible, in Gen. xlvi., in 1 Chron. 
 i.-ix., in Matt, i., and in Luke iii., must be taken 
 
THE FIRST OBJECTION. 13 
 
 to be copies of the documents carefully preserved 
 by the Hebrew priests and scribes. Such a 
 document, doubtless, had been handed down from 
 Jacob's days to the days of Moses, and he copied 
 it in his history. Whether it was written by 
 Joseph, or by whom, matters little. If written 
 ten or twenty years after Jacob's family came into 
 Egypt, it would be very natural for the writer, 
 after noting that two of Judah's children died in 
 Canaan, to add the names of the two grandsons 
 who came to fill their place. And who, but a 
 man who was determined to find fault, would ever 
 dream of stigmatising, on this account, the whole 
 list as false and incredible ? This would be the 
 answer, I repeat, which I should make, if Bishop 
 Colenso's statement had been a true and incon- 
 trovertible one. But I have no occasion to use 
 it ; for a very little examination will show you 
 that the bishop's whole argument is raised upon the 
 sand. 
 
 Oiven. How do you make that out ? 
 
 White. Read his main statement, as you find 
 it in his own words, at page 18. 
 
 Owen. {Reads.) " Now Judah was forty- 
 two years old, according to the story, when he 
 went down with Jacob into Egypt." 
 
 White. Stop there; — For, as I do not believe 
 that Judah was forty-two years old when he went 
 down to Egypt, I must ask you, how the bishop 
 makes this out? 
 
 Owe7i. He appends a note, in which he first 
 shows that Joseph was about thirty-nine years 
 old when his brethren found him in Egypt. 
 
 White. That I believe. 
 
 Owen. He then adds, — " Judah was about 
 
14 IS THE BIBLE TKUE ? 
 
 three years older than Joseph ; for Judah was born 
 in ih.Q fourth year of Jacob's double marriage (Gen. 
 xxix. 35), and Joseph in the seventh (Gen. xxx. 
 24-26; xxxi. 41). Hence, Judali was forty-two 
 years old when Jacob went down to Egypt." 
 
 White. And this is what a Cambridge Wrangler 
 calls proving a thing ! Now let us look at his 
 proofs. He says that "Judah was born in the 
 fourth year of Jacob's double marriage, (Gen. 
 xxix. 35)." Please to look at that passage. 
 
 Oweti. Here it is. 
 
 White. Does it say one word about Judah's 
 being born in the fourth year? 
 
 Owen. I do not see that it does ; but Judah 
 was Leah's fourth son. 
 
 White. Well, but the wives of the patriarchs 
 suckled their children (see Gen. xxi. 7). Is it 
 usual for mothers, under those circumstances, to 
 have children every year? 
 
 Owen. No, certainly not. 
 
 White. It is therefore more likely that Judah 
 was born in the eighth year after marriage, is it 
 not? 
 
 Owen. I should say so. 
 
 White. So much, then, for Bishop Colenso*s 
 first fact. Now, go on. His next text is Gen. xxx. 
 24-26, I think : please to turn to it. 
 
 Owen. Here it is. 
 
 White. Well, Bishop Colenso says that text 
 shows that Joseph was born in the seventh year 
 after the marriage. Does Gen. xxx. 24-26, say 
 one word about the seventh year? 
 
 Owen. I do not see that it does ; but the 
 bishop gives also another text, Gen. xxxi. 41. 
 
 White. Read it. 
 
THE FIRST OBJECTION. 15 
 
 Owen. " Thus have I been twenty years in 
 thy house : I served thee fourteen years for thy 
 two daughters, and six years for thy cattle ; and 
 thou hast changed my wages ten times." 
 
 White. Well, does that say anything about 
 Joseph's birth ? 
 
 Owen. Xo, I do not see that it does. But 
 perhaps it is calculated thus: — If Jacob spent 
 twenty years in Padan-aram, and was not married 
 till the eighth, and made a bargain as to his ser- 
 vices (on the birth of Joseph) six years before the 
 end of the twentieth, then Joseph must have born 
 in the fourteenth year, or the seventh from the 
 marriafre. 
 
 White. Yes, I know that here we have a key 
 to the whole blunder : for a blunder it certainly is. 
 This supposition that Jacob abode in Padan-aram 
 only twenty years has been hastily taken up by 
 many commentators, and has passed from one to 
 another without examination, just as it passes to 
 Bishop Colenso. Yet it leads to all manner of 
 anomalies and contradictions For instance: — 
 
 1. If Jacob stayed only twenty years in Padan- 
 aram, he must have been seventy-seven years old 
 when he fled from the wrath of his brother. Now, 
 the usual age of full manhood and marriage with 
 the patriarchs was forty. Isaac married at forty ; 
 Esau married at forty : why, then, should Isaac 
 and Rebekah, knowing that in Jacob's seed " should 
 all the nations of the earth be blessed," — why should 
 they have left him for thirty-seven years after his 
 brother's marriage, without any instructions as to 
 a wife ? Or why should Jacob himself, not of a 
 cold temperament, have so remained, till old age 
 drew near? 
 
16 IS THE BIBLE TRUE ? 
 
 2. Again, between Rebekah's disgust at the 
 daughters of Heth (Gen. xxvi. 35), and the ex- 
 pression of that disgust (Gen. xxvii. 46), there is 
 an evident connexion. Who, on reading those 
 chapters, would dream that there was a period of 
 thirty-seven years between them ? 
 
 3. If Jacob was 77 when he fled to Padan- 
 aram, then the year of the world was 2245. 
 But we are next told that when Esau saw that 
 his father had sent Jacob to Padan-aram for a 
 wife, "then went Esau to Ishmael," and took one 
 of his daughters to wife. But here Ave encounter 
 a positive contradiction ; for Ishmael, in a. m. 2245, 
 had been dead fourteen years. 
 
 4. If Jacob fled to Padan-aram when he was 
 77, and was not married till he was 84, and had 
 his first son, Reuben, when he was 85, and his 
 eleventh, Joseph, when he was 90 or 91, then 
 twelve out of his thirteen children are all crowded 
 into a period of five or six years. Leah, too, first 
 has four sons at four successive births, then ceases 
 bearing, and after her maid Zilpah has had two 
 sons, Leah begins again, and bears two more sons 
 and Dinah ; and all these seven births, with a 
 considerable pause, are to be included in this same 
 six years ! 
 
 5. Reuben goes out into the field, and finds 
 mandrakes, and brings them to his mother, before 
 the last three births. But Reuben, according to 
 this compressed plan, was at this time only an 
 infant of four or five years old ! 
 
 All these difliculties struck a learned Hebraist, 
 Mr. Skinner, about a century ago. He pointed 
 out the single error which led to them all ; namely, 
 a hasty supposition that the two twenty years, 
 
THE FIRST OBJECTION, 11 
 
 alluded to by Jacob in his expostulation with 
 Laban, were one and the same period, instead of 
 two. He showed that the Hebrew would entirely 
 bear the meaning of two periods, not one : — namely, 
 "these twenty years" in which Jacob served 
 Laban, and the other twenty years in which he 
 was enriching himself. In fact, how Jacob, while 
 merely a servant, should, in five or six years, have 
 got exceedingly rich (Gen. xxx. 43), is itself a 
 difficulty. Bjat the whole of these vanish in a 
 moment, as soon as the story is read in its plain, 
 ordinary sense. 
 
 Oiven. What do you call its plain, ordinary^ 
 
 sense 
 
 White. Why, in it-5 regular order. Thus : — 
 Esau and Jacob are each 40 years of age. Esau 
 marries two Hittite women, " which were a grief 
 of mind to Isaac and Rebekah." Isaac is now 100 
 years old, and blind. A deception is practised on 
 him, and Jacob obtains the blessing of the first- 
 born. Esau's wrath alarms Rebekah ; she refers 
 to the existing grievance of the Hittite women, 
 and incites Isaac to send Jacob out of Esau's way. 
 Then Esau, perceiving the strong dislike of his 
 father and mother to his heathen wives, goes to 
 Ishmael, his father's brother, and obtains one of 
 his daughters. How simple and natural is the 
 whole story, if we read it just as it stands, as 
 occurring in the course of two, three, or four 
 years ! Ishmael was then alive, and his daughters 
 might be of a marriageable age. But if we inter- 
 pose a senseless delay of thirty-seven years, we 
 suppose Esau going to Ishmael to ask for his 
 daughter fourteen years after Ishmael was dead; 
 and as Ishmael, if living, would have been 150 
 
18 IS THE BIBLE TRUE ? 
 
 years of age, his daughter, sister to his first-born 
 son, would also be, probably, nearly 100. I say, 
 then, that the story should be read just as it 
 stands, the events following each other with no 
 great delay. 
 
 Owen. Well; and what difference does this 
 make to the question before us ? 
 
 White. It makes all the difference in the world. 
 Esau marries at 40 : his wiyes displease Isaac and 
 Rebekah. Suppose a year or two pass. Jacob by 
 subtilty obtains the blessing. Esau is angry, and 
 threatens. Rebekah is alarmed, and recurs to the 
 Hittite women. Isaac is moved, and sends Jacob 
 to Padan-aram. If you allow five years for these 
 transactions, you allow quite enough. This would 
 send Jacob to Padan-aram in his 46th year. He 
 is married after a servitude of seven years. Leah 
 bears him four sons in succession, which, by the 
 usual experience of such cases, ought to occupy 
 eight years. Therefore Judah, the fourth, would 
 be born in Jacob's 61st or 62nd year; and going 
 down to Egypt when Jacob was 130, would then 
 be about 68 years old. 
 
 Owen. And is this Mr. Skinner's view, of whom 
 you spoke just now ? 
 
 White. No ; Mr. Skinner confines himself to the 
 one point, that in Gen. xxxi. Jacob, he says, speaks 
 not of one period of twenty years, but of two. And 
 thus, throwing Jacob's migration to Padan-aram 
 twenty years further back, he reckons him to have 
 been, not 77, but 57 years old when he came to 
 Laban. I have preferred to begin at Jacob's 40th 
 year, and to trace the transactions step by step. 
 It matters not, however, which hypothesis is the 
 right one. Whether Jacob went to Padan-aram 
 
THE FIRST OBJECTION. 19 
 
 in his 45th, or his 47th, or his 57th year, by 
 either date Bishop CoIodso's whole argument is 
 demolished. 
 
 Owen. How so ? 
 
 White. Why, his argument is, that Judah was 
 only 42 when he went down to Egypt, and that 
 thus it is evidently impossible that he should have 
 had a son, Er, and that after that son's death he 
 should have begotten Pharez of Er's widow, and 
 that Pharez should have grown up and had two 
 sons, Hezron and Hamul, before the going down to 
 Egypt. But add twenty or twenty-five years to the 
 length of Judah's life, and the impossibility vanishes. 
 A man of 68, or of 62, might have seen his son's 
 death, might have had a child by his widow, and 
 might have seen that child grow up, and have two 
 infants born to him, without any sort of impos- 
 sibility. So that, as I said at the outset, Bishop 
 Colenso bases his first objection, placed in the 
 very front of his book, upon a mere supposition, 
 which has not been proved, and which cannot be 
 proved, and which is encompassed with difficulties 
 and contradictions. 
 
 Owen. Well, I begin to see that; but how 
 was the bishop to be aware of all these things ? 
 
 White. Why, had he been but a man of mode- 
 rate reading, he must have been aware of them. 
 Mr. Skinner's view was entirely adopted by Dr. 
 Kennicott, another learned Hebraist of George the 
 Third's days. It was examined by Bishop Horsley, 
 who declared the argument to be " unanswerable." 
 And it now takes its place in all our Commentaries.* 
 
 * Such as Dr. Barrett's Synopsis, Dr. A. Clarke's Com- 
 mentarv, Bagster's Comprehensive Bible, and the Annotated 
 Bible of the Religious Tract Society. 
 
QO IS THE BIBLE TRUE ? 
 
 Yet Bishop Colenso appears as ignorant of all this 
 as if he had never opened a commentary of our own 
 day ! And, as I have remarked, when he gets into 
 a difficulty, he writes oiF for three or four German 
 critics, and they are just as ignorant as himself! 
 
 Owen. And what, then, is your verdict on this 
 part of the case ? 
 
 White. I say, first, that if the facts had been 
 as Bishop Colenso represents them, the objection 
 would still have been a petty and trivial one ; 
 sufficiently answered by the obvious probability 
 that the list had been made some time after the 
 going down to Egypt, or that, if made at that time, 
 the names of Hezron and Hamul had been sub- 
 sequently added. But secondly, and chiefly, I say 
 that the main fact of the bishop's whole case is a 
 mere supposition, and an erroneous supposition : 
 That such critics as Kennicott and Horsley denied, 
 more than half a century ago, that " Judah was 42 
 when he went down to Egypt : " and that to be 
 unaware of this shows gross ignorance on the part 
 of Bishop Colenso ; while, to assail the credibility 
 of God's word merely because he had not taken 
 the pains to understand it, shows something much 
 worse than ionorance. 
 
OBJECTIONS ON ARITHMETICAL GROUNDS. Ul 
 
 DIALOGUE III. 
 
 OBJECTIONS ON ARITHMETICAL GROUNDS. 
 
 Owen. I have thought over what* you said yes- 
 terday, and I admit that the Bishop fails in his 
 first position. I see that the case which he seemed 
 to have made out as to Judah's family, crumbles to 
 pieces the moment the date of Jacob's flight to 
 Padan-aram is carefully considered ; and I cannot 
 help wondering that the Bishop should have over^ 
 looked or omitted so essential a point. What is 
 the next subject to which we should direct our 
 attention ? 
 
 White. I think we may as well reserve the 
 main question, — the numbers of the children of 
 Israel at the time of the Exodus — to the last; 
 and look meanwhile into the many minor and 
 almost trivial difficulties which the Bishop con- 
 jures up, as rendering the story of the march 
 through the wilderness "incredible." And these 
 difficulties divide themselves, I think, into two 
 classes — those which are merely arithmetical or 
 Statistical ; and those in which a Divine power is 
 evidently asserted in the text, and overlooked by 
 the Bishop. The first of these classes, probably, 
 will suffice to occupy us during the present evening. 
 
 Owen. Which are the difficulties which you 
 term " arithmetical" or statistical ? 
 
 White. They are such as these : it is said that 
 the Israelites w^ere too numerous to be assembled 
 
22 IS THE BIBLE TRUE ? 
 
 in front of the Tabernacle ; that they were too 
 numerous to be addressed by Moses ; that it is 
 not credible that they should have been provided 
 with 200,000 tents; or that tlie 600,000 men 
 should all have been furnished with arms ; or that 
 such a multitude of pigeons and lambs should have 
 been attainable for sacrifices ; or that the priests 
 should have been able to consume them, if they 
 had been offered. 
 
 Oiven. Well, and how do you meet these ob- 
 jections ? 
 
 White. Several answers suggest themselves ; 
 some applying to one part of the case, and some to 
 other parts. First, however, I must remark, that 
 the bishop puts all his objections in a carping and 
 hypercritical spirit. This is apparent in almost 
 every page. For instance : 
 
 1. With reference to the objection we considered 
 yesterday : nothing would have been more natural 
 than that a chronicler or record-keeper, making, a 
 few years after Jacob came into Egypt, a list of 
 the patriarch's family, should include one or two 
 children born after that event. But the bishop 
 demands absolute precision ; and when he finds 
 two names of persons who seem to him to have 
 been born subsequently, he proclaims the whole 
 list to be '' unhistorical," i.e. untrue. 
 
 2. In the same exacting spirit he finds " all 
 the congregation of Israel" ordered "to appear 
 before the Lord;" and he finds Moses "addressing 
 all Israel." Immediately he insists that " all Israel " 
 must have meant the whole two millions ; and that 
 these could not have been assembled, nor could 
 Moses have made himself heard. Now all this 
 manifests a carping spirit. It shows a pre-deter- 
 
OBJECTIONS ON ARITHMETICAL GROUNDS. 23 
 
 raination to find fault. History is full — every-day- 
 life is full — of instances in which a whole com- 
 munity is summoned and addressed, and in which 
 we all understand by the phrase, " as many as 
 could get within hearing." 
 
 3. In the same hostile and incredulous tone the 
 bishop finds, in Lev. iv. 11, 12, an order given to 
 the priest to "carry forth" the offal of the bullocks 
 offered, and to burn them without the camp. He 
 then argues that the priests were too few to per- 
 form all this labour, and hence that the story is 
 incredible. But if he had turned to the Hebrew, 
 he would have found that the word properly means, 
 "to cause to go forth," i.e. to send away. Here, 
 too, we all know that in many public ofiEices duties 
 are imposed on officers which they could not per- 
 sonally perform, but which they discharge by their 
 assistants. This way of imagining an impossi- 
 bility, by concluding that the priest must himself 
 carry forth all the remains of the sacrifices, shows 
 very clearly the spirit of fault-finding in which the 
 bishop has gone about his work. 
 
 4. In the same spirit, when he finds that the 
 children of Israel dwelt in tents, and were armed, 
 he immediately begins to calculate the weight of a 
 modern tent, and how many thousands of oxen 
 would be required to carry 200,000 of such dwell- 
 ings. Yet all travellers tellus of the tents even now 
 used in those countries, as being little more than a 
 long shawl stretched over a few sticks. And as to 
 arms, who ever imagined, before this, that the ex- 
 pression implied that the Israelites had 600,000 
 swords, spears, shields, and bows? There is no 
 historic narrative in existence which might not be 
 assailed by such objections as these. 
 
24 IS THE BIBLE TRUE ? 
 
 5. So of the Passover. Bishop Colenso insists 
 upon it that, according to the story in Exodus, " in 
 a single day the whole immense population of Israel 
 was instructed to keep the Passover, and did keep 
 it." He means, that the narrative says this; for 
 his whole argument is, that the narrative is incre- 
 dible — is a fiction. But here he makes the incre- 
 dibility with which he finds fault. For the words 
 of Exod. xii. are, — " Speak ye unto all the con- 
 gregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this 
 month they shall take to them every man a lamb." 
 " Ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day," &c. 
 No impartial man can doubt that the Israelites 
 had several days' notice. But Bishop Colenso was 
 fully determined to find fault ; and therefore find 
 fault he does. 
 
 I might adduce several other instances of this 
 spirit ; but these ought to suffice. I think you 
 will admit that the bishop clearly shows a spirit 
 of carping and hostile criticism, which taints his 
 whole argument. 
 
 Owen. Yes, I do admit that he carries his 
 objections too far, and is too plainly set upon 
 making out a case against the Pentateuch. To a 
 certain extent this, of course, weakens the moral 
 force of all his observations. But will you now 
 come to the main question : I mean, to his repeated 
 objections, that the facts stated in many passages 
 of Exodus are physically impossible ? 
 
 White. I will do so without any further pre- 
 face. The bishop's first objection of this class has 
 something almost silly about it. Men of sense and 
 discernment have read, for thousands of years past, 
 the statement that God led the two millions of 
 Israelites into the wilderness, and there directed 
 
OBJECTIONS ON ARITHMETICAL GROUNDS. 25 
 
 their movements ; and that He sometimes desired 
 them to appear before Him at the door of the 
 Tabernacle ; and at other times commanded Moses 
 to speak unto all Israel. And no one, till Bishop 
 Colenso appeared, ever found anything "incredible" 
 or "impossible" in these statements. History 
 abounds in similar cases — of whole communities 
 being summoned to appear, and of their being ad- 
 dressed ; when it was impossible for them all to 
 assemble, or for one-tenth of them to hear. In 
 1297 one of our kings summoned all the people of 
 London to meet him at Westminster Hall. In 
 1815 Napoleon Bonaparte addressed about 100,000 
 people at the Champ de Mai, and addressed them 
 as the French nation. Only the other day we heard 
 of the Patriarch of Greece addressing the whole 
 Greek army. In all these cases, men are accus- 
 tomed to understand that, as many as could find 
 admittance, crowded into the place of assembly ; 
 and that perhaps one-tenth or one-twentieth of the 
 whole heard what was said. But the bishop takes 
 out his pencil, calculates the width of the Taber- 
 nacle ; finds that only nine men could stand in one 
 rank in its front; and then supposes the people 
 drawn up in ranks of nine, with eighteen inches 
 between each rank ; and reckons, that so drawn 
 up, they would form a column of twenty miles in 
 length ! Did you ever hear anything more pre- 
 posterous ? 
 
 Owen. Oh ! I saw that that was very absurd. 
 I suppose that the poor bishop never saw a large 
 open-air meeting, or he would not have talked 
 about ranks of nine, with eighteen inches between 
 each rank. 
 
 White. Well, then, with respect to the "tents" 
 
26 IS THE BIBLE TEUE ? 
 
 and the " arms" of the Israelites, the difficulty is 
 only the same which runs through all history. 
 When Herodotus tells us that the army of Xerxes 
 consisted of 5,283,220 men, we may find it difficult 
 to conceive how such a host could have been moved, 
 or governed, or victualled ; but we do not, on that 
 account, pronounce the history to be a mere fable. 
 When our own historians tell us that in 1298, on 
 the summons of the king, 100,000 footmen, and 
 4000 horse, assembled at York, in the cold, dark 
 days of January, to march into Scotland to chastise 
 Wallace, we find it hard to understand how, in and 
 round a town of 10,000 people, such a host could 
 have been accommodated, and fed, and kept from 
 perishing, in the very depth of winter ; but no one 
 has ever, on account of these difficulties, pronounced 
 the fact to be incredible. In truth, all these objec- 
 tions are no greater than might be started with 
 respect to every great event. Yet vast masses of 
 men have, at many different periods of the world's 
 history, been assembled together; and there are 
 scarcely greater difficulties in the Jewish history 
 than may be met with in the Persian, or the 
 Gaulish, or the Tartar, or the Spanish, or many 
 others. 
 
 Owen. What do you say to his question as to 
 the "turtle-doves or young pigeons" which the 
 women were to offer on the birth of a child ? He 
 asks, " where the people could have obtained 250 
 pigeons daily ? " It struck me, I confess, as rather 
 a foolish question. 
 
 White. Transparently so. All travellers in the 
 East tell us of the vast number of pigeons which 
 are constantly brought to market in those countries ; 
 and our own naturalist, Bewick, in his book on 
 
OBJECTIONS ON AEITHMETICAL GKOUNDS. 27 
 
 birds, states that a pair of pigeons will multiply, in 
 four years, into the enormous number of 14,672. 
 But ignorance of even the commonest things lies at 
 the root of many of the bishop's objections. 
 
 Owen. I observed an extraordinary calculation 
 he makes in one place, that, comparing the 22,273 
 first-born who were exchanged for the tribe of 
 Levi, with the whole number of males, about 
 900,000 — "each mother of Israel must have had 
 on the average forty-two sons ! " 
 
 White. Yes ; this is a notable instance of the 
 way in which, being resolved to find "incredible" 
 things, he creates incredibilities where there are 
 none. The Divine command in Exod. xiii. most 
 clearly was prospective ; it claimed for God all the 
 first-born which should be born after that date. 
 The numbering of these, which took place thirteen 
 or fourteen months after, showed that out of the 
 two millions of people, there were 22,273 male 
 children who had been born since the law was 
 given. All we learn from this fact is, that, in the 
 joy of their deliverance, a large number of the 
 younger of the Israelites had married, and thus 
 there had been 22,273 births, of first-born males, 
 within that period. There is nothing strange or 
 at all " incredible" in this. Bishop Colenso creates 
 the whole dififtculty on which he dilates, by strain- 
 ing the command, making it apply even to the old 
 men and the men of middle age, and so reckoning, 
 that if there were only 22,273 first-born out of 
 900,000 males, then each mother must have had 
 forty-two sons ! But this monstrous result flows 
 entirely from his choosing to read a commandment 
 as retrospective, which clearly and indubitably 
 looked only to the future. 
 
28 IS THE BIBLE TRUE ? 
 
 Owen. I think there is one objection, of this 
 class, which you have not adverted to: I mean, the 
 supposed impossibility of a consumption by the 
 priests of the slain victims ; though I admit 
 that it struck me as rather inconsistent, when I 
 found the bishop objecting, on one page, that it 
 was impossible that pigeons sufficient for the sacri- 
 fices could be found, and, almost on the next page, 
 objecting that there would be so many that the 
 priests could not eat them. 
 
 White. Yes ; it is in this part more especially 
 that the bishop shows himself in his true light, as 
 one determined to find fault. But you have asked 
 me what answer I make to these objections. I 
 reply, therefore, thus: — 
 
 1. These ordinances of the established worship 
 were made, not for the wilderness only or chiefly, 
 but for a thousand years after. In Aaron's days 
 the priests might be few, and the burden upon 
 them might be heavy ; but this state of things 
 would soon pass away. Even in Joshua's days, 
 there is evidence in abundance that the priests 
 were numerous ; and then Bishop Colenso's ob- 
 jections and difficulties vanish. Meanwhile, how- 
 ever, please to observe — 
 
 2^ That, with reference to the question which 
 the bishop absurdly puts, as to how three priests 
 were to eat all those offerings or parts of offerings 
 which were allotted to them, two passages in the 
 Pentateuch seem to furnish a sufficient answer, or 
 at least to throw light upon the subject. In Exod. 
 xii., with reference to the Passover lamb, it is 
 ordered, — " Ye shall let nothing of it remain until 
 the morning, and that which remaineth until the 
 morning ye shall burn with fire^ Here the 
 
OBJECTIONS ON ARITHMETICAL GROUNDS. 29 
 
 rule was, " Ye shall consume the lamb." But 
 what if this were impossible by eating ? Then the 
 remains were to be burned, and put to no other use. 
 Again, at Lev. viii., Aaron is instructed to " boil 
 the flesh at the door of the Tabernacle, and there 
 to eat it with the bread." But what if there were 
 more than could be eaten? Then folio ^'s the pro- 
 viso : " That which remaineth of the flesh and of 
 the bread ye shall burn loithJireP 
 
 Owen. I see : nothing could be more obvious 
 or proper. But what could possess the poor bishop 
 to make a difiiculty here ? 
 
 White. It is only one more proof that he who 
 hunts for difficulties and impossibilities in the 
 Word of God will be left to his own devices, and 
 will soon find plenty. 
 
30 IS THE BIBLE TRUE 
 
 DIALOGUE IV. 
 
 DISREGARD OF THE SPECIAL PROMISES MADE TO 
 ISRAEL. 
 
 Owen. I think you said that, after the arith- 
 metical and statistical difficulties, you would take 
 up, as a distinct class, those cases which are clearly 
 included in the Divine protection and support 
 promised to Israel, and in which cases the bishop 
 creates apparent difficulties by overlooking or dis- 
 regarding that important fact ? 
 
 White. Yes ; I think that these cases should 
 be taken by themselves. Out of all the bishop's 
 difficulties or impossibilities, these are about one- 
 fourth. For instance, he finds impossibilities in — 
 1. The march out of Egypt ; 2. The providing for 
 the cattle in the wilderness ; 3. In the conquest of 
 Midian ; and in a few minor points. The prin- 
 cij)le is the same in all these cases. He either 
 overlooks, or treats as of no importance, the special 
 promises of God, to carry His people through the 
 wilderness, and to bring them into the promised 
 land. 
 
 Oiven. Yes ; I remember all these objections. 
 And you propose, I think, to class them altogether; 
 and to deal with them by one reply ? 
 
 White. Yes ; I think that they are all tainted 
 with the same fault. Bishop Colenso professes to 
 take up the narrative contained in the Pentateuch 
 as it is, and to see if it is intrinsically credible. 
 
DISREGARD OF THE PROMISES. 31 
 
 But he wholly forgets to do this in the case of 
 these parts of the history. He assumes that the 
 two millions of Israelites were just like any other 
 two millions of people ; and that, in marching out 
 of Egypt towards Canaan, they were just in the 
 same circumstances as any body of Syrians or 
 Egyptians would have been. But you will see, in 
 a moment, that this is not the story told in the 
 Pentateuch. Not one word is there said of the 
 Israelites having undertaken this great migration 
 of their own accord, or of their relying on their 
 own supplies. On the contrary, Moses, who 
 shrank from this fearful undertaking, was encou- 
 raged and compelled to enter upon it by several 
 miracles. He saw the bush burn without being 
 consumed ; he saw the rod become a serpent ; he 
 found his hand become leprous, and saw it instantly 
 restored ; he saw the seven great plagues. And it 
 was only after these many proofs of the mighty 
 power of God that he felt emboldened and com- 
 pelled to go on the errand on which God sent him. 
 And so of the children of Israel. They also had 
 seen the seven plagues ; they had seen the first- 
 born of Egypt perish, while their own were pre- 
 served. And, besides all this, at the very first 
 stage of their journey, a new and stupendous 
 miracle was performed in the sight of the whole 
 nation. An arm of the sea was divided to make a 
 way of escape for them ; and its waves then over- 
 whelmed their enemies. Thus, from the very 
 beginning, their camp was publicly declared to be 
 under God's protection, and His honour was 
 pledged to bring His people through. 
 
 Now this makes just the whole difference. 
 Bishop Colenso insists on leaving out of the case 
 
32 IS THE BIBLE TEUE ? 
 
 all God's part in it, and in arguing as though the 
 Israelites were left to their own strength, their 
 own conduct, and their own resources. So ar- 
 guing, he finds the Pentateuch " incredible." Of 
 course it is ; but then the Pentateuch never repre- 
 sented the matter in this light. Let the books 
 speak for themselves. 
 
 At the very opening of the story of the Exodus 
 God declares the work to be His own. " I am 
 come down to deliver them out of the hands of the 
 Egyptians, and to bring them into a good land." 
 Would Bishop Colenso have dared to reply, " The 
 work is too great for Thee?" 
 
 The sea being divided, and the march begun, 
 the people soon want bread. It is sent down out 
 of heaven for them. They next want water. The 
 rock opens, and pours it out for them. Bishop 
 Colenso sees all this, and does not question it ; but 
 he turns to the cattle, and asks. How could they 
 exist for many successive years in the wilderness ? 
 And because the particulars of this miracle are 
 not recorded, the bishop declares their preservation, 
 impossible, and the whole story a fiction ! 
 
 Pass on to the nineteenth of Exodus, and you 
 will find the Lord Himself addressing the Israelites, 
 and saying, " Ye have seen what I did unto the 
 Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' wings, 
 and brought you unto myself." Forty years after, 
 just before the death of Moses, he amplifies this 
 statement in the following manner: — 
 
 " The Lord's portion is His people ; Jacob is 
 the lot of His inheritance. He found him in a 
 desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness ; 
 He led him about. He instructed him, He kept him 
 as the apple of His eye. As an eagle stirreth up 
 
DISREGARD OF THE PROMISES. 33 
 
 her nest, fluttereth over her voung, spreadeth 
 abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them oh 
 her wings: so the Lord alone did lead him, and 
 there was no strange god with him. He made 
 him ride on the high places of the earth, that 
 he might eat the increase of the fields ; and He 
 made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil 
 out of the flinty rock." (Dsut. xxxii. 9-13.) 
 
 In less poetic language did Moses appeal to the 
 personal experience of the Israelites, saying, " I 
 have led you forty years in the wilderness : your 
 clothes are not waxen old upon you, and thy shoe 
 is not waxen old upon thy foot. Ye have not 
 eaten bread, neither have ye drunk wine or strong 
 drink : that ye might know that I am the Lord 
 your God." (Deut. xxix. 5, 6.) 
 
 Surely, in the face of these plain declarations, 
 it is childish to ask, How can these things be ? 
 Stand by the side of Immanuel, God with us. 
 At a word, six large vessels, filled with water, sud- 
 denly overflow with the finest wine. At another 
 word, five loaves are expanded into five hundred. 
 A third command silences a tempest. A fourth 
 brings a multitude of fishes to a spot where, just 
 before, there was not one. Surely Bishop Colenso 
 cannot help seeing that the presence of such a 
 power as this, in the wilderness of Sinai, fully 
 meets all his difliculties and objections? Well, 
 that same Divine power was present in the whole 
 journey from Egypt to Canaan ; and, consequently, 
 all these difl^iculties about grass for the cattle, &c. 
 become, at once, quite futile and absurd. The 
 whole story is told in Ps. Ixxviii. : — 
 
 " Marvellous things did He in the sight of their 
 fathers, in the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan. 
 
 D 
 
34 IS THE BIBLE TRUE ? 
 
 He divided the sea, and caused them to pass 
 through ; and He made the waters to stand as an 
 heap. In the daytime also He led them with a 
 cloud, and all the night with a light of fire. He 
 clave the rocks in the wilderness, and gave them 
 drink as out of the great depths. He brought 
 streams also out of the rock, and caused waters to 
 run down like rivers. Pie rained manna upon them 
 to eat, and gave them the bread of heaven. He rained 
 flesh also upon them as dust, and feathered fowls 
 like as the sand of the sea. He led them like sheep, 
 and guarded them in the wilderness like a flock." 
 
 Owen. Oh, yes, I remember that passage very 
 well. 
 
 IMiite. But do you not see, that if these plain 
 declarations of the Psalmist are believed, all the 
 supposed difficulties about want of sustenance in 
 the wilderness vanish away ? Does Bishop Co- 
 lenso believe, or disbelieve, St. Matthew's Gospel? 
 If he disbelieves it, then let him boldly declare 
 himself a disciple of Paine and Voltaire. But if 
 he accepts the Gospel as a true history, then he 
 beholds the Lord Jesus, at a word, supplying 5000 
 men with bread from five loaves. These deeds in 
 the wilderness in the year a.d. 27, seem to prove 
 and confirm the narrative of Moses, of the deeds in 
 the wilderness in a.m. 2513. The same power 
 which fed 5000 people on one occasion, could, with 
 equal ease, feed thirty times as many on another. 
 To believe the testimony of St. Matthew, there- 
 fore, and yet to reject the testimony of Moses, is 
 altogether irrational. If one account is credible, 
 so is the other. 
 
 Owen. I observed that Bishop Colenso threw 
 doubt upon the narrative of the conquest of Midian, 
 
DISKEGAED OF THE PROMISES. 35 
 
 as if it were intrinsically incredible. He speaks of 
 " the story related in Num. xxxi., where we are 
 told that a force of 12,000 Israelites slew all the 
 males of the Midianites, 48,000 in number, and 
 carried off 32,000 captives." This is characterised 
 as an " incredible statement." Yet, if the bishop 
 had been acquainted with secular history, he would 
 easily call to mind a variety of similar occurrences. 
 I know that in one of the greatest of the battles 
 between England and Scotland, the battle of Fal- 
 kirk, all our old chroniclers tell us that 32,000 Scots 
 were left dead upon the field, while the English 
 lost but 28 men. And this story, incredible at first 
 sight, is not so when scrutinised. For the Scots 
 were unable to strike a blow. They were first dis- 
 ordered by a ceaseless flight of arrows from the 
 English bowmen, and then, when in confusion, they 
 were broken and trampled down by 7000 heavy horse. 
 But history presents scores of examples of this kind, 
 of panics, or the rout of armies, in which the loss 
 and suffering are all on one side. There is notliing 
 incredible in such a fact. 
 
 White. No. I am well aware of that ; but here, 
 too, I must remind you that there was a special 
 promise that thus it should be. In Deut. xi. God 
 says: — "There shall no man be able to stand 
 before you ; for the Lord your God shall lay the 
 fear of you, and the dread of you, upon all the 
 land." And in Exod. xxiii. He had said: — "I 
 will send My fear before thee, and will destroy all 
 the people to whom thou shalt come ; and I will 
 make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee." 
 And in Lev. xxvi. 8, still more specifically, it was 
 promised : " Five of you shall chase an hundred, 
 and an hundred of you shall put ten thousand to 
 
3d is the bible true c 
 
 flight ; and your enemies shall fall before you by 
 the sword:" so that the bishop's objection arises 
 simply from this : — that God had kept His pro- 
 mise ! With how much more reason would he 
 have found fault, if, after such assurances as these 
 had been given, it turned out that the Israelites 
 had to fight their own way, just like any other 
 invaders ? 
 
 Oiven. Yes, I see that, now ; and I wonder 
 that so obvious an argument did not occur to 
 Bishop Colenso, and prevent his advancing so futile 
 an objection. 
 
 White. Before we part, I must notice one more 
 blunder of the bishop's. He devotes one whole 
 chapter, the 13th, to show that the Israelites were 
 more than enough to fill the land of Canaan ; and 
 hence, that the words, " I will not drive them out 
 before thee in one year, lest the land become deso- 
 late," (Exod. xxiii. 29), are quite unmeaning. All 
 this mistake arises from his having overlooked a 
 distinct and special promise. In the very chapter 
 which he quotes (Exod. xxiii.), the land promised 
 to the Israelites was, " from the Red Sea unto the 
 sea of the Philistines, and from the desert unto the 
 river :" a country five times as large as that which 
 Joshua divided. The cause of this failure is dis- 
 tinctly explained in Josh. i. ii. ; which chapters, 
 if we are to judge by the bishop's book, he must 
 have neglected to read. 
 
THE NUMBER OF THE ISRAELITES. 87 
 
 DIALOGUE V. 
 
 THE NUMBER OF THE ISRAELITES IN THE 
 WILDERNESS. 
 
 Owen, You said, I think, that you reserved 
 the chief question of all, the number of the children 
 of Israel at the time of their leaving Egypt, to the 
 last. Do you mean, then, to take it up this 
 evening ? 
 
 White. Yes, I think we may as well dispose 
 of that in our present conversation. It deserves to 
 be taken by itself ; for it is, in truth, the only vital 
 part of the controversy. 
 
 Owen. Why do you call it so? and how do 
 you distinguish it from the other points which have 
 come under our consideration ? 
 
 White. I think that the difference is very ob- 
 vious. Suppose that I could find no sufficient answer 
 to the bishop's question as to Hezron and Hamul ; 
 do you think that a trivial point of that kind would 
 have at all shaken my belief in the books of Moses ? 
 If I could have found no other way of explaining 
 the matter, I should certainly have believed it to 
 be an interpolation, or a clerical error, introduced 
 by some old scribe or copyist. No doctrine, no 
 important fact, depended upon it ; and I assuredly 
 should never have given up books of such im- 
 mense value as the Pentateuch, merely because 
 two names had crept into a long list which I 
 thought ousfht not to have been there. Neither 
 
38 IS THE BIBLE TRUE ? 
 
 should I have cared much about difficulties re- 
 specting lambs or pigeons. But here we have a 
 different question altogether. In Exod. xii. we 
 have the positive declaration, that the Israelites 
 who marched out of Egypt were *' 600,000 men, 
 besides children." In Num. i. we have a census 
 taken, and the number of those who were " able to 
 go forth to war" is stated to have been " 603,550." 
 In Num. xxvii. we have another census, taken 
 long after, and the number is there declared to be 
 " 601,730." Now, if Bishop Colenso, or any one 
 else, could make it quite clear that, as he alleges, 
 there could not have been 60,000, or even 6000, I 
 confess that I should be sorely perplexed. To have 
 a main, central fact like this — a fact which is re- 
 iterated again and again — to have it set aside, or 
 made to appear a fiction, would bring the whole 
 Bible into doubt. Hence, as I said, I think that 
 this one point is worthy of our most serious and 
 undivided attention. 
 
 Owen. Well, I suppose that you have carefully 
 considered it, and what has been the result of your 
 thoughts upon it ? 
 
 White. A sort of mingled feeling : of anger, that 
 a man should assail God's Word on such weak and 
 frivolous grounds ; and of pity, when I thought of 
 the guilt connected with such an attack. 
 
 Oiven. You think, then, that the bishop fails 
 in this part of his case ? 
 
 White. Not only fails, but fails disgracefully. 
 By all men possessed even of common candour 
 and fairness, he must be severely condemned for 
 the flippancy and hollowness of the arguments with 
 which he assails the truth of this portion of God's 
 Word. Do you remember the mode of his attack ? 
 
THE KTJMBER OF THE ISEAELITES. 39 
 
 Owen. I think, as far as I can recollect, that 
 he takes the list of Jacob's grandsons, fifty-four in 
 number, from Gen. xlvi., and allows to them each 
 4 1 sons. He then picks out a few cases in which 
 the space from Jacob to Moses was covered by four 
 individuals ; and thus arrives at the conclusion that 
 there were only four generations between Jacob's 
 time and the Exodus. Then he shows the rate 
 of increase in the following manner : " In Kohath's 
 days there would be 54 males ; in Amram's, 243 ; 
 in the time of Moses and Aaron, 1094 ; and in 
 that of Joshua and Eleazar, 4925 : that is to say, 
 instead of 600,000 warriors, there could not have 
 been 5000" (page 103). Thus the story told in 
 Exod. i., which speaks of the time of Moses and 
 Aaron, and says that " the children of Israel in- 
 creased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed ex- 
 ceeding mighty, and the land was filled with them,'* 
 is flatly denied by this bishop, and declared to be 
 a mere fiction ! 
 
 Oiven. Yes, I know that ; but how do you 
 meet the bishop's calculation ? 
 
 White. I heard an acute logician once exclaim, 
 " Oh ! I never care anything for figures ; anything 
 may be done with figures!" As a sensible man, 
 he did not mean to deny the certainty of arith- 
 metic, he only meant to say, " Let me pick out, or 
 take for granted, the figures I want at the outset, 
 and I can produce any result I please." And so it 
 is in this case. Bishop Colenso picks out a few 
 cases which suit his purpose ; such as Levi, who 
 lived to be 137; Kohath, who lived to be 133; 
 Amram, who was 137 when he died; and Moses, 
 who was 120. These all, apparently, married late 
 in life, and had few children, and by selecting 
 
40 IS THE BIBLE TEUE ? 
 
 these, and shutting his eyes to all others, the 
 bishop gets at his two conclusions — 1. That four 
 generations cover the whole period from Jacob to 
 the Exodus ; and that each father had, on an 
 average, only 4^ sons. And in this way, in 215 
 years, 54 males grow into 4923. 
 
 Owen. But please to show me how else you 
 would work the sum. 
 
 White. First, I will show you what different 
 results would have been obtained if the bishop 
 had worked it in another way. For instance. 
 Jacob went down to Padan-aram, the bishop 
 thinks, in the 77th year of his age. He stood 
 before Pharaoh in his 130th year, or 53 years after. 
 In those 53 years, his male descendants had become 
 68. Therefore, in each 18 years since his entering 
 Laban's house, the males of his family had quad- 
 rupled. Now the bishop is very fond of saying, 
 " Let us suppose that they increased in this way from 
 generation to generation." Well, had he applied 
 this rule to Jacob's posterity, he would have found 
 that, quadrupling every 18 years, as Jacob's own 
 family did, the children of Israel, the males only 
 would have become, in less than two hundred years, 
 more than 280,000,000 ! Or again, take the case 
 of Benjamin, of whom the bishop says, " Benjamin, 
 though called a youth, was more than 22 years old, 
 according to the story, at the time of Jacob's 
 migration. It is therefore quite possible that he 
 may have had ten sons, perhaps by several wives " 
 (page 26). I do not agree with the bishop, but let 
 us take his own view, and apply his own rule. 
 " Let us suppose that they increased in this way 
 from generation to generation." Take out your 
 pencil and find the result. 
 
THE NUMBEE OF THE ISRAELITES. 41 
 
 Oicen. The result of what ? 
 
 White. Why, Benjamin having ten sons at 22, 
 " Let us suppose that they went on increasing in 
 this way :" in 22 years more there would be 100 : 
 Go on with the calculation. 
 
 Owen (ivrites). In 44 years, 1 000 ; in 66 years, 
 10,000; in 88 years, 100,000; in 110 years, 
 
 1,000,000; in 132 years, 10,000,000 Why, at 
 
 this rate, they would have filled Asia in less than 
 200 years ! But why do you go into these mon- 
 strous suppositions ? 
 
 White. Merely to show you how absurd it is to 
 argue upon one, two, or half-a-dozen cases. The 
 bishop, too, shuts his eyes wilfully to all the facts 
 that lead to a different conclusion from that at 
 which he intends to arrive. He is resolved to 
 find only four generations between Jacob and the 
 Exodus. Yet he might have seen Joseph, who 
 was about 39 when the 215 years of Israel's stay 
 in Egypt began, fondling the fourth generation, 
 Ephraim's great-grandchildren (Gen. l. 23), only 
 70 years after. Not one-third of the 215 years 
 had expired — 145 years yet remained. Obviously 
 six or eight more generations might be expected 
 before the time of the Exodus arrived. And this 
 is confirmed by 1 Chron. vii. 22-27, which tells us 
 of " Joshua, the son of Nun, the son of Elishama, 
 the son of Ammihud, the son of Laadan, the son of 
 Tahan, the son of Telah, the son of Rephah, the 
 son of Beriah, the son of Ephraim. 
 
 Owen. Was there not a reduction of the term 
 of life going on about this time ? 
 
 ViHiite. Unquestionably there was, and with it, 
 a quickening of the date of marriage. Isaac mar- 
 ried at 40, Esau at 40, Jacob still later. But Ben- 
 
43 IS THE BIBLE TRUE ? 
 
 jamin must have married at 20, Asher at 20 (Gen. 
 xlvi. 17), and Ephraim at 20. Do you not see how 
 this change would naturally accelerate the growth 
 of population? 
 
 Owen. I see that it would; but I have not 
 considered to what extent. 
 
 White. The calculation is an easy one. Isaac 
 married at 40, and had no children till 60. His 
 son Esau married at 40, when his father was 100. 
 Therefore, a whole century passed over before 
 father and son were more than two. But Joseph 
 married at 35, and Ephraim his son probably- 
 married at 21 ; and the consequence was, that 
 •before Joseph died, aged 110, he saw many child- 
 ren and grandchildren. Clearly, the earlier men 
 marry, after they have reached a proper age, the 
 faster must population increase. Hence, in shut- 
 ting his eyes to this great change, and reckoning 
 only four generations in 215 years, the bishop 
 rushed inevitably into important errors. 
 
 Oiven. But tell me now, how do you think he 
 ought to have framed his calculations? 
 
 White. I am sure that, first of all, he should 
 have resisted the temptation to construct a theory 
 upon one, or two, or half-a-dozen facts ; espe- 
 cially facts picked out to favour foregone con- 
 clusions. He has so contrived to place his 
 figures as to bring out a result of " 4923 males." 
 Another person, as I have shown, arguing from 
 Jacob's increase, might have shown a result of 
 280,000,000! or, from Benjamin's increase, of a 
 still greater number. But all this is mere child's 
 play ; it does not advance the real question one 
 iota. 
 
 Owen. Well, but I asked you to tell me, how 
 
THE NUMBER OF THE ISRAELITES. 48 
 
 the question ought to be handled, so as to give us 
 an answer of any value? 
 
 White. There is no difficulty about it. The 
 law of human increase has been investigated and 
 expounded, and there is no obscurity about the 
 question. One of the chief writers on the subject 
 thus sums up the known results: — 
 
 " In the northern states of America, where the 
 means of subsistence have been ample, <. . . the 
 population has been found to double itself, for 
 above a century and a half successively, in less 
 than twenty-five years. ... In the back settle- 
 ments, where the sole employment is agriculture, 
 and where vicious customs and unwholesome occu- 
 pations are little known, the population has been 
 found to double itself in fifteen years. . . . Ac- 
 cording to a table of Euler, calculated on a mor- 
 tality of 1 in 36, if the births be to the deaths in 
 the proportion of 3 to 1, the period of doubling 
 will be only twelve years and four-fifths."* 
 
 Owen. Do you hold with Mai thus ? 
 
 White. I cannot quite go his length. I doubt 
 the 15 years, and the 12ith years. But I suppose 
 that an 18 years' or a 20 years' doubling is cre- 
 dible enough. And you will remember that Jacob 
 went down to Egypt under a special promise, " I 
 will there make of thee a great nation." Hence, 
 I think, that we are entitled to suppose that the 
 Israelites grew and multiplied in Egypt, quite as 
 fast as any nation ever did, in any other time or 
 place. 
 
 Owen. I should think so. You incline to say, 
 
 * Malthus on Population, vol. i. p. 6. 
 
44 IS THE BIBLE TRUE ? 
 
 then, that the family or people that went with 
 Jacob down to -Egypt would increase during the 
 215 years at the rate of a doubling every 18 
 years ? 
 
 White. Yes, that seems to me a reasonable 
 calculation. 
 
 Owen. But what is the number that we are 
 to take at the beginning of the period ? What are 
 the first figures of our sum in arithmetic? Do 
 you agree to the bishop's proposal, of starting with 
 54 males ? 
 
 White. Certainly not. Did you ever hear a 
 more absurd idea than that eleven sons of one man 
 all married, and had fifty-four sons among them, 
 and only one daughter ? 
 
 Owen. The bishop argues, that as one daughter 
 is mentioned, that is a proof that more would have 
 been named if there had been more. 
 
 White. The reason is insufiicient to establish 
 so extraordinary a fact. The rule throughout the 
 East is, and always was, to be silent as to females. 
 Adam, we may be sure, had daughters, yet we have 
 not the name of any one of them. Shem, Ham, and 
 Japheth, had daughters, but only the sons are re- 
 corded. David had daughters (2 Sam. xiii. 18) ; but 
 only one is recorded, because that one figures in 
 history. In like manner Dinah is the only one of 
 Jacob's daughters who is named ; she, too, occa- 
 sioning a catastrophe. But the plain words of 
 Gen. xlvi. 7, decide this question. Jacob went 
 down to Egypt with " his sons, and his sons' sons, 
 his daughters, and his sons' daughters." And it 
 is reasonable to suppose that the general rule held 
 in his case, and that the daughters were about the 
 same in number as the sons. Hence, as 65 sons 
 
THE NU:\rBER OF THE ISRAELITES. 45 
 
 and sons' sons are named, it would be reasonable 
 to estimate the whole family, sons and daughters, 
 with the grandchildren, to have been about 120 or 
 130 in number. Then we must add the servants. 
 
 Oiuen. The bishop gives seven or eight reasons 
 for thinking that Jacob had no servants. 
 
 White. Yes, I know he does; and I never saw 
 a more painful exhibition of a determination to 
 resist plain facts, and to make out his point by 
 any means. He even argues that the sending 
 Joseph alone to seek his brethren was a proof that 
 his father had no servants ; as if Jacob himself had 
 not been sent in the same manner alone to Padan- 
 aram, at the very time when it is declared of Isaac 
 his father, that " he had great store of servants ! " 
 (Gen. xxvi. 14.) But as to Jacob, the Scripture 
 is quite explicit. In Gen. xxx. we read, that 
 "Jacob increased exceedingly, and had much 
 cattle, and maid-servants, and men-servants, and 
 camels and asses." In Gen. xxxv. we are told 
 that he " came to Luz, he and all the people that 
 were with him ;" and at Gen. xlvii. it is said that 
 "Joseph nourished his father and his brethren, 
 and all his father's household." 
 
 Owen. You need hardly say more ; there can 
 be no doubt on this point. What, then, do you 
 estimate the whole number of Jacob's family and 
 "all his household" to have been? 
 
 White. I think that, taking the children of 
 Jacob, and their wives and children, at 130, we 
 shall form a moderate estimate, if we allow them 
 300 or 400 servants ; and so reckon the whole clan 
 or tribe to have been about 500. You will re- 
 member that Jacob's grandfather was able, on one 
 occasion, to arm 318 men-servants; and it is not 
 
46 IS THE BIBLE TRUE ? 
 
 probable that Simeon and Levi stormed and took a 
 city with less than 200 men. 
 
 Owen. No; I think you are not extravagant 
 in your ideas. Do we fix, then, upon 500 as the 
 probable number? 
 
 White. It seems to me a moderate and safe 
 estimate. Take, then, your pencil, and set down 
 500 ; and then work out the sum. Double their 
 numbers every eighteen years (as we just now 
 agreed) until you come to the end of the 215 years. 
 
 Owen. Let me see : — in 216 years there would 
 be just twelve eigh teens. I therefore begin with 
 500; double it in eighteen years; bringing out 
 1000 — (a pause) — Oh ! I make the result, in 216 
 years, just 2,048,000. 
 
 White. Very well ; but remember, we have 
 Joseph's family, the children of Ephraim and Ma- 
 nasseh, to add. However, on the whole, the result 
 appears to be, that beginning with a moderate esti- 
 mate — 500 — and doubling every eighteen years, 
 which is far less than Mr. Malthus would assert 
 to be probable — we find, at the time of the Exodus, 
 a total population of rather more than two millions ; 
 being the very number which the Bishop so confi- 
 dently declared to be " impossible." His words are : 
 
 " It is quite impossible that there should have 
 been such a number of the people of Israel in 
 Egypt at the time of the Exodus, as to have fur- 
 nished 600,000 warriors in the prime of life ; repre- 
 senting at least two millions of persons, of all ages 
 and sexes : that is to say, it is impossible, if we will 
 take the data to be derived from the Pentateuch 
 itself" (page 101). 
 
 Owen. Yes, I remember that passage. But 
 you have taken all your data from the Pentateuch 
 
THE NUMBER OF THE ISRAELITES. 47 
 
 itself ; you have then merely worked the sum upon 
 Malthus's principles, moderately applied ; and the 
 result is, exactly the two millions. I don't see, 
 therefore, that you have left the bishop, in this 
 part of the case, a leg to stand on. 
 
 White. So it seems to me. But the bishop, at 
 this part of his book, adds a short chapter, to show 
 that in some of the details " the results will be yet 
 more extravagant" (page 107). He instances, first, 
 the tribe of Dan, who, in Gen. xlvi., appears to 
 have had only one son. Yet in Num. ii. this 
 tribe is found to have 62,700 ; while the ten sons 
 of Benjamin had only increased to 35,400. 
 
 Owen. Well, what do you say to that ? 
 
 White. I remark, first, that this is not like fic- 
 tion. No concocter of a false story would have 
 acted thus : he would assuredly have given the ten 
 sons of Benjamin a larger mass of descendants than 
 the one son of Dan. 
 
 But, secondly, such things do occur in real life. 
 I remarked, in the newspaper yesterday, the death 
 of an old man recorded, who, at 78 years of age, 
 had 12 children, 65 grand-children, and 12 great- 
 grand-children. I contrasted his case with that of 
 King George III. The king, you know, had 14 
 children, including six remarkably fine and handsome 
 young men. Yet, when he had reached his 78th 
 year, instead of having 65 grandchildren and 12 
 great-grandchildren, his only granddaughter died, 
 and there was a serious alarm lest the family should 
 become extinct. And even now, those six sons of 
 George III. have left behind them only two male 
 descendants. Hence we see how possible it is for 
 a family, which promises great expansion in one ge- 
 neration, to dwindle away in another ; while a 
 
48 IS THE BIBLE TRUE ? 
 
 family which had small hopes, suddenly grows and 
 spreads, and becomes a multitude. 
 
 Owen. But I think the bishop insists upon it, 
 that a growth from 1 to 62,700 is extravagantly 
 impossible, and that the real increase of Dan's male 
 children could only have been from 1 to 27. 
 
 White. Yes ; that is, according to his rule, of 
 four generations and 4| males in each family ; 
 a rule which I have already shown to be 
 absurd. But as to the possibility of Dan's in- 
 crease, in the 215 years, from 1 to 62,700, nothing 
 can be easier than to demonstrate that. There 
 went down to Egypt with Dan, one son, named 
 Hushim ; and as Dan was next to Judah in 
 seniority, he might be 50 or 60 years of age, and 
 his son, 25 or 30. Suppose Hushim to be married 
 to one of his cousins, and a family to spring up 
 around him, only equal to that of the old man 
 of whom I just now spoke. Hushim, 45 or 50 
 years after, would count, with his children and 
 grandchildren, 90 souls. Let the same sort of 
 increase go on, and it is not at all excessive — it is 
 less than took place in Jacob's family — and you 
 would find many more than 62,700 men in 215 
 years. 
 
 Hushim and his wife, married at the beginning 
 of the 215 years at the age of 24, would have 
 increased, in 54 years, to 90 persons, or 45 times. 
 At the end of another 54 years, at the same rate of 
 increase, there would be 4050; and at the end. of 
 the third 54 years there would be 182,250 men, 
 women, and children. Thus, long before the 215 
 years had run out, the number, which Bishop 
 Colenso deems so " extravagantly incredible," would 
 have been attained and largely exceeded. 
 
THE NUMBER OF THE ISRAELITES. '^49 
 
 Owen. The bishop then goes on to the sons of 
 Levi ; but as Levi had three sons, while Dan had 
 only one, it is clearly more probable, on the face of 
 the story, that the Levites should increase to be 
 22,000 in 215 years, than that the Danites should 
 grow in the same time to the larger number of 
 62,700. 
 
 White. Obviously so. And here, F think, we 
 may end this part of the discussion. Surely you 
 cannot but feel that there is no one averment of 
 the bishop touching "the numbers of the children 
 of Israel," which will bear the least investigation. 
 The things which he deems " impossible" are 
 abundantly possible; and as "incredibility" and 
 "impossibility" are his main accusations, I think 
 that we may safely conclude that he has egregiously 
 failed. 
 
 Oilmen. Well, I cannot deny that I am much of 
 that opinion. 
 
50 IS THE BIBLE TRUE 
 
 DIALOGUE VI. 
 
 GENERAL REVIEW. 
 
 Owen. Well, I fancy we must have nearlj 
 come to the end of our argument. What do jou 
 propose that we should take up this evening ? 
 
 White. I think that we may usefully review 
 the whole subject, and ask ourselves, on that re- 
 view, what Bishop Colenso has accomplished by 
 his book. He meant, avowedly, to destroy all 
 belief in the credibility of the books of Moses. 
 Has he succeeded? has he established any one 
 count of his long indictment? 
 
 Given. I cannot say that he has ; but I shall 
 be glad if you will briefly go over the ground 
 which we have traversed in our late conversations. 
 
 WJiite. I shall willingly do so. And first, 
 you will remember, I objected to the course which 
 the bishop had taken, in resorting, so soon as 
 doubts began to harass him, to the critics of 
 Germany for help. I can discover no solid reason 
 for this preference ; on the contrary, in the course 
 of this inquiry I have found, as I should have 
 expected, that good and satisfactory elucidations 
 of all the passages objected to may be met with 
 in English expositors, while among the Germans 
 there are few or none. The significant fact, too, 
 remains to be noticed, that the men in England, 
 who are most fond of appealing to the German 
 critics, are those who evidently desire to get rid 
 
GENEKAL EEVIEW. 6l 
 
 of the authority of the Bible. I believe, indeed, 
 that the diief and most lauded of the German 
 critics are nothing more than a new generation of 
 the Voltaires and Tom Paines of the last century, 
 clothed in a more decent and plausible garb. All 
 this, however, is only preliminary : it concerns not 
 so much the bishop's book, as the way in which 
 he prepared himself for writing it. 
 
 Oiceji. Perhaps you will come, then, to the 
 book itself, and re-state, in a few words, its chief 
 arguments. 
 
 White. The first, you know, was a very trifling 
 affair ; but it claimed some notice, from being put 
 in the very front of the battle ; and as giving 
 proof, at the outset, of the mode in which the 
 bishop meant to conduct the inquiry. It con- 
 cerned two children, Hezron and Hamul, whose 
 names appeared in the list of those who went 
 down to Egypt with Jacob, and who, the bishop 
 argued, could not then have been born. The 
 bishop vaunted this fact, as if the credibility of 
 the Pentateuch was thereby shaken to its very 
 foundation. I suggested two replies : — 
 
 1. That (as in the case of the genealogies in 
 Matt. i. and Luke iii.) the list of Jacob's children 
 was probably a public document, handed down 
 from the time of Jacob and Joseph ; and that if 
 it was compiled about the time of Jacob's death, 
 there would be nothing surprising in the fact that 
 two or three names of children, not born until 
 after the coming into Egypt, had been added. 
 But, — 
 
 2. I remarked that the whole "impossibility" 
 sug ,^ested by the bishop vanished, when it was 
 remarked that Judah, at the time of his going 
 
-53 IS THE BIBLE TRUE ? 
 
 down into Egypt, was, probably, not 42, as Bishop 
 Colenso imagined, but upwards of 60 years of age. 
 •So Dr. Kennicott and Bishop Horsley believed ; 
 and to their views Bishop Colenso has never once 
 :alluded. Yet upon this single fact, passed over 
 without notice by him, the whole question turns. 
 I believe that Jacob was married before he was 60 ; 
 that Judah was born between 60 and 70 years 
 before the going down to Egypt ; and hence that 
 there was no impossibility in the birth of Hezron 
 and Hamul before that migration. But, touching 
 this view of the question. Bishop Colenso says not 
 one word. Clearly, then, he has not shaken my 
 faith at all by his supposed "impossibility" of the 
 birth of these two children. The view which I 
 take, supported by some of the highest names in 
 Biblical literature, is not so much as touched by 
 anything that Bishop Colenso has said. 
 
 Owen. I see that, and do not need any more 
 satisfaction on that point. The next question, I 
 think, concerned some difficulties as to meetings 
 of the Israelites in vast numbers. I do not think 
 you need say much on those points ; for I have 
 recollected m.any cases, in ordinary history, in 
 which large assemblies of whole nations or pro- 
 vinces have been called, and in which it seems to 
 have been taken for granted that those who could 
 find room or get within hearing should represent 
 the whole mass. Thus, " the people of Jerusalem" 
 are often spoken of as dealing with Pilate about 
 Jesus ; yet we know that not so many as five thou- 
 sand of them could have got within sight or hearing 
 of Pilate, or have taken any part in the transaction. 
 The bishop's objections as to the imj^ossibility of 
 assembling the people before the Tabernacle, or of 
 
GENERAL EEVIEW. 53^ 
 
 bringing them within the sound of Moses' voice, 
 appear to me very futile, and unlilvo the language 
 of a man accustomed to common life. 
 
 White. And I must add, that the next class of 
 objections — that of the impossibility of finding 
 food for cattle in the wilderness, and other remarks 
 of the same kind — seem to me to transgress one of 
 Bishop Colenso's own rules. He professes to in- 
 quire, whether the narrative is consistent with 
 itself — whether, on the data given in the Penta- 
 teuch, the story is credible. Yet, in dealing with 
 the special provision made for the Israelites in the 
 wilderness, he constantly leaves out the principal 
 fact — that God, the Almighty Ruler of all things, 
 had promised the Israelites His support, and that 
 the fact of that support having been given, is re- 
 peatedly stated in the Pentateuch itself. Now 
 this fact, thus left out of Bishop Colenso's view, is 
 just the main point of the question. Read over all 
 his " difficulties" and " incredibilities," and you 
 find, in a moment, that the presence and inter- 
 ference of Him who made five loaves sufficient to 
 feed five thousand men, at once removes them all. 
 
 Owen, Yes, I see that without any difficulty. 
 You next spoke, I think, of the great question of 
 whether the children of Israel could have amounted 
 to 600,000 men, or two millions in all, at the time 
 of the Exodus. 
 
 While. On which point I remarked, that the 
 bishop had only reached the point at which he ar- 
 rived by the most arbitrary courses. He first chose 
 to assume that Jacob's sons, eleven in number, had 
 54 sons among them, but only one daughter. He 
 next shut his eyes to several plain statements, that 
 Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, had servants in great 
 
54 IS THE BIBLE TRUE ? 
 
 numbers ; and he took for granted that the 70 per- 
 sons named in Gen. xlvi. were all that went with 
 Jacob down to Egypt. I replied, that Jacob's 
 daughters, and his son's daughters, are distinctly 
 mentioned, and that "great store of* servants" are 
 also spoken of in many places. Hence, I deemed 
 500 persons to be a low estimate of the whole tribe 
 or clan. I then showed from Malthus that a 
 doubling every 15 years was deemed by economists 
 to be possible, but I preferred to allow 18 years for 
 each doubling. This, in 215 years, gave a total 
 of more than two millions of people, the very 
 number which the bishop had described as " im- 
 possible." And so, by the plainest and simplest 
 process, he stood utterly confuted by the facts of 
 the case. What, then, remains to be added ? 
 
 Owen. I hardly require it, and yet I should 
 like you to notice the indignation which the bishop 
 expresses, with reference to the " massacre" of the 
 people of Midian ; which he, rather rashly, com- 
 pares with the massacre of Cawnpore. 
 
 White. Such remarks are more than rash; — 
 they are daringly profane. The awful judgments 
 executed upon the Canaanites, Midianites, &c., do 
 ■not stand alone ; and no one gains anything by 
 disbelieving or censuring those judgments, unless 
 he can, at the same time, contrive to disbelieve a 
 large part of history. What of Sodom and Go- 
 morrah ? Was the sacrifice of life in that case 
 less than in the extermination of the Midianites ? 
 Or will Bishop Colenso deny to God the right of 
 judging and punishing such flagrant cases of wick- 
 edness? Again, if the bishop disposes of both 
 these cases by simply rejecting the whole Penta- 
 teuch as a romance and a fable, what will he do 
 
GEKERAL EEVIEW. 5'5 
 
 with the destruction of 70,000 of the people of 
 Israel, as a punishment for David's vanity? or the 
 *' massacre," if he likes to call it so, of 185,000 As- 
 syrians, as recorded in 2 Kings xix ? 
 
 Oiuen. Perhaps he will say that he rejects and 
 disbelieves all these statements, because he deems 
 them opposed to his notions of the goodness of God. 
 
 White. Very well; but that answer does not 
 end the difficulty. He must come lower down, 
 even to times when "legends" and "forgeries" 
 hardly passed as history. Will he disbelieve Jo- 
 sephus, confirmed as he is by many other writers ? 
 Will he question the fact, that Jerusalem was de- 
 stroyed ; that, by a wonderful concurrence of cir- 
 cumstances, the Romans were forced, against their 
 will, to "lay it even with the ground," and to put 
 to death, in the most severe and cruel way, more 
 than eleven hundred thousand of the Jewish peo- 
 ple ? Can he shut his eyes to the many predictions 
 of these events by Moses, Daniel, and by the Lord 
 Himself? or can he doubt, that God was the over- 
 ruling cause of all these judgments, and inflicted 
 them righteously ? What end, then, can it answer, 
 to find fault with the lesser instances of the same 
 kind, or to disbelieve, merely because he chooses to 
 disbelieve, what he calls the " massacre" of Midian; 
 while far greater punishments, of exactly the same 
 kind, remain on record, which it is impossible to 
 doubt or deny ? The truth is, that all these ques- 
 tionings arise from the determination of wilful men 
 to imagine a God who is " such an one as them- 
 selves." The plain declarations of His own word 
 they cannot bear. Peter spoke with plainness and 
 certainty when he said, — 
 
 " God spared not the angels that sinned, but 
 
5'6' IS THE BIBLE TKUE ? 
 
 cast them clown to hell, and delivered them into 
 chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment : 
 He spared not the old world, but brought in the 
 flood upon the world of the ungodly : He turned 
 the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, mak- 
 ing them an example to those who lived in ungod- 
 liness." Here is one of the latest declarations of 
 one of Christ's own apostles; and warnings of similar 
 judgments are given, in the very last page of the 
 Bible, by " the disciple whom Jesus loved." And 
 if a man receives the testimony of Peter and John, 
 he will gain nothing by refusing that of Moses. If 
 he rejects them all, let him not insult the common 
 sense of mankind by calling himself a Christian. 
 
 Owen. Well, I admit this also ; for I see that 
 the facts are mighty, and I dare not attempt to 
 
 " Re-judge His judgments — be the God of God." 
 
 I know that " He giveth no account of any of His 
 matters;" and I feel that for me to attempt to deal 
 with such "high things" would be the extremest 
 folly. But did you observe the bishop's remarks 
 on a passage in Exod. xxi., concerning slavery ? 
 He says, I think, of a Zulu, who was translating 
 the Bible with him, that " his whole soul revolted 
 against the notion, that the Merciful Father of all 
 mankind would speak of a servant or maid as mere 
 * money,' and allow a horrible crime to go un- 
 punished, because the victim had survived a few 
 hours." He adds, "My own heart and conscience 
 fully sympathised with his " (p. 9). 
 
 White. I did ; and I confess that I read those 
 remarks with terror, when I thought of the guilt 
 and remorse which the writer was heaping up for 
 his own soul. 
 
GENERAL REVIEW. 57 
 
 Owen. You think them more than ordinarily 
 criminal, then ? 
 
 White. Assuredly I do. A bishop, or indeed 
 any one who had received any sort of theological 
 education, ought to have known better than to have 
 ventured such remarks. Just as rationally might 
 he have cited Abraham's two wives, or Jacob's, 
 or any other feature of patriarchal or idolatrous 
 times. 
 
 Owen. How do you regard the injunction in 
 Exod. xxi. then ? 
 
 White. Properly to understand it, you must look 
 at the state of the world, and of mankind generally, 
 at the time. In Abraham's day, there was no 
 written word of God, or visible Church. Men had 
 gradually declined, as at the first, and both poly- 
 gamy and slavery were in common and, probably, 
 general use. God purposed, by gradual revelations 
 of Himself, to build up a Church, and by that 
 Church to purify mankind. Christianity, His 
 work, which was foreshadowed in Abraham, has 
 driven both of these evil practices out of large por- 
 tions of the earth. But in the days of the patriarchs 
 this work was only commencing. When Abraham 
 and Jacob and Moses lived, slavery was universally 
 practised. Our Lord tells us that divorce was 
 allowed to the Israelites for a time, " because of the 
 hardness of their hearts." So, had the keeping of 
 slaves been suddenly prohibited, it would have 
 been a putting new wine into old bottles, which 
 would have caused only destruction. Dealing 
 gently with them, God gave, by Moses, only regu- 
 lative laws. He did not command them suddenly 
 to free all their slaves. Had he done so, general 
 disobedience would probably have been the result. 
 
5"8 IS THE BIBLE TRUE ? 
 
 But he led them to regard their bought-servants as 
 fellow-creatures. He threw the protection of law 
 around them. As for the expression at which the 
 bishop declares himself to have been so greatly 
 shocked .... 
 
 Owen. "For he is his money" .... 
 
 White. It is merely tantamount to saying, "The 
 master has already suffered some punishment, for 
 he has lost his own property." The words " money " 
 and " property," you know, are often used for each 
 other. Of a man of large property you say, " He 
 has plenty of money," although, probably, he may 
 have very little coin in his possession. To say of 
 a slave, or bought-servant, " He is such an one's 
 property," startles no one. But the bishop finds 
 the words, " for he is his money," and he professes 
 to be terribly shocked. This is either cant or 
 effeminacy. Any man of plain common sense must 
 see, that if a general manumission was not to be 
 ordered, the slaves or bond-servants must remain 
 the property, the possession, of those who had 
 bought and paid for them. The laws of Moses 
 were designed to protect them, and nothing more. 
 Bishop Colenso could scarcely have professed him- 
 self • shocked or startled if the phrase used had 
 been, " He has suffered the loss of what was his 
 property." And to be so revolted merely at the 
 use of the word "money" instead of "property" is 
 scarcely like a man. Have you any other question ? 
 
 Owen. Only, I should like to hear what you 
 thought of the bishop's concluding remarks. 
 
 White. I suppose you mean those pages in 
 which he suggests that, " in order to avert the 
 shock which our children's faith must otherwise 
 experience when they find, as they certainly will 
 
GENERAL REVIEW. 1^9 
 
 before long, that the Bible can no longer be re- 
 garded as infallibly true in matters of common his- 
 tory," (p. 152), we should "teach them at once to 
 know that they are not to look for the inspiration 
 of the Holy One" "in respect of such matters as 
 these, which the writers wrote as men, with the 
 same liability to error as other men," but " in that 
 of which their own hearts alone can be the judges," 
 *'in that which speaks to the witness for God 
 within them." 
 
 Owen. Yes, I remember those words — that is 
 the passage which I mean. What do you say to it ? 
 
 White. You know we talked of this, when we 
 were considering the Essays and Revieivs. It 
 simply brings us to the point where Rousseau, and 
 Hume, and Voltaire, and Thomas Paine, all stood. 
 All these men, and all their followers, were quite 
 willing to admit that there was a God, and that 
 there were fine and noble passages in the Bible. 
 But they all claimed, just what Bishop Colenso 
 claims, an absolute right to deal with the Bible as 
 judges and arbiters — to take what they pleased, 
 and to reject what they pleased ; assigning no other 
 reason than this, that one part commended itself to 
 their hearts, and another part did not. In Bishop 
 Colenso's view, the heart of man is to be the sole 
 judge of the truth and value of every single pas- 
 sage of the Bible. How would he deal, then, with 
 such passages as these ? — 
 
 " God saw that the wickedness of man was 
 great in the earth, and that every imagination of 
 the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually" 
 (Gen. vi. 5). God said, "The imagination of 
 man's heart is evil from his youth" (Gen. viii. 21). 
 " The heart of the sons of men is fully set in 
 
60 IS THE BIBLE TRUE ? 
 
 them to do evil" (Eccles. viii. 11). "The heart 
 is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; 
 who can know it ? I the Lord search the heart, I 
 try the reins " ( Jer. xvii. 9, 1 0). " Out of the heart 
 proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornica- 
 tions, thefts, false witness, blasphemies" (Matt. xv. 
 19). 
 
 These plain and distinct declarations of the 
 character of the heart of man — several of which 
 are put into the mouth of God himself — must 
 either be believed or disbelieved. If the bishop 
 accepts and gives credit to them, what can be 
 more absurd, than to make a wicked, deceitful, and 
 treacherous heart, the sole arbiter of the fitness 
 and validity of Scripture declarations ? But if, on 
 the other hand, he rejects and discredits them, then 
 he is in this strange position, that he still speaks 
 of the Bible as a message from God, and assures us 
 that "the Holy Spirit speaks to us in the Bible," 
 and yet, at the same time, he maintains that this 
 Book bears false witness, both of man, and also 
 of God ! What folly can go beyond this ? " Doth 
 a fountain," asks St. James, "send forth at the 
 same place sweet water and bitter ? Can a fig- 
 tree bear olive-berries, or a vine, figs?" A book 
 stuffed with falsehoods, and yet inspired by the 
 Spirit of God, is the account given of the Bible by 
 Bishop Colenso ! 
 
 Owen. But you say that a great number of 
 celebrated men, Rousseau, Hume, &c. &c., have 
 adopted this view ; that the Bible is inspired, and 
 yet that it is not all true : do you remember 
 whether any number of them have ever agreed as 
 to what portions of the Bible are inspired, and 
 what are false ? 
 
GENEEAL EEVIEW. '61 
 
 White. Agree! the thing is impossible ; it is 
 intrinsically absurd. One of these men — Eous- 
 seau or Theodore Parker — will declare the cha- 
 racter of Christ to be superhuman ; to be resplend- 
 ently divine. Another, F. W. Newman, will 
 audaciously declare, that the same character is 
 faulty and defective, and that various grave errors 
 and misdoings are to be detected in it. Some of 
 these '' pickers and choosers" delight in St. John's 
 Gospel, and think that it alone fairly represents 
 the Saviour : others (as in the Essays and Reviews) 
 prefer the first three Evangelists ; and reject the 
 portrait drawn by St. John. There is no end to 
 these contrarieties. A Southern American glories 
 in those passages of the Old and New Testament 
 which recognise slavery ; a Northern would strike 
 them out of the Bible. Assemble even so few as 
 a dozen of these men who are for making the heart 
 of man the supreme judge, and desire them to 
 go through the Bible, and divide the true from 
 the false ; you would be sure of a dozen different 
 verdicts. Truth, in fact, is one; but error is 
 multifarious. 
 
 Owen. The bishop, however, seems to wish to 
 show, in his closing pages, that there is One Faith, 
 one general consent, in which, according to him, 
 Cicero, the Sikh Gooroos, and the Brahmins of 
 Bengal, all concur ; and which to him (the bishop) 
 seems " noble," holy," " heavenly," "almost divine." 
 
 White. Oh ! yes ; I know he does ; and you 
 can tell me, without any difficulty, what kind of a 
 faith, what kind of a religion, that is. You have 
 read over those passages, I suppose, which the 
 bishop quotes from these heathen writers; and you 
 can tell me what impression you received from them. 
 
6^2 IS THE BIBLE TRUE ? 
 
 Owen. Well, certainly, to my mind, they con- 
 tained nothing more than mere Deism. I felt, that 
 if in these passages we had, indeed, the teaching 
 of the Spirit of God, as Bishop Colenso supposes, 
 then it must be difficult to understand why Christ 
 ever visited this earth, or died upon the Cross. 
 If Deism is the truth of God, and " contains ail 
 things necessary to salvation," then Christianity 
 is wholly a mistake ; an Established Church an 
 absurdity ; and a bishop of that Church, sent from 
 England to the Zulus, the most preposterous thing 
 that can be imagined. 
 
 White. You remember especially his quotation 
 from Cicero ? 
 
 Owen. Oh, yes ! have you got it with you ? 
 
 White. Yes, it begins : — 
 
 " Law, properly understood, is no other than 
 right reason, agreeing with nature, spread abroad 
 among all men, ever consistent with itself, eternal, 
 whose office is to summon to duty by its com- 
 mands, to deter from vice by its prohibitions." 
 
 And it ends, — 
 
 " There will be one common Master, as it 
 were, and Ruler of all, namely, God, the great 
 Originator, Expositor, Enactor, of this Law ; which 
 Law, whoever will not obey, will be flying from 
 himself; and, having treated with contempt his 
 human nature, will in that very fact pay the 
 greatest penalty, even if he shall have escaped other 
 punishments, as they are commonly considered." 
 
 Owen. Yes ; and I think that the bishop quotes 
 from Lactantius the opinion, that Cicero here 
 " depicts that holy, heavenly Law, with a voice 
 almost divine ;" and that he speaks by some kind 
 of " Lispiration." 
 
GENEB^iL EEVIEW. 9b 
 
 White. Yet there is not one word in this pas- 
 sage from Cicero which goes beyond mere Deism ; 
 is there ? 
 
 Owen. No ; I observed that. 
 
 mdte. And you cannot but be aware that 
 Deism is the most cold, dead, inoperative thing in 
 the world. Other faiths have wrought wonders, — 
 that of Mahomet, in overrunning and conquering 
 the world ; that of Christ, in civilising and saving 
 it. But Deism is a mere lifeless theory. The 
 Christians of England, as I have said, raise among 
 themselves at least half a million of money every 
 year, to send men to teach the heathen Christ- 
 ianity; and some considerable results have already 
 followed their efforts. New Zealand has been al- 
 most wholly won to Christianity and civilisation. 
 Of the islands of the Pacific, many have been gained; 
 and in South Africa and West Africa, in Burmah, 
 India, and Madagascar, converts have been gained 
 by tens of thousands. But did you ever hear of a 
 Deist missionary, or of a society to propagate 
 Deism ? Do not Deists generally treat their belief 
 as an hypothesis, a mere theory, touching which 
 they feel no certainty, and which excites too little 
 interest in their hearts to induce them to spend a 
 single guinea in its propagation? 
 
 Owen. Well, I cannot say that I ever saw a 
 Deist who seemed to feel much interest in the 
 matter. 
 
 White. How, indeed, should he! for what are 
 the hopes or fears of Deism ? That same Cicero, 
 whose language concerning law Bishop Colenso 
 quotes with so great delight, as if he would say, 
 "What can any one want more?" — that same 
 Cicero, writing to his friend Titius concerning the 
 
64 IS THE BIBLE TRUE ? 
 
 life to come, has nothing better to offer than 
 this : — 
 
 " Death cannot be considered as an evil ; be- 
 cause, if any consciousness remains after our dis- 
 solution, it is rather an entrance into immortality 
 than an extinction of life ; and if none remains, 
 there can be no misery where there is no sensi- 
 bility." He adds, that " he who has made his exit 
 from a scene where such dreadful confusion pre- 
 vails, cannot possibly be a loser by the exchange.' 
 So that the present life, argues this great Roman, 
 is a scene of confusion ; and to escape from it is 
 something. What is to follow, he cannot tell ; it 
 may be annihilation, it may be immortality. If 
 man, after death, is annihilated, he will feel no 
 sorrow or pain : if he still lives, why, that will be 
 immortality ; though whether of bliss or woe, 
 Cicero knows not. Such is the state and such the 
 prospects upon which Bishop Colenso would drive 
 us back. He has been told, in God's word, that 
 " Life and immortality are brought to light by the 
 Gospel." He has heard, hundreds of times, that 
 " Christ died for our sins, according to the Scrip- 
 tures ; and that He was buried, and rose again from 
 the dead ;" and that "because He liveth, we shall 
 live also." All this, however, he seems willing to 
 give up, and to fall back upon Cicero's faith, or 
 rather uncertainty, and upon Cicero's hope, of 
 either annihilation or some sort of immortality ! 
 
 Oicen. Yes, I remember, I think, that this was 
 the last point you urged against the authors of the 
 Essays and Reviews. In fact, I suppose that it 
 necessarily results from quitting the foundation of 
 Holy Scripture. 
 
 White. Unquestionably it does ; for, after all, 
 
GENEEAL REVIEW. 65 
 
 the main point of the whole controversy is this : 
 Have we a revehition from God ? In a worJ, " Is 
 the Bible true?" 
 
 Oweji. Well, I think that the bishop, in one or 
 two places, seems to favour this belief. I re- 
 member that he calls the Bible, in one place, " that 
 book of Truth;" and in another he says, that it 
 "contains a message of God to our souls." 
 
 White. Oh, yes ! I remember those expres- 
 sions ; but I can only exonerate the bishop from 
 the charge of wilful deception in using them, by 
 supposing that he has contrived completely to de- 
 ceive himself. His book is written and published 
 with the avowed purpose of destroying our belief 
 in the Bible : and then, in the last chapter, he 
 volunteers some empty compliments, which sound 
 like the " Hail, Master ! " of Judas, while he was 
 in the act of betraying Christ. 
 
 Oiven. But why should you say that he de- 
 sires to destroy our faith in the Bible, when at 
 present, at least, he has merely questioned the 
 truth of the Pentateuch? 
 
 White. I might reply by asking you. What 
 trust you think the simplest Sunday- scholar would 
 put in the Bible, when he had learnt that the first 
 five books in the volume were discovered to be 
 groundless and incredible fictions? But it is not 
 true that the bishop attacks the Pentateuch only. 
 In his last chapter — that same chapter in which 
 he calls the Bible "that book of truth" — he 
 plainly asserts, " that the Bible can no longer be 
 regarded as infallibly true in matters of common 
 history." Now you know that these " matters of 
 common history" occupy more than one half of the 
 Bible. And accordingly, when other historical 
 
 F 
 
66 IS THE BIBLE TEUE ? 
 
 books, such as the Chronicles, stand in the bishop's 
 way, he dismisses them at once, as "unreliable." 
 And when our Lord himself speaks of the Penta- 
 teuch as written by Moses, the bishop at once dis- 
 believes Him, asking, '• Why it should be thought 
 that He would speak with certain Divine knowledge 
 on this matter, more than upon other matters of 
 ordinary science or history?" 
 
 Owe7i. Well, I suppose, then, that the bishop 
 really means to say, that there is not a fact re- 
 corded in the Bible which we ought to believe as 
 certainly true, merely because the Bible states it ? 
 
 White. Unquestionably that is the plain mean- 
 ing of his assertion, " that the Bible can no longer 
 be regarded as infallibly true in matters of com- 
 mon history." It is also the general drift of his 
 book. He will not believe that the children of 
 Israel possessed and supported large flocks and 
 herds in the wilderness, because he cannot under- 
 stand how, in a wilderness, this could be done. 
 If he had been scrutinizing the Gospels, he ought, 
 to be consistent, to have disbelieved the feeding 
 five thousand men with five loaves, for the very 
 same reason. But, in short, you have stated the 
 case correctly. If " the Bible is not to be re- 
 garded as true in matters of common history," 
 then it follows of necessity that every single fact, 
 on which Christianity is based, is uncertain and 
 unreliable. 
 
 Owen. Yes, I see that the bishop, in using this 
 general form of expression, does, in fact, question 
 all Scripture as a history. 
 
 White. Surely, for if he deals with the Gospels 
 in the same spirit, he must discredit the miraculous 
 birth of Christ, most or all of His miracles, and 
 
GENEEAL REVIEW. 67 
 
 His resurrection and ascension. Every one of these 
 facts is quite as "incredible" as the Exodus of the 
 Israelites, or their passage through the wilderness ; 
 a history which the bishop utterly rejects, merely 
 because he cannot understand the modus operandi, 
 or reconcile it with the experience of common 
 life. 
 
 Oioen. But what, then, is the "message from 
 God," which he thinks the Bible contains ? 
 
 White. So far as I can see, he deems it to be 
 " The Name of God;" " I AM;" " Jehovah ;" " the 
 Living God;" the " name of Him," "in Whom we 
 live, and move, and have our being;" " upon Whom 
 the whole universe depends" (page 154). 
 
 Owen, Yes, I remember, that is the one doctrine 
 which he finds in the passages which he quotes 
 from the Sikhs and the Brahmins. He seems to 
 regard Deism as the essential truth of religion. 
 
 White. Yes ; and I have already remarked that 
 it is a dead, cold creed, leading to nothing, but 
 altogether fruitless and unprofitable. I should 
 also like to ask. How the bishop proposes to rest 
 this doctrine upon, or to prove this doctrine by, a 
 book, or five books, which he stigmatises as a col- 
 lection of incredible fictions ? If these books, pub- 
 lished as the writings of Moses, never were written 
 by Moses, but were a mere fraud, practised upon 
 the Israelites some centuries after; if the history 
 they relate is intrinsically incredible, and in all 
 its parts untrue ; how can the bishop, with the least 
 show of reason, pick out from the midst of all these 
 falsehoods a single verse or passage, and call it 
 " a message of God to our souls ?" Did you ever 
 hear of a more absurd proceeding ? Here is a 
 certain document, the Bible, which men have been 
 
68 IS THE BIBLE TRUE ? 
 
 accustomed to regard as the word of God. They 
 gave it implicit belief, because thej took it to be 
 Crod's word. But Bishop Colenso takes up the 
 first five books, and soon declares them to be in- 
 credible fictions. Yet at the very same moment he 
 selects a passage from Exodus, which he declares 
 to be a " message from God." If we ask, Why ? 
 the answer is, that " the spirit's eyes," seeing these 
 truths, " recognises them as eternal verities." We 
 are not to believe them on the ground that God 
 spake by Moses, but because our own spirit recog- 
 nises these truths as eternal realities. But are 
 men's spirits, then, generally in agreement on this, 
 or any other point in theology ? If God had, in- 
 deed, given to man's spirit, universally, a conviction 
 of His Unity, how came the wise and enlightened 
 Greeks and Romans to fall into polytheism ? If 
 He had not given them such a conviction, but 
 judged it necessary to reveal this great truth in 
 the Bible, why did He permit it to be mingled with 
 a heap of "incredible" stories? In short, if the 
 Bible be not true — be not, throughout, a Divine 
 Revelation, how can any doctrine be established 
 by it ? Of old legends and romances we have 
 plenty ; but did any rational man ever commit 
 such an absurdity, as to attempt to prove a great 
 Truth by the testimony of a book which he at the 
 same time declares to be, itself, Untrue? After 
 all, however, the most strange and most melancholy 
 part of the whole business, is the deliberate soul- 
 suicide which the poor bishop seems bent upon 
 committing. And the more credit we give him for 
 sincerity and earnestness in his mission to the 
 Zulus, the more sad does his resolved rejection of 
 the Bible appear. 
 
GENEEAL REVIEW. 69 
 
 Oweti. Would you call it a "rejection" of the 
 Bible ? 
 
 White. What else can I call it ? I know in- 
 deed that he speaks, again and again, of the Bible 
 as containing " a message from God." But if you 
 ask him to show you, or to define that message, 
 it comes at last to this, that such things in the 
 Bible as he likes, he receives as Divine, and such 
 things as he does not like, he rejects as Human. 
 Now this is, after all, tantamount to a rejection of 
 the document itself. Its authority, as the word 
 of God, is denied. It would be useless for me to 
 quote any one passage from it, as the utterance of 
 the Holy Spirit : if that passage did not suit the 
 taste of the bishop, he would immediately reject 
 it. This I term a rejection of the Bible ; and its 
 effect is nothing short of soul- suicide. 
 
 Oicen. That is a strong term ; but I suppose 
 you mean, that without the salvation revealed in 
 God's word, man is without hope ; and hence that 
 for a man to try to disprove the truth of the Bible, 
 is to strive to cut himself off from the only pro- 
 spect of life, and joy, and blessedness ? 
 
 White. Just so. I will give you one faint 
 similitude. Imagine a poor foundling, brought 
 up in neglect and poverty, ignorant of his own 
 origin, and quite without hope as to the future. 
 Suppose, then, a stranger comes to him, and says, 
 " I am sent to search you out. I bring you the 
 best tidings. You are the heir of a princely rank 
 and estate. Come with me, and I will place you 
 among the highest and the wealthiest of the land." 
 Now, that the poor outcast should at first deem 
 these tidings too vast, too glorious to be true, I can 
 understand. That he should ask to be shown 
 Boipe proof of the truth of this intelligence is, 
 
70 IS THE BIBLE TEUE ? 
 
 natural. But that when wills, and registries, and 
 proofs of descent are laid before him, and when he 
 finds that men of deep learning and high intellect 
 have pronounced in favour of the genuineness of 
 these documents, — that he should still resolve not 
 to believe, would surely be strange. But if he 
 began to argue strenuously, and to show a deter- 
 mination not to believe, and even to reason un- 
 fairly and partially against himself, — would not 
 men say, that here was a sort of madness not often 
 to be found, — a determination to prefer poverty 
 and degradation to wealth and honour, which was 
 very near akin to lunacy itself? 
 
 Owen. Yes ; but do you mean to say that this 
 is the bishop's case? 
 
 White. I mean to say, that the simile presents 
 only a very faint idea of the poor bishop's delusion 
 and self-destruction. First, consider where, by 
 nature, he finds himself. Let me describe this in 
 the words of Pascal ; a man as much greater than 
 Colenso, as Colenso is greater than a poor ignorant 
 Zulu. Pascal says: — 
 
 " When I see the blindness and wretchedness 
 of man, and the astonishing contrarieties of his 
 nature; when I behold the universe silent, and 
 man without light, abandoned to himself, and lost, 
 as it were, in this corner of the universe, without 
 knowing who has placed him there, or what he is 
 come to do, or what will become of him after death ; 
 I feel panic- struck, like a man that might have 
 been carried asleep to some desert island, and 
 wake without knowing where he is, and without 
 ny means of escaping from it." 
 
 Such is this great philosopher's picture of man 
 without the Bible. 
 
 Now let me show you man with the Bible, in 
 
GENERAL REVIEW. 71 
 
 the person of a Fellow of Bishop Colenso's own 
 college, the admirable Heniy Martyn. Marty n 
 was seized, in India, in the midst of his labours, 
 with one of those sudden attacks which, in that 
 country, so frequently carry men off in a few hours. 
 In his journal he writes: — " This morning, while 
 getting up, I found a pain in the centre of my body, 
 which increased to such a degree, that fever and 
 vertigo came on, and I fainted. After recovering 
 my senses, and lying in pain which made me 
 almost breathless, I turned my thoughts to God, 
 and, praise to His grace and love, I felt no fear. 
 By means of some ether, the Lord gave me ease, 
 and I made my will. The day was spent in great 
 weakness, but my heart was often filled with the 
 sweetest peace and gratitude for the precious things 
 God had done for me. O God of love ! how shall 
 I praise thee ? Happiness, bliss for ever, lies 
 before me. Thou hast brought me upon this 
 stage of life to see what sin and misery are : my- 
 self, alas ! most deeply partaking in both. But 
 the days and works of my former state, fraught 
 with danger and with death, are no more, and the 
 God of benevolence and love hath opened to me 
 brighter prospects. Thine I am. ' My beloved 
 is mine, and I am His,' and now I want none but 
 Thee. I am alone with Thee in this world ; and 
 after death I shall be still with Thee ; not to re- 
 ceive honour, but to ascribe praise. I shall then, 
 without intermission, see and love ; and no cloud 
 of sorrow overcast my mind. I shall then sing, 
 in everlasting strains, the praises of that Divine 
 Redeemer, whose works of love now reach beyond 
 my conception." Now here we find, in the soul 
 of a man of learning and science, a settled peace 
 
72 IS THE BIBLE TRUE ? 
 
 and joy in the prospect of death. Upon what 
 did that happiness and comfort rest ? Unquestion- 
 ably, upon God's revelation of Himself in His own 
 word. If you could have deprived Martyn of his 
 belief in the truth and certainty of the Bible 
 history, you would have thrown him back into the 
 mental darkness which Pascal had described. He 
 would have been " without hope, and without God 
 in the world." It was the full and firm conviction 
 which he felt of the truth of the Bible which filled 
 him with this "joy and peace in believing." 
 
 Owen. Perhaps the bishop will say, that this 
 was enthusiasm. 
 
 White. He has said many other absurd and 
 untrue things, and may add this to the number, if 
 he pleases. But there never was a character more 
 free from enthusiasm than that of Henry Martyn. 
 The Senior Wrangler of his year, far better known 
 as a sound reasoner than ever Bishop Colenso 
 was, or will be, Martyn believed nothing merely 
 because he liked it. All the old doubts and difii- 
 culties about the Bible, ,Avhich Bishop Colenso has 
 hashed up for the five hundredth time, had been 
 examined by him, and found wanting. He gave 
 his life, and everything he had to give, to the one 
 work of spreading the truth of God, as declared in 
 the Bible. But, as to enthusiasm — commend me 
 to Bishop Colenso, who, with the history of the 
 last eighteen hundred years before him, and with 
 the recorded failures of a long line of sceptics, 
 vastly superior in skill and learning to himself — 
 rushes back to England, to fire ofi" his paper pellet 
 against the Bible, and evidently imagines, that after 
 surviving all those attacks, the Light of Life is 
 going to be extinguished, in this year 1863, by 
 
GENERAL REVIEW. 7^ 
 
 his wretched guesses and blunderings about the 
 Pentateuch ! 
 
 Owen. But do you not speak too harshly of 
 him, as one wishing to extinguish the Light of 
 Life? 
 
 White. I think not: I judge merely of the 
 plain fact before me. The statements, the allega- 
 tions of the bishop, touching Holy Scripture, are, 
 as coming from a man who has taken the vows of 
 a presbyter and bishop, of an awful character. 
 They diametrically oppose and contradict the plain 
 averments of Christ and His Apostles. St. Paul 
 spoke of it as the chief privilege of the Jews, that 
 " unto them were committed the oracles of God." 
 He calls the written word, "the sword of the Spirit." 
 He declares that " all Scripture is given by in- 
 spiration of God." St. Peter, citing a psalm, said, 
 that "the Holy Ghost spake by the mouth of 
 David." In his epistles he declares, in the plainest 
 terms, of Scripture, that " holy men of God spake 
 as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." Christ 
 Himself again and again referred to Moses and 
 his writings ; and in his latest teaching, after His 
 resurrection. He told His disciples that " all things 
 must be fulfilled which were written in the law of 
 Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms, 
 concerning Him." Now, in the face of this, call 
 to mind what Bishop Colenso hath said. 
 
 Owen. He has said, that Moses wrote none of 
 these books. He has said that they must have 
 been written long after Moses' day, by some un- 
 known scribe. He has said, that the books said 
 to be written by Moses, are full of monstrous and 
 incredible fictions. He has said, that in five or 
 six different cases, in which the writer puts words 
 
Ki IS THE BIBLE TEUE ? 
 
 into the mouth of God, it is quite impossible that 
 God could ever have said anything of tlie kind. 
 
 White. Stop ; that is quite enough. Do you not 
 see the fearful character of the position he has 
 taken ? The Apostles, and their Master, all agree 
 in regarding the Bible as "the Scriptures of Truth," 
 "the oracles of God," "the word of God," the 
 fruit of the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. He, 
 on the other hand, represents it as stuffed with 
 untruths. Now, let us suppose for a moment, that 
 St. Peter and St. Paul were right, and that Bishop 
 Colenso is wrong. Surely this must be admitted 
 to be at least possible. But if it should turn out 
 to be so, can you imagine anything more sad or 
 more alarming, that the position of the man who, 
 with such vows upon him, has thus spoken of the 
 work of the Holy Ghost ? 
 
 Oiven. I see the solemn nature of the question. 
 Let us hope, that as the bishop has taken up these 
 views hastily, he may, after some longer considera- 
 tion, repent of the evil which he has done, and 
 strive to recal it as far as possible. 
 
 White. Amen! In such a hope I can very 
 cordially unite. 
 
THE TESTIMONY OF GEOLOGY TO THE 
 - TRUTH OF THE BIBLE. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. The Age of the World . . .77 
 II. " Without Form, and Void " . .85 
 
 III. " The First Day " .... 92 
 
 IV. The Creation of Man ... 99 
 V. The End of this Dispensation . 109 
 
 VI. The New Heavens and New Earth . 1]4 
 
 VII. Creation a Fact and a Miracle . 122 
 
 VIII. Conclusion 131 
 
THE TESTIMONY OF GEOLOGY. 
 
 DIALOGUE T. 
 
 THE AGE OF THE WORLD, 
 
 Owen. Ah ! James, is that you ? I suppose you 
 are bound, as usual, for St. John's. Well, our road 
 is the same for nearly a mile, so we may have time 
 for a little conversation as we go. Upon what were 
 your thoughts employed when I came up with you? 
 
 White. I had been pondering, as I walked 
 along, the various confirmations which have been 
 supplied, by recent geological inquiries, of the 
 Mosaic account of the Creation. I had taken up 
 the first chapter of Genesis this morning, and thus 
 my mind was naturally led to the consideration of 
 that subject. 
 
 Owen. Confirmations of the Mosaic account ! 
 Why, I thought that the fact was altogether of an 
 opposite kind. I know many good people who 
 have been greatly alarmed of late by the progress 
 of geology ; fearing that men's belief in the books 
 of Moses would be shaken, or even overthrown ; 
 and knowing that the histories of Adam, Noah, 
 and Abraham all rest upon his authority, and that 
 the very fact of the Fall itself becomes a mere tra- 
 dition, a doubtful story, the moment our trust in 
 the Mosaic history is destroyed. 
 
 White. Yes, I am aware of all this — that is, I 
 am aware that such a feeling of apprehension does 
 
78 THE TESTIMONY OF GEOLOGY 
 
 exist; but I believe that the alarm is utterly 
 groundless. It seems to me that the support which 
 geology has been made to give to the Scripture 
 narrative of man's creation, and of the preparation 
 of the earth for his dwelling-place, is something 
 quite marvellous. 
 
 Owen. Well, you rather surprise me. But I 
 believe you have given some thought to these 
 questions, and I shall be glad if you will explain 
 to me these testimonies of geology to the truth of 
 Scripture which have so struck your own mind. 
 
 White. I shall very willingly try to do so ; but 
 our present brief walk will scarcely give us time 
 even for an opening of the subject. However, let 
 us take the very first sentence in Genesis ; that 
 will supply us with matter enough for this morn- 
 ing's walk. 
 
 Owe7i. " In the beginning God created the 
 heaven and the earth." I know that geology alters 
 our view of this verse. Formerly, men supposed 
 that this magnificent act of God took place about 
 5800 years ago ; and they had two vague ideas : 
 Eternity, the meaning of which was too vast to be 
 comprehended ; and Time, which began, they sup- 
 posed, not quite 6000 years ago. But now, geo- 
 logists tell us that fish swam in our oceans millions 
 of years ago, and that birds flew over the face of 
 the earth hundreds of thousands of years before 
 Adam was created. But how do these discoveries 
 tend to the confirmation of the Mosaic narrative? 
 
 White. Nay, I do not limit my view to the first 
 chapter of Genesis merely. But I am inclined to 
 say, that the geological interpretation of these 
 words, " In the beginning," which removes that 
 " beginning" to some millions of years before 
 
TO THE TKUTH OF THE BIBLE. 79 
 
 Adam's day, is more consonant to the general tone 
 and purport of Scripture, with reference to ques- 
 tions of duration, than the narrow view which was 
 current until within the last fifty years. Reduce 
 the whole measurement of Time to a mere 6000 
 years, and you must " accommodate," or explain 
 away, many explicit declarations of Scripture. 
 " Behold, I come quickly," said the Lord himself. 
 " Yet a little while," said St. Paul, " and He will 
 come." " The coming of the Lord draweth nigh," 
 said St. James. Now, measured by a standard 
 whose maximum is 6000 years, these expressions 
 are hardly defensible. So, agiin, when a whole 
 lifetime of seventy years is called " a handbreadth," 
 and the passing over of a shadow, — as ''a vapour 
 that appeareth for a little while, and then vanisheth 
 away" — the language appears strained and hyper- 
 bolical, when we remember that seventy years is 
 one-sixtieth part of the whole duration of the 
 earth since the Flood. 
 
 But how exactly true are all these expressions, 
 the moment we enlarge our view as geology teaches 
 us to enlarge it ! An angel looks down upon this 
 earth, and sees it revolving round the sun for 
 many long millions of years. He remarks its Palaeo- 
 zoic period, its Secondary, its Tertiary ; for either 
 of which, geology insists, a million of years is 
 too small an allowance. Then a great change 
 takes place, and the human period begins. What, 
 to an angelic observer, is the life of man, but the 
 passing away of a flower ? How else can he regard 
 a span of seventy years, compared with the — per- 
 haps — seventy millions of years during which he 
 has observed the earth's course ? Such questions as 
 — " Why was the Saviour's advent uj^on earth so 
 
80 THE TESTIMONY OF GEOLOGY 
 
 long delayed? Or, " Why must 1800 years elapse 
 between His second coming and His first?" seem 
 quite absurd. What are four thousand years with 
 Jehovah, but as four days? And what are 1800 
 years, or even 4000 years, compared with the past 
 life of the earth, but "a little while" — "a short 
 space?" 
 
 Oioen. Nay, now you are dislocating and throw- 
 ing into confusion all one's long-cherished ideas of 
 time and duration. Do you feel that you have solid 
 ground for these vast suppositions or reckonings ? 
 
 White. I apprehend that on this point there can 
 be no room for doubt. This, at least, is clear, — 
 that we must either shut geology out of view en- 
 tirely, or else we must give some weight to the 
 unanimous testimony of all its chief expounders. 
 And here, you know, we have the late Archbishop 
 of Canterbury, Dr. Chalmers, Dr. Buckland, Dr. 
 Harris, and Hugh Miller, all concurring with the 
 Lyells and Murchisons, and the other great teachers 
 of geology in our day. Thus, Dr. Buckland speaks 
 of the " millions upon millions of years ;" and Pro- 
 fessor Sedgwick testifies that the solid framework 
 of the earth tells us of a "long succession of move- 
 ments, each of which may have required a thousand 
 ages for its elaboration." Hugh Miller asserts, 
 that the different geological periods must each have 
 required " millenniums of centuries" to produce the 
 results which have come down to us ; and Arch- 
 deacon Pratt speaks "of the vast and unknown 
 antiquity of the earth, compared with which the 
 6000 years of its supposed existence are but as 
 yesterday." Hence, I repeat, we must either try 
 to shut our eyes and ears to geology altogether, or 
 else we must admit its first and most positive as- 
 
TO THE TRUTH OF THE BIBLE. 81 
 
 sertion, that this earth has a " vast and unknown 
 antiquity." 
 
 Owen. But, do I understand you to say, that 
 you deem the Scriptures to be rather confirmed 
 than contradicted by this view advanced by geo- 
 logy? 
 
 White. Certainly I do. Surely you can see, 
 that on the supposition formerly entertained, that 
 the heavens and the earth were created not quite 
 6000 years ago, there were difficulties in certain 
 passages of Scripture which no interpreter could 
 satisfactorily get over. Why was the Redeemer's 
 advent postponed so long ? How can His promise 
 to return " quickly," or in " a little while," be re- 
 conciled with a delay of 1800 years? Were the 
 Apostles mistaken when they assured us that " the 
 coming of the Lord draweth nigh ;" and that " the 
 Judge standeth at the door ; " and in many other 
 like expressions? All these questions arise from 
 one mistake — i.e. in taking Time's whole duration 
 at 6000 years. But admit Archdeacon Pratt's 
 view — that the real antiquity of the earth is " vast 
 and unknown, compared with which the 6000 
 years of its supposed existence are but as yes- 
 terday" — and all becomes plain. Or, accept the 
 Psalmist's words in their plain meaning, " A thou- 
 sand years are in thy sight as yesterday,*' and " as 
 a watch in the night." Take them, not as figure, 
 but as fact. So argues St. Peter. Not only has 
 Ood existed from all eternity, but this earth itself 
 has existed for millions upon millions of years. 
 What, then, is a mere 1800 years ? It is " a little 
 while." And what is man's life, even if it lasts 
 seventy years ? It is the life of a flower ; it is the 
 
 G 
 
82 THE TESTIMONY OF GEOLOGY 
 
 shadow that departeth ; it is a vapour which the 
 next breeze scattereth away. 
 
 Oiven. But what are the past ages of the world 
 to us ? And do not these large expressions of 
 Scripture refer to God's eternal existence, rather 
 than to anything else ? 
 
 White. They, doubtless, do speak of God as He 
 is ; but I think that they also speak of the heavens 
 and the earth as they are. We can imagine no 
 comparison between earthly durations and eternity. 
 Nothing can assimilate the one to the other. But 
 between one portion of the earth's history and 
 another, comparisons may be drawn ; and my 
 remark is this : that if we adhere to the old suppo- 
 sition, that the heavens and the earth are not quite 
 6000 years old, we must be perplexed by many 
 passages of Scripture ; whereas, if we accept the 
 testimony of geology, that the life of the earth has 
 already endured for " millions upon millions of 
 years," all these passages become plain, simple, and 
 strictly true. Hence I say that the discoveries of 
 geology, which at first startled mankind, turn out 
 to be more in agreement with the language of 
 Scripture, than the more limited and erroneous 
 views which prevailed in the last and previous 
 generations. 
 
 Oiven. Well, I confess that I feel more per- 
 plexed and amazed than satisfied. 
 
 White. Yes, I know that such a feeling is quite 
 natural, and in fact, inevitable, when any one is 
 suddenly called upon to give up long-cherished im- 
 pressions. But I have reminded you of the only 
 choice you have — " that we must either shut geology 
 out of view entirely, or else we must give somq 
 
TO THE TKUTH OF THE BIBLE. 83 
 
 weight to the unanimous testimony of all its chief 
 expounders." Our best commentators and ex- 
 pounders of Scripture of fifty or one hundred jears 
 back were ignorant of much which has been revealed 
 to us. But now, hundreds of earnest students, 
 many of whom have been Christian men, have pro- 
 secuted researches into the crust of the earth for 
 fifty years past, and it will not be easy for you to 
 shut your eyes and ears to the results of their in- 
 vestigations. If you go to the British Museum, 
 you find long galleries filled with creatures whose 
 history cannot be placed in the present or human 
 period. If you go to Exeter Hall, you will hear 
 lectures on Hugh Miller's discoveries and interpret- 
 ations. In short, you must close your organs of 
 sight and hearing very efiectually to keep out the 
 knowledge of these facts. 
 
 Owen. But suppose I do not ? 
 
 White. Then you will soon come to a know- 
 ledge of what Archdeacon Pratt calls, " the vast 
 antiquity of the earth." And what I want you to 
 see, is, that however this fact may shock some of 
 the pre-conceived notions of men, it is, in truth, 
 more consonant with Scripture than the narrower 
 view. All the language of God's word which has 
 a bearing on duration of time, agrees with geolo- 
 gical measurements, and is at variance with our 
 older notions. Commentators have been for many 
 long years straining many Scripture phrases, and 
 trying to make them bear a meaning to which they 
 are intrinsically opposed. Geology interposes, and 
 merely remarks, that to recognise the plain and in- 
 dubitable fact of the " vast antiquity" of this earth, 
 removes the whole difficulty in a moment. Hence 
 
84 THE TESTIMONY OF GEOLOGY 
 
 I say, that its investigations rather tend to confirm 
 our belief in the Bible, than to shake it. 
 
 Owen. But is this your chief reason for claiming 
 geology as a friend, instead of suspecting it, as a 
 possible foe? 
 
 White. Oh, no ; I merely alluded to this topic, 
 because it is obviously the earliest in the consider- 
 ation. It arises from the very first sentence in 
 the Book of Genesis. I have much more to say, 
 but we shall not have time for any further talk this 
 morning. 
 
TO THE TKUTH OF THE BIBLE. 85 
 
 DIALOGUE II. 
 
 " WITHOUT FORM, AND VOID." 
 
 Owen. Good morning, James. Here we meet, 
 as we met last Sunday. Shall we take up the same 
 subject ? You said, I think, that the point on which 
 you then touched was only one of several, in which 
 the truth of Scripture received support from mo- 
 dern investigations. Perhaps you will now mention 
 some other ? 
 
 White, Very willingly. Our last Sunday's con- 
 versation may be said to have turned on the meaning 
 of tlie very first verse in the Bible — "In the be- 
 ginning." And I endeavoured to show you that 
 believers in the Bible gain, rather than lose, by 
 that view of the text, in the light of geology, which 
 throws the beginning back, perhaps, some millions 
 of years. I will now say a few words on the second 
 verse : " The earth was without form, and void ; 
 and darkness was upon the face of the deep." This 
 is clearly intended to assert a certain state of the 
 earth immediately before the commencement of that 
 Divine work which, in a six days' creation, gave 
 to the human race our globe in its present condition. 
 
 Oiven. I suppose so ; for it is instantly followed 
 by the words, "And the Spirit of God moved 
 upon the face of the waters." 
 
 White. Well, then, the assertion with which we 
 have to deal is, that when the Spirit of God began 
 to act in this new creation, the material upon which 
 
86 THE TESTIMONY OF GEOLOGY 
 
 He had to work was this globe of ours, in a state 
 of darkness, confusion, or chaos, and emptiness of 
 all living things. You see, this is not a vague or 
 unmeaning statement, but one very definite and 
 positive, and not at all like a guess or supposition. 
 
 Owen. It had not occurred to me in that light ; 
 but now you call my attention to it, I see that the 
 fact is so. 
 
 White. Well, then, here is another opportunity 
 for asking, What says geology to this statement ? 
 Is any light thrown upon the subject by modern 
 researches into the nature of the formation of the 
 crust of the earth ? 
 
 Owen. Why do you lay so much stress upon 
 this ? What does it matter what geologists think 
 on such a point as this ? The fact, be it true or 
 false, has long since passed away. 
 
 White. Surely, if you reflect, you will see its 
 importance. Some writers, within the last few 
 years, have very coolly described the Mosaic ac- 
 count of the creation as a "speculation" — "the 
 best account of the matter that could then be 
 given." Now, if this were the real state of the 
 case, and if the whole were a guess or an liy- 
 pothesis, let me ask you what probability there was 
 that Moses, writing two thousand years after the 
 days of Adam, should hit upon a true account ? 
 This chaos, or state of confusion, had for more than 
 twenty centuries passed away. Moses had never 
 seen it ; nor had any man ever seen it, to hand 
 down the fact by tradition. If, then, so remarkable 
 a fact is stated by Moses, and if geology, more than 
 three thousand years after Moses wrote, begins to 
 dig into the crust of the earth, and from its re- 
 searches derives a certainty of the very same fact, 
 
TO THE TRUTH OF THE BIBLE. 87 
 
 would you not say that the coincidence was very 
 remarkable ; and that the combined testimony of 
 all geologists to this fact does go some way towards 
 proving that Moses, in making this statement long 
 before geology was so much as thought of, must 
 have had some knowledge of the facts of creation 
 greater than human skill or reflection could have 
 given him ? 
 
 Oioen. Well, I do see that there is some ground 
 for your conclusion. But are you not hastily taking 
 for granted that geology establishes this fact — the 
 second in the Mosaic account — that just before the 
 six days' work, " the earth was without form, and 
 void ; and darkness was upon the face of the 
 deep?" 
 
 White. No ; I believe I am in no danger of 
 error in this respect. I think there is scarcely any 
 point on which geologists are more entirely agreed 
 than this — that "it pleased the Most High to doom 
 the past worlds to sudden destruction, by the second- 
 ary agency of geological convulsions."* Or, to 
 use Cuvier's words, " Life has often been disturbed 
 on this earth by terrible events — calamities which 
 have moved and overturned to a great depth the 
 entire outer crust of the globe. In these catastro- 
 phes the existing races of living beings have become 
 extinct." | 
 
 Owen. But how does the geological belief, that 
 in past ages there have been such convulsions — 
 how does it agree with or confirm the words of 
 Moses ? 
 
 White. It is a moredefinite belief than that which 
 you have stated. G-eology does not merely be- 
 lieve in convulsions generally, but it describes them, 
 * Lardner, vol. xii. p. 157. f Cuvier, p. 17. 
 
88 THE TESTIMONY OF GEOLOGY 
 
 and it calculates the date of the last. Sir R. Mur- 
 chison, one of the first of living geologists, tells us 
 of traces now existing of " outbursts of great 
 volumes of igneous matter from the interior, the 
 extraordinary violence of which is made manifest by 
 clear evidences." In another place he speaks of 
 " convulsions utterly immeasurable and inexpli- 
 cable," caused by " vast outpourings of the subter- 
 ranean fires." It is quite clear, that while these 
 convulsions must have destroyed all kinds of life, 
 and so rendered the earth "void," they must also 
 have clothed it with a thick, impervious mantle of 
 vapour or steam, and must thus have caused " dark- 
 ness to rest upon the face of the deep." 
 
 Owen. Did you say that geologists go further 
 than this, and venture to fix a date for these 
 events ? 
 
 ^Yh^te. Certainly they do. Baron Cuvier says — 
 "lam of opinion, with Mess. Deluc and Dolomieu, 
 that if there is any circumstance thoroughly estab- 
 lished in geology, it is, that the crust of our globe 
 has been subject to a great and sudden revolution, 
 the epoch of which cannot be dated much farther 
 back than five or six thousand years ago." * And 
 Dr. Lardner says — "By the general accordance of 
 geological facts, it appears that the present, the 
 human period, has now continued for not more than 
 six or seven thousand years." "j" 
 
 Owen. Will you, then, be so good as to sum up 
 the evidence, that I may understand its combined 
 force ? 
 
 White. Yes, I will try. It is quite agreed that 
 the various geological periods were divided from 
 each other by vast and sudden convulsions, which 
 • Cuvier, p. 171. f Lardner, p. 157. 
 
TO THE TEUTH OF THE BIBLE. 89 
 
 again and again swept away one state of things, 
 and commenced another — ended one race of living 
 creatures and introduced another ; and I have just 
 shown you that geologists hold that the present, 
 the human period, was thus ushered in about five, 
 six, or seven thousand years ago ; so that here we 
 have the chronology of Scripture substantially con- 
 firmed. And further, they allege that these convul- 
 sions were vast, immeasurable, and inexplicable, 
 destroying all kinds of existing life, and pouring 
 forth vast masses of subterranean fire. Now, every 
 one can see that, while oceans of water lay floating 
 about upon the earth's surface, the coming forth of 
 " vast masses of subterranean fires," commingled 
 with them, must have formed prodigious clouds of 
 vapour or steam, which, resting upon the earth's 
 surface, must have produced a condition of dark- 
 ness, compared with which our densest fogs are 
 noonday light. 
 
 Owen. So that geology tells us, in fact, of the 
 day before the first day described by Moses, that it 
 was just what Moses had declared it to have been 
 — a scene of confusion, darkness, and absence of 
 life? 
 
 White. Precisely so. Geology declares, with 
 positiveness, that the state of things called "the 
 Tertiary period" — when huge mammoths walked 
 the earth — was ended by a prodigious convulsion, 
 raising vast mountains out of the depths of the sea, 
 and changing the position of whole continents, and 
 confounding all things in one huge uproar. It adds, 
 that subterranean fires were largely concerned in 
 producing this revolution, and hence that the boil- 
 ing up of oceans must have produced dense clouds 
 of vapour, covering the earth with darkness, and 
 
90 THE TESTIMONY OF GEOLOGY 
 
 effectually destroying life in all its various forms ; 
 and, finally, it declares that this must have hap- 
 pened about six thousand years ago. Now, Moses, 
 who had never studied geology, had told us the very 
 same thing more than three thousand years since. 
 The question then is, how he came to know it? 
 That he should have guessed at such astonishing, 
 such-apparently improbable facts, is a supposition 
 of the most absurd kind. Hence we find, that the 
 simplest way of accounting for this wonderful 
 knowledge is, by receiving his own testimony, that 
 he had long and intimate communication "with the 
 Lord, the Creator of heaven and earth" (Exod. 
 xxxiv.), and had learned from Him the wonderful 
 history which we read in the first chapter of 
 Genesis. 
 
 Oiven. Yes, I see that this is indeed the simplest 
 way of accounting for the fact ; and I see, too, that 
 it is hard to surmise how else Moses should have 
 learnt anything about this period of chaotic dark- 
 ness. But did you not say that the date given by 
 Moses agreed also with that which geologists fix, 
 as the apparent epoch of the last great disturbance 
 of the earth's crust ? 
 
 White. Yes, they entirely agree. Geologists 
 tell us, as I have shown you from Cuvier and 
 Lardner, that the human period must Iiave com- 
 menced about five, six, or seven thousand years 
 ago ; and that that was the apparent date of the 
 last great convulsion or revolution, by which the 
 Tertiary period was ended. Now, Moses, in his 
 books of Genesis and Exodus, is careful to give us 
 precise accounts of the births and ages of all the 
 chief descendants of Adam, so as to make it clear 
 that Abraham was born about two thousand or two 
 
TO THE TKUTH OF THE BIBLE. 91 
 
 thousand and eight years after the creation of Adam, 
 and that he (Moses) was born about four hundred 
 years after that. The Jewish records then carry 
 us on to the days of David and Solomon, and show 
 us that the Temple was consecrated in the three 
 thousandth year, or nearly one thousand years after 
 Abraham's birth. And here we are met by Greek, 
 and Roman, and modern chronology, which unites 
 with the Jewish, and runs on for two thousand 
 eight hundred years, to the present time. Thus, 
 the history of the world, in the human period, ac- 
 cording to the Book, exactly agrees with the date 
 assigned to the same human period by those who 
 have calculated by " geological facts," or " natural 
 chronometers." Again, therefore, in this second 
 leading fact, we find the inspired books strongly 
 confirmed and supported by the investigations of 
 geology. But here, I see, we must end our con- 
 versation for the present. 
 
92 THE TESTIMONY OF GEOLOGY 
 
 DIALOGUE III. 
 
 "the first day." 
 
 White. Ah ! friend Owen, here we meet again, 
 on our usual Sunday walk. Shall we continue our 
 conversation where we left the subject last week? 
 
 Owen. If you please. What is to be your topic 
 this morning ? 
 
 White. As we have touched upon the first verse 
 of Genesis, and also upon the second, I think we 
 may now go on to verses 3, 4, and 5, in which the 
 command is given for light to appear, and in which 
 we have " the first day." 
 
 Owen. You are not going to adduce that as if 
 it were a statement which is supported by geology? 
 Surely, instead of finding a confirmation here, you 
 must find a positive contradiction ! 
 
 White. Why do you say so ? 
 
 Owe7i. Why, let any one take a w^alk through 
 the collections in the British Museum, and he will 
 see various races of birds, beasts, and fishes, 
 having eyes, legs, wings, &c., all of which crea- 
 tures, we are told, walked, or flew, or swam around 
 this globe thousands of years before this " first 
 day" described by Moses; and over whom, I sup- 
 pose, thousands of days must have passed, long 
 before this supposed " first day." You have, there- 
 fore, before you, not a confirmation to be exulted 
 in, but a difiiculty to be got over ! 
 
 White. If the fact were just as you state it, I 
 
TO THE TRUTH OF THE BIBLE. 93 
 
 should not feel the difficulty to be a very serious 
 one. I should have a right, I think, to contend 
 that the Jewish historian might reasonably start, 
 like any other writer, from a given point or epoch. 
 We call this the year 1862, because we begin our 
 reckoning from the birth of Christ ; and if any" 
 historian, inspired or uninspired, took in hand the 
 history of man, as did Moses, he might very reason- 
 ably call man's first year, " the first year," and so 
 on. But I am not going to content myself with 
 this mode of defence. I have something more to 
 urge. I do not believe that the "evening and 
 morning," which Moses calls the " first day," were 
 merely an evening and morning like millions of 
 others which had previously passed over the earth. 
 The fact — and it is a remarkable fact — to which 
 I want to call your attention, is, that while Moses 
 tells us that about 5860 years ago there occurred 
 for the first time what we now call "a day," — geo- 
 logy comes in with its confirmation, and says, " I 
 discover proofs that the climate of the earth, its 
 temperature, and other circumstances, were not, in 
 the geologic periods, what they are now." Thus, 
 Dr. Lardner, in his Geology^ remarks that " a 
 striking difierence between the present and all 
 former periods of the earth's history consists in the 
 climatic zones. In all former ages and j)eriods, no 
 traces of climatic difference have been found."* 
 There was during those periods one uniform high 
 temperature over the whole earth. So says Pro- 
 fessor Phillips, remarking, " That, during early 
 geological periods, the northern zones of the earth 
 enjoyed a climate approaching to that now confined 
 to the equatorial regions, is admitted among the 
 * Lardner, pp. 553-561. 
 
94 THE TESTIMONY OF GEOLOGY 
 
 established inferences of geology."* Sir R. Mur- 
 chison says: "A very great portion, if not the 
 whole surface of the earth, enjoyed at that time an 
 equable and warmer climate." | And Sir Charles 
 Lyell remarks, that " Sir J. Herschel lately in- 
 quired whether there were any astronomical causes 
 which may offer a possible explanation of the dif- 
 ference between the actual climate on the earth's 
 surface and that which appears to have formerly 
 prevailed." J Now, Sir J. Herschel would probably 
 inquire in vain as to the relations of the sun and 
 the earth six thousand years ago ; but it is obvious 
 that a question had crossed his mind whether the 
 sun was not, at the commencement of the human 
 period, brought into some new position or relations 
 with reference to the earth. Professor Phillips, 
 too, tells us, that "it has been conjectured that the 
 earth's axis has been displaced; so that parts once 
 under the more direct action of the sun have lost 
 much of his beneficial influence." § Do you not 
 see what a striking confirmation is here given of 
 the statement of Moses, that, at a certain period, 
 not quite 6000 years ago, " God said. Let there be 
 lights in the firmament of the heaven, to divide the 
 day from the night ; and let them be for signs, and 
 for seasons, and for days, and for years ? " (Gen. 
 i. 14.) 
 
 Owen. But does not Moses say, that God then 
 " made two great lights ?" 
 
 White. Yes, he does; and I know that objectors 
 often argue as if Moses had told us that the sun 
 was never created until the fourth day described 
 
 * Treatise on Geology, vol. ii. p. 267. 
 tib. p. 524. +Ib. p. 126. 
 
 § Life on the Earth, p. 152, 
 
TO THE TRUTH OF THE BIBLE. 95 
 
 in Genesis ; and they then refer us to the pre- 
 Adamite beasts and birds as a proof of the incor- 
 rectness of such a statement, and to the prior 
 existence of light. But Moses had said nothing of 
 " creation " in those verses. The language used is 
 that which will apply equally well to things already 
 existing. Whenever Moses means to assert that 
 God made anything out of nothing, or called it 
 into existence, the word used is "created;" here 
 it is only " made," and the word in the original, I 
 believe, is often used for " appointed," " set," or 
 " constituted." Thus the Queen " makes " a Lord 
 Chancellor, not by forming him out of nothing, but 
 by appointing a man to that office. So, I appre- 
 hend, the sun and moon may have existed for mil- 
 lions of years, and some kind of light from the sun 
 may have visited this earth, or a kind of phosphoric 
 light may have existed. But now we are told, 
 tliat God "set them" — the sun and moon — "in 
 the firmament of heaven," to give light, and to 
 divide the day from the night, and " to be for 
 signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years." 
 
 Oiven. What, then, is your notion of the Divine 
 act which then took place ? 
 
 White. I believe that it was a real act of regu- 
 lation or appointment, which took place on the 
 fourth of those great six days. 1 do not think that 
 God at that time created the sun and moon, for 
 Moses says nothing of the kind. I suppose that as 
 the earth, in another condition, had existed for 
 many millions of years, so the sun may have 
 existed for millions of years also. Nay, the sun, 
 and moon, and earth may have been connected 
 then as they are now, although in a different man- 
 ner. The earth may have had light from the sun, 
 
96 THE TESTIMONY OF GEOLOGY 
 
 and yet the creatures on the earth, may never have 
 seen the sun. Geologists tell us, that the sort of 
 condition suitable to the production of our great 
 coal-beds, which, you know, are the remains of 
 vast forests and thickets of fern, and fern-like 
 plants, would be a moist, warm, dark atmosphere. 
 Professor Phillips says, " There is good reason to 
 adopt positively the opinion, that the chemical 
 constitution of the atmosphere has been greatly 
 altered " (page 164). He adds, too, "A warmer 
 atmosphere would hold mor^ moisture in suspen- 
 sion " (page 165). And Sir Charles Lyell adduces 
 grounds for " concluding that the temperature of 
 the northern hemisphere was considerably more 
 elevated when the carboniferous and other strata 
 were deposited than it is at present ; and that the 
 climate was modified more than once during those 
 periods." * A warm climate, these writers all tell 
 us, prevailed then, everywhere, even in regions 
 which are now covered with perpetual ice. Surely, 
 then, we have abundant ground for supposing that 
 the pre- Adamite world was a very different world 
 from that which we now live in. The sun may have 
 been in the heavens, and may have given light, 
 and yet constant clouds, or rather mists and va- 
 pours, hanging about the earth, may have hidden 
 his face from the creatures living on the earth's 
 surface. The different climates now found in diffe- 
 rent parts of the earth did not then exist. Pro^ 
 bably the varying length of the days, as well as 
 the different climates, was unlike what we now 
 know. When I am told that the climate was 
 everywhere the same, and everywhere warm, I am 
 led to surmise, also, that there were no hot and 
 * Principles of Geology, p. 196. 
 
TO THE TRUTH OF THE BIBLE. 97 
 
 cold days, no hot and cold seasons : in short, that 
 summer and winter were then unknown ; while 
 the polar regions and the tropics were alike warm, 
 and that at all times; partly, we may suppose, 
 from the earth's internal heat. Hence, without 
 attempting to depict from the imagination what 
 the earth then was, we have a right, from geology, 
 to argue, that on the fourth day there actually 
 occurred what Moses has described — a revealing 
 of the sun and moon to the earth ; a parting of the 
 clouds ; and such an " appointment " of times and 
 seasons, of days and years, as the earth had never 
 known anything of in its previous history. 
 
 Owen. Well, all this may be a probable suppo- 
 sition ; but will you explain to me what the con- 
 firmation is, which you say geology gives in this 
 matter to the Mosaic account ? 
 
 White. I think it is tolerably apparent from 
 what I have already said. Moses declares to us, 
 very explicitly, that on a certain " fourth day," 
 about 5860 years ago, God " set," or appointed, 
 the sun and the moon to certain functions and 
 offices with reference to the earth ; and that then, 
 in that week, signs and seasons, and days and 
 years, first began to be known. Now, I am aware 
 that hasty and sceptical students of science, when 
 they have discovered birds or beasts who appa- 
 rently lived long before the time of Adam, rush to 
 the conclusion that all the narrative of Moses is 
 shown to be mere fable. But all this they assume, 
 for they cannot prove it. They assume that the 
 mammoths and reptiles of the pre- Adamite period 
 lived as we live, and had days and years, and sum- 
 mer and winter, just as we have them. But the 
 single fact of a universally warm climate in those 
 
 H 
 
98 THE TESTIMONY OF GEOLOGY 
 
 times at once throws doubt on this supposition* 
 The second fact, that the growth of the vast depo- 
 sits of coal, formed of gigantic ferns, would require 
 a different sort of atmosphere and climate from any 
 known to us, confirms the doubt already raised. 
 And both go to establish the probability that 
 when Moses declares a particular appointment or 
 arrangement of the sun and moon, with reference 
 to the earth, to have been made in the first week 
 of the year in which man was created, he speaks 
 the simple truth. We want no accommodation ; no 
 evasion. I find Moses stating, that on the " fourth 
 day " the sun and moon were set '* for signs and 
 for seasons, and for days and for years." Geology 
 tells me that it has discovered, that in the pre- 
 Adamite period there was one climate over all the 
 earth, and apparently no summer and no winter ; 
 so that our present variety of climate, and probably 
 of season also, were made for man, and made only 
 when man was created to enjoy them. I find, 
 therefore, in a third particular, the word of God 
 confirmed by the researches of science ; and again 
 1 say, What wondrous testimony has not geology 
 been made to bear, to the truth of the Mosaic 
 record ! 
 
TO THE TRUTH OF THE BIBLE. 99 
 
 DIALOGUE IV. 
 
 THE CREATION OP MAN. 
 
 Owen. Well, friend James, what strange thing 
 have you got to tell me this morning ? Or have 
 you really finished your series of proofs or coin- 
 cidences ? 
 
 White. No, I have not quite done yet. I think 
 our topic this morning may be the statement of the 
 27th verse of Genesis, chap, i., that on a certain 
 day, not quite 6000 years ago, " God created man 
 in His own image." This may be regarded as a 
 trial point. It is a fact stated in no other book in 
 the world. It is a fact which Moses could only 
 know by tradition, or by its immediate revelation 
 to him by God. He probably had received some 
 idea of it by tradition; but its explicitness, po- 
 sitiveness, and precise date, we must ascribe to 
 Divine communication. Either way, the question 
 must often occur to us. Is Moses a perfectly re- 
 liable historian? Is his narrative entirely true? 
 And here geology comes in. Curious men have 
 been, for almost a century, digging into the crust 
 of the earth in a thousand places. They have dis- 
 covered, they tell us, that between "the beginning" 
 of Genesis i. 1, and the "first day" of verse 5, 
 there must have elapsed many millions of years. 
 They have disinterred whole races of beings — fish, 
 fowl, and quadruped — which they conclude lived, 
 
100 THE TESTIMONY OF GEOLOGY 
 
 passed away, and perished; and were succeeded by 
 other and higher species. Of Geology, therefore, 
 we must ask. What she says to this recent creation 
 of man? and whether her investigations throw 
 doubt upon it, or bring confirmation ? 
 
 Owen. Yes, I can see*'that this is really a matter 
 on which Geology ought to speak, and upon which 
 her voice should be heard. What is the testimony 
 that she has given ? 
 
 White. It is most full, explicit, and conclusive. 
 Geologists tell us that they have penetrated the 
 crust of the earth in some thousands of different 
 places, in various parts of the world. They have 
 discovered and catalogued no fewer than 24,000 
 different species of creatures, who lived and died 
 in what are termed the Palaeozoic, Secondary, and 
 Tertiary periods ; but among all these no one has 
 ever met with a single specimen of the human 
 family : not even a portion of a man, not even one 
 clearly-defined human bone, has ever been brought 
 to light. Surely this, to use a modern phrase, is 
 " a great fact." 
 
 Owen. Is there not a fossil man in the British 
 Museum ? 
 
 White. Oh, yes ! and of men buried in historic 
 times — old Danes, Romans, Saxons, old Egyptians, 
 or Italians — many have been disinterred. But 
 the question you will see is. What shall we say of 
 the Mosaic narrative? Is it, or is it not true, that 
 man was first created about 5800 years ago ? Has 
 a single specimen been found, or even a human 
 bone, of v/hich the geologist could say, " This must 
 have been here for more than 10,000 years?" I 
 repeat that geology answers, " No." The fossil 
 man from Guadaloupe is never assigned to the 
 
TO THE TRUTH OF THE BIBLE. 101 
 
 geologic ages. No geologist ascribes to that fossil 
 any pre- Adamite existence. 
 
 Owen. But is this the general verdict of all 
 geologists ? 
 
 White. Yes. I am not aware of any man of 
 the least eminence amongst them who maintains a 
 different opinion. Here are a few testimonies, 
 which I have copied into my pocket-book, from 
 time to time, as I have met with them: — 
 
 Sir Humphry Davy says : — "In none of the 
 geological formations have the remains of man, or 
 any of his works, been discovered ; and the com- 
 paratively recent existence of man, as the master 
 of the globe, is as certain as the destruction of a 
 former, and a different order of things." 
 
 Sir R. Murchison says: — " Geology reveals to 
 us that, during immeasurable periods, long anterior 
 to the creation of the human race, whole races of 
 animals were successively created, lived their ap- 
 pointed time, and perished" (page 4). 
 
 Dr. Buckland says: — ''No conclusion is more 
 fully established, than the important fact of the 
 total absence of any vestiges of the human species 
 throughout the entire series of geological forma- 
 tions" (vol. i. p. 101). 
 
 Cuvier says: — "The human remains did not 
 exist in the countries in which the fossil bones of 
 animals have been discovered, at the epoch when 
 these bones were covered up" (page 131). 
 
 Professor Phillips says: — " Geology, agreeing 
 with the authority of Scripture in the late date of 
 man, and the races of beings associated with him, 
 adds its own testimony of pre- Adamite beings."* 
 
 And Mr. Page tells us, — that " So far as geo- 
 * Life on the Earth, p. 47. 
 
102 THE TESTIMONY OF GEOLOGY 
 
 logical evidence goes, we have no traces of man, or 
 his works, till we arrive at the superficial accumu- 
 lations; the cave deposits and peat mosses of the 
 present period."* 
 
 Owen. Are there no opposite opinions ? 
 
 White. I have not met with any. But you 
 will observe that it is not so much opinions as 
 facts that are needed. When such men as Sir 
 Humphry Davy and Baron Cuvier assert boldly 
 that no human remains can be found in the geolo- 
 gical periods, the only answer to be made to them 
 is, by pointing out such remains, and saying " Here 
 they are." 
 
 Owen. But ought we not to allow for the ope- 
 rations of time in erasing and destroying such 
 proofs of the existence of man in the earlier days 
 of the earth's existence ? 
 
 White. Sir Charles Lyell replies, to such a sug- 
 gestion, that the whole experience of geologists is 
 the other way. " Even," he says, " if the more 
 solid parts had disappeared, the impression of their 
 form would have remained ; as have the traces of 
 the leaves of plants, and the soft integuments of 
 many animals. "f Why, of the Palaeozoic period, 
 which all geologists consider to have passed away 
 millions of years ago, we have the remains, in 
 abundance, of multitudes of fishes and reptiles. 
 Is the body or the skeleton of man more perishable 
 and less likely to have been preserved ? In fact, 
 of the 24,000 species now existing in our Museums, 
 the greater part must have been of a more fragile 
 character than man. Hence, when we find those 
 creatures, whether fish, or fowl, or quadruped, or 
 
 * Life of the Globe, p. 214. 
 t Principles of Geology, p. 147. 
 
TO THE TKUTH OF THE BIBLE. 103 
 
 reptile, in vast abundance, and in all parts of the 
 earth, and can find no fragment, even, of man — 
 not even a bone, or a footprint — is not the con- 
 clusion clear, and is it not irresistible ? 
 
 Owen. It strikes me that I heard, some time 
 ago, that though no human remains had yet been 
 discovered, there had been found, in one or two 
 places, some stone tools, or weapons, which were 
 called " celts," and which were dug up in a quarry 
 lying far beneath the surface. 
 
 White. Yes, at Amiens, in France, and in 
 several places in England, such stones have been 
 found. They are, like meteorolites, and some other 
 strange things, fair subjects for discussion ; but it 
 is quite impossible to adduce them as a proof of 
 anything. 
 
 Owen. Why so ? 
 
 White. Because, out of several features which 
 are necessary to constitute a proof, they present 
 only one; and that only in probability, not in cer- 
 tainty. 
 
 Owen. Pray explain to me what you mean. 
 
 White. I will try to do so. The question, then, 
 is, Did man exist at some earlier date than Moses 
 ascribes to him ? Those who wish to destroy the 
 authority of Moses are called upon to show, if they 
 can, the remains of a man among the fishes, reptiles, 
 birds, or mammalia of the Palaeozoic, Secondary, or 
 Tertiary periods. They fail to produce the slightest 
 proof of this kind; but latterly they have seized upon 
 these "celts," or "stone hatchets," and have assumed 
 them to have been made earlier than the human 
 period. They then argue, '* Here are the tools or 
 implements of man; therefore man must have ex- 
 
]04 THE TESTIMONY OF GEOLOGY 
 
 isted in the geological periods ; though we have 
 never found the least remnant of his remains." 
 
 Owen. Well, is not this a fair argument ? 
 
 White. It wants strength and sufficiency. First, 
 it assumes that the particular "celts" in question 
 were tools wrought by human hands. This is pro- 
 bable, but not certain. There are many other 
 things found among the stones of the earth, which, 
 to an experienced eye, look like tools or toys upon 
 which the hand of man has been at work; and yet 
 men of science declare that they are merely natural 
 products. Still, I grant that it seems probable 
 that these "celts" were the workmanship of some 
 savage or uncivilised tribe of men. But when we 
 come to the question of their position, upon which 
 their real antiquity mainly turns, we find nothing 
 but uncertainty. They are not so near the surface 
 as to be ascribed to Roman or to Gaulic times ; 
 they lie deeper than the deposits of the last 2000 
 years. But how little do we know of what changes 
 passed upon the earth in the 3000 years which 
 elapsed before the time of Solomon ! Who can 
 tell, or even surmise, what earthquakes or deluges 
 may have disturbed the soil of northern France 
 during those thirty centuries ? These remains, sup- 
 posed to be the handiwork of man, are not found in 
 the Palaeozoic or the Secondary formations. No 
 one ascribes to them any greater antiquity than the 
 Tertiary period ; that is, the period immediately 
 preceding the Mosaic creation. Thus, the whole 
 question is narrowed to this : May not these " celts," 
 or stone hatchets, have been of the date of Japheth, 
 or of Japheth's grandchildren ? And may not their 
 entombment under gravel and other deposits have 
 
TO THE TRUTH OF THE BIBLB. 105 
 
 been the work of a flood, or an earthquake, in the 
 2300 years which elapsed between the days of 
 Japheth and those of Christ ? A man must be pre- 
 pared to establish two things — namely, that these 
 things were certainly human implements, and that 
 they could not have been buried under twenty feet 
 of gravel in the course of the last 4000 years. He 
 must establish, I say, these two points, very clearly 
 and unanswerably, before he can be entitled to as- 
 sert that the existence of man before the date 
 described by Moses is even shown to be probable. 
 
 Oioen. But is not the whole matter hereby left 
 in some doubt? These "celts" may have been 
 pre-Adamite ; and if so, then we have arrived at 
 the fact of the existence of the works of man, and 
 therefore of man himself, at an earlier date than 
 that indicated by Moses. 
 
 White. No ; we are a long way, as yet, from 
 any such conclusion. One of the latest papers on 
 the subject, I believe, was published in a French 
 scientific journal of high repute, early in the pre- 
 sent year. It is entitled, On the Insufficiency oj 
 the Arguments drawn from the Position of the 
 Worked Flints at St. Acheul to shoiv the Exist- 
 ence of 31 an in the pre-Adamite Periods; and its 
 author was M. Scipion Gras. This gentleman re- 
 cently paid a visit to the spot, which is apparently 
 the site of an ancient manufactory of flint tools ; 
 and came away satisfied that the said manufactory 
 was of the human period. He asks, with great 
 force: — " Why, above all, do we not find human 
 remains in the diluvium ? Their absence is the 
 more astonishing, as it is not uncommon to find 
 there the remains of elephants, rhinoceroses, and 
 Other animals. If men so civilised as to occupy 
 
106 THE TESTIMONY OF GEOLOGY 
 
 themselves with commerce lived on the banks of 
 the Somme at the commencement of the quaternary 
 period, thej must have constructed habitations 
 there ; and these would be seen now in the masses 
 of diluvium which, at a later period, filled up the 
 valley ; they would even be perfectly preserved in 
 it. Now, this deposit has never presented the least 
 vestige of a habitation, nor even of other products 
 of human industry, excepting flint objects. Another 
 consideration strengthens all these grounds of 
 doubt: worked flints, similar to those which are 
 claimed as diluvian, have been found in such a po- 
 sition, that it has been necessary to attribute to 
 them a modern origin. M. Toillez, an archaeologist 
 and engineer of Mons, possesses a collection of 400 
 axes, which, for the most part, are rough, and do 
 not differ sensibly from those of St. Acheul ; never- 
 theless, they have all been collected at the surface 
 of the soil." 
 
 He then goes into the question of the position of 
 these flints, and shows that there is nothing to 
 compel us to assign to them any more ancient date 
 than some 3000 or 4000 years ago. Hence the 
 conclusion which he evidently draws is this : That, 
 among the various tribes which sprang from Japheth, 
 one or more found a home in Gaul, and partly, per- 
 haps, in the neighbouring islands of Britain ; that, 
 being an industrious race, and destitute of iron, 
 they made tools and weapons out of flint ; that in 
 process of time they became so far semi-civilized, 
 that a sort of trade or manufacture of these flint 
 axes sprang up ; and that, of late, and especially in 
 Prance, we have come upon, not single specimens 
 of these stone axes merely, but large collections of 
 them. Their position, however, is not, in M. 
 
TO THE TRUTH OF THE BIBLE. 107 
 
 Scipion Gras' opinion, that of the pre- Adamite 
 ages. He finds nothing to disprove the natural 
 assumption that, though earlier than Greece or 
 Rome, these flint implements may have been buried 
 since the days of Noah. Consequently we have 
 not even a difficult question to meet. If we had 
 been compelled to admit that these " celts," or flint 
 hatchefs, must have lain in the earth these 10,000 
 years, we should still have fallen back on the ob- 
 vious and cogent questions. Where, in the pre- 
 Adamite strata, do you find one single fragment, 
 or even one foot-print, of man ? And, if he then 
 existed, how can he have so completely vanished ? 
 But we are not even driven to urge these obvious 
 difficulties ; for it is quite clear that no one has yet 
 proved, or can prove, the existence of one of these 
 "celts" before the time of Adam. That some of 
 the grandchildren of Japheth found their Avay into 
 various parts of Europe, is quite certain. That 
 they were destitute of iron, and probably knew not 
 how to find it, is also extremely likely. What re- 
 mains, then, but the plainly reasonable conclusion, 
 that a thousand years before Athens or Rome ex- 
 isted, there dwelt in parts of Gaul, hardy, indus- 
 trious descendants of Japheth, who made for them- 
 selves tools and weapons out of flint; and some of 
 whose workshops, lying not far below the present 
 surface, have recently been laid open ? There is 
 nothing more strange or unaccountable in this dis- 
 covery, than in the discoveries made by the dis- 
 interment of Pompeii, or Uriconium. But we must 
 remember that it is most likely that these flint 
 workshops bore date above a dozen centuries before 
 Pompeii, or Uriconium, the newly-discovered city 
 — lying beneath the present town of Wroxeter — 
 
108 THE TESTIMONY OF GEOLOGY 
 
 existed ; and hence it was to be expected that a 
 thicker deposit of soil should cover them. 
 
 Owen. On the whole, then, what is your con- 
 clusion ? 
 
 White. That the grand fact remains untouched, 
 that while Moses declares, in plain terms, that 
 man was created above 5860 years ago, all the re- 
 searches of geology confirm that statement. Former 
 states or conditions of the earth have been inves- 
 tigated ; and men believe that they understand 
 pretty well the succession of the Palaeozoic, Se* 
 condary, and Tertiary periods, and the various 
 creatures that lived in those periods ; but while 
 hundreds and thousands of men have been engaged 
 in these investigations, the combined testimony of 
 them all establishes, in the most wonderful manner, 
 the grand fact, that it was not until the present — 
 that is to say, the human period, that man was seen 
 on this globe. In one word. Geology and the Pen- 
 tateuch entirely agree in the declaration, that at the 
 beginning of the world as we now have it, " God 
 created man." 
 
TO TBE TRUTH OF THE BIBLE. 109 
 
 DIALOGUE V. 
 
 THE END OF THIS DISPENSATION. 
 
 Oiven. Good morning, White. What is to be 
 our subject this morning? 
 
 White. I think it is one which resembles the 
 first on which we touched. I mean, that it con- 
 cerns certain declarations of God's word, which 
 we receive darkly and blindly, and only because 
 we must. That is to say, when a man has satis- 
 fied himself that the Bible is the word of God, he 
 will not allow himself to stumble at any of its 
 "hard sayings." He will remember that he is 
 like a fly crawling over the dome of St. Paul's, 
 and that it would be mere folly if he were to ex- 
 pect to have every question made clear to him in 
 this life. Hence he receives some statements of 
 Scripture simply because he finds them in God's 
 word, and expects that a day will come when he 
 shall understand them more clearly. 
 
 Owen. What are the statements to which you 
 are now alluding ? 
 
 White. I am thinking of certain fearful predic- 
 tions which are met with towards the close of the 
 Bible ; such as, " The day of the Lord will come 
 as a thief in the night ; in the which the heavens 
 shall pass away with a great noise, and the ele- 
 ments shall melt with fervent heat ; the earth also, 
 and the works that are therein, shall be burned up.'^ 
 
110 THE TESTIMONY OF GEOLOGY 
 
 (2 Pet. iii. 10.) How have you been in the habit 
 of reading such passages ? 
 
 Oiven. Why, I must confess, very much in the 
 way you just now described. I have read them in 
 the Bible, and therefore I have submitted to them. 
 I knew that " with God all things are possible,'* 
 and that therefore it would be foolish to say, 
 *' How can these things be?" Yet I own that 
 when I looked at the mighty ocean, or cast my' 
 eye over a vast tract of sandy or stony country, I 
 have felt that it was difficult to conceive of such a 
 conflagration. 
 
 White. I know that such thoughts will intrude ; 
 and therefore the remark is useful, that here, too, 
 geology comes in, and makes it far more easy to 
 believe intelligently these declarations of Scripture, 
 by showing us that, thousands of years ago, such 
 scenes have actually occurred on the surface of 
 this earth. 
 
 Owen. Is this so ? 
 
 White. Surely. Have you already forgotten 
 two or three passages from scientific writers, which 
 I repeated to you in our first or second conversa- 
 tion ? For instance, the words of Cuvier : " Life 
 has often been disturbed on this earth by terrible 
 events ; calamities which have moved and over- 
 turned the entire crust of the globe." Or those of 
 Lardner : " It pleased the Most High to doom the 
 past world to sudden destruction, by the secondary 
 agency of geological convulsions." To which I 
 might add the testimony of Professor Phillips, who 
 says that the world, in its former period of exist- 
 ence, felt some " epochs of extraordinary disturb- 
 ance, in which the relations of sea and land were 
 altered by internal convulsions." 
 
TO THE TtlUTH OF THE BIBLE. Ill 
 
 Owen. Yes; I remember that you quoted some 
 of these passages ; but do they not seem princi- 
 pally to relate to something like our earthquakes ? 
 
 White. Doubtless, these were convulsions caused 
 by fire, and in which fire played a principal part. 
 Thus, Sir R. Murchison speaks of " convulsions 
 utterly unmeasurable and inexplicable;" which 
 were caused by " vast outpourings of the subter- 
 ranean fires." Again, he tells us of " outbursts of 
 great volumes of igneous matter from the interior ; 
 the extraordinary violence of which is made mani- 
 fest by clear evidences." And all writers on geology 
 abound in passages on the earth's " cooling down," 
 and in speculations as to the period when it became 
 cool enough to be fit for the habitation of birds, 
 and beasts, and fishes. 
 
 Owen. What, then, is your view, on the whole ? 
 
 White. It is simply this : Geology declares, with 
 a very distinct and unbroken voice, that the crust 
 of the earth presents abundant signs and tokens of 
 a period or periods when fire ruled and raged upon 
 it. Investigators find clear traces of " outbursts 
 of great volumes of igneous matter, from the in- 
 terior, with extraordinary violence," — "catastro- 
 phes utterly unmeasurable;" with " repeated emis- 
 sions of volcanic matter from within."* Hugh 
 Miller thus attempts a description of the state of 
 the earth, after one of these convulsions: — 
 
 " We may imagine a dark atmosphere of steam 
 and vapour, which, for age after age, conceals the 
 face of the sun, and through which the light of 
 moon or star never penetrates : oceans of water 
 heated to the boiling point ; low, half-molten islands; 
 roaring geysers, ever and anon throwing up their 
 * Siluria, p. 523. 
 
112 THE TESTIMONY OF GEOLOGY 
 
 jets of boiling fluid, vapour, and thick steam ; and 
 in the dim outskirts of the scene, the red gleam of 
 fire, shot forth from yawning cracks and deep 
 chasms, bearing aloft fragments of molten rock and 
 clouds of ashes."* 
 
 And Sir Charles Lyell, rapidly glancing at the 
 various tokens of suppressed and concealed heat, 
 which he detects in many quarters, comes to the 
 conclusion that, even now, " it is astonishing that a 
 single day should pass over without a general con- 
 flagration." f Hence, then, surely Dr. Lardner's 
 yiew is the just one; that inasmuch as "the earth 
 is still subject to the same local oscillations as here- 
 tofore, and the heavings of the internal fluid have* 
 lost none of their terrific energy .... when we 
 afiirm that a moment must arrive, when what we 
 call this present world will be destroyed, we declare 
 no more than all the analogies of the past history- 
 confirm." 
 
 Oiven. But do you really think that there is 
 any kindred or affinity between the fires and earth- 
 quakes of the geological periods, and the fires pre- 
 dicted by St. Peter, St. John, and others of the 
 prophets ? 
 
 White. Why should there not be ? Both concern 
 the same thing ; the same globe of earth, air, and 
 water. The prophets tell us, again and again, of a 
 destruction of this earth by fire. We receive their 
 predictions with a mere submission of mind, and 
 suppose that in some way or other these things will 
 come to pass; though we cannot tell how. Here 
 geology comes in, and shows us that such things 
 have been; and that there is, therefore, no great 
 difficulty in believing that such things may again 
 * Lectures, p. 239. t Princip. vol. ii. p. 451. 
 
TO THE TRUTH OF THE BIBLE. 113 
 
 be. Geology tells us, that in its earliest period the 
 whole earth was fluid from intense heat ; and that 
 in it no kind of life was found. Next, we learn 
 that as it slowly cooled, some of the lower kinds of 
 life began to appear ; and, at long intervals, higher 
 and yet higher ; but that these various states, or 
 steps, in the earth's progress, were frequently 
 marked and separated from each other by terrible 
 convulsions : the bursting forth of internal fires, 
 upheaving mountains, and sweeping away every 
 living thing. Well, all this plainly harmonises 
 with prophecy. The tremendous events, which 
 we are assured will end the present chapter of the 
 world's history, are akin to those which have ended 
 former chapters. And thus geology makes it far 
 more easy than formerly to understand, and there- 
 fore to believe, the warnings of the prophets. Is 
 not this tolerably clear? 
 
 Owen. Yes, I begin to see that our view is con- 
 siderably enlarged ; and that, instead of believing 
 vaguely some strange and awful predictions, we 
 may look back, intelligently, on vast revolutions 
 which have passed, and from thence may calculate 
 the nature and probability of that great elemental 
 convulsion which is yet to come. But here, I see, 
 we must part ; and I wish you a peaceful and a 
 happy day. 
 
114 THE TESTIMONY OF GEOLOGY 
 
 DIALOGUE YI. 
 
 THE NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH. 
 
 White. Ah, my friend, here is another Sabbath 
 morning, and here is a reviving, refreshing subject 
 of contemplation for you. It strikes me that we 
 are naturally brought, by our last Sunday's topic, 
 to a thought which is full of comfort. The course 
 of things around us, according to Scripture and ac- 
 cording to Geology, is onward and upward Should 
 not our desire and prayer be, that we may be 
 moving onward and upward also ? 
 
 Owen. Gladly would I respond to such a 
 thought ; but pray explain to me your meaning. 
 
 White. Well, my meaning is this — the general 
 tenor of God's Word points us to a course of on- 
 ward progress, through nearly 6000 years ; and it 
 tells us that after a certain crisis, which cannot be 
 far off, this earth will take another upward spring, 
 resembling that which it took in that great week, 
 when, popularly speaking, on Monday morning it 
 was " without form and void," and on Saturday 
 night was clothed with verdure and inhabited, and 
 pronounced to be " very good." So says the Bible, 
 and so says Geology ; and hence I reckon this the 
 sixth particular in which Holy Scripture receives 
 testimony from the researches of science. 
 
 Owen. I am glad to hear you say so, but you 
 must explain to me what you mean; for I must 
 
TO THE TRUTH OF THE BIBLE. ] 1 5 
 
 confess that this view of geology has never occurred 
 to me. 
 
 White. I can easily do so; for my subject is a 
 plain and simple one, and the proofs are at hand. 
 First, let us look at the representations of Scrip- 
 ture. You know that at the opening of man's his- 
 tory, in Genesis, we see the Divine Spirit calling a 
 new and beautiful world out of chaos, and placing 
 Adam and his wife in a garden, where every de- 
 light, including constant intercourse with their 
 Heavenly Benefactor, surrounded them. Into this 
 scene of happiness, the Destroyer, the Tempter, the 
 serpent, thrust himself, and was permitted for a 
 time to defile and ruin everything. But, even from 
 the first hour, it was declared that his portion, at 
 last, should be final defeat and punishment. A 
 Deliverer was promised; and after a time that De- 
 liverer was sent. I need not stop to review the 
 whole Gospel history. My object is, to remind 
 you that, by various prophets — David, Isaiah, 
 Ezekiel, Daniel, and others — a complete deliver- 
 ance of this earth from the great enemy was fore- 
 told repeatedly in glowing terms. You will re- 
 member in an instant the picture drawn by Isaiah 
 — " Thy sun shall no more go down ; neither shall 
 thy moon withdraw thyself: for the Lord shall be 
 thine everlasdng light, and the days of thy mourn- 
 ing shall be ended. Thy people also shall be all 
 righteous : they shall inherit the land for ever, the 
 branch of My planting, the work of My hands, that 
 I may be glorified" (ch. Ix.) So, also, closes the 
 prophecy of Ezekiel, and that of Daniel, and that 
 of Malachi. And the whole Word of God finishes 
 with a magnificent picture of future blessedness ; 
 when we are told, " The tabernacle of God shall 
 
1 1 THE TESTIMONY OF GEOLOGY 
 
 be witli men ; and He shall dwell with them, and 
 they shall be His people" (Rev. xxi. 3) ; precisely 
 as Ezekiel, six hundred years before, had described 
 the new Jerusalem ; endinor with the words, " The 
 name of the city shall be, The Lord is there." 
 
 Oiven. Yes; I am aware that Scripture is very 
 explicit, and very emphatic and glowing in its de- 
 scriptions of a future state of blessedness ; and I 
 know, also, that men's minds have latterly inclined 
 to the belief that this blessedness will be granted 
 on this earth, and not in any other place. But 
 what can Geology have to say to these matters ? 
 
 White. It lends to these anticipations all the 
 confirmation that it was in its power to give. 
 Dealing only with the past, and having no pro- 
 phetic voice, it can only" speak by way of analogy. 
 But, if it reveals a principle, or a settled plan or 
 course of action, on the part of the Divine Author 
 of all creation, then it does much; for we may safely 
 deduce an idea of His mind and will from His past 
 actions. And it is from a close observation of 
 these that all the leading geologists gather precisely 
 the same conclusions which prophets have learnt by 
 inspiration. Thus, Sir Roderick Murchison ob- 
 serves, at the close of his great work, that — 
 
 " He who, commencing with the earliest visible 
 signs of life, can thenceforward trace a successive 
 rise in the scale of being, until that period is reached 
 when man appeared upon the earth, must acknow- 
 ledge, in such works, repeated manifestations of the 
 design and superintendence of a Creator."* 
 
 Mr. Page proceeds a step further, and adds : — 
 
 " Unless science has altogether misinterpreted 
 the past, and the course of creation, as unfolded by 
 * Siluria, p. 530. 
 
TO THE TRUTH OF THE BIBLE. 117 
 
 geology, is no better than a delusion, the future 
 must transcend the present, as the present tran- 
 scends that which has gone before it."* 
 
 And Dr. Lardner is still more distinct, arguing 
 that — 
 
 " If we judge by those creative laws which 
 have hitherto characterised the operations of God's 
 power, a new assemblage of orp^anised beings will 
 be called into life, and a new Flora will clothe the 
 earth. Intelligences will preside over the new 
 world, with faculties as much exalted above those 
 with which man is endowed, as the understanding 
 of man himself is above that of the highest crea- 
 tures of the last or Tertiary age." f Hence, " after 
 the convulsion which will sweep away man and his 
 works," there will follow a new period of calm, and 
 a new race of inhabitants, "whose faculties will as 
 much exceed those of man, as man exceeds the ape 
 or baboon of former periods." This anticipation, 
 you will observe, is quite in accordance with the 
 views of St. Paul, in 1 Cor. xv. 
 
 Owen. Yes ; but I hardly perceive upon what 
 Dr. Lardner bases this anticipation. Pray explain 
 it to me a little more particularly. 
 
 White. As I understand it, the argument runs 
 thus: — Geology finds that, in the primitive or 
 earliest of the rocks, of which the crust of the earth 
 is composed, there are no remains of life of any 
 kind ; and most geologists believe that " in the be- 
 ginning" the body of the globe was " fluid from in- 
 tense heat;" and unfit, therefore, for the habitation 
 of any of the creatures which are now found upon 
 it. In process of time, however, all geologists 
 
 * Life of the Globe, p. 288. 
 f Lardner's Geology, p. 158. 
 
118 THE TESTIMONY OF GEOLOGY 
 
 agree that it gradually cooled ; and while the melted 
 mass, of which it was chiefly composed; congealed 
 into what we now call granite, other substances 
 also appeared, lying above, or upon the granite; 
 and among these the lowest kinds of organised 
 beings; such as mollusca and radiata, or limpets 
 and star-fish, began to be found. These increased, 
 and a progress was now visible ; each successive 
 stage of the world's existence being an advance on 
 that which preceded it. A few fish appeared, then 
 new varieties, in large numbers. Then birds are 
 found, and a gigantic vegetation, by which our 
 present stores of coal were accumulated. Large 
 reptiles next show themselves ; and after many 
 periods of immense length had rolled away, large 
 elephants, deer, tigers,, and other beasts, began to 
 abound. But amidst all, as Sir R, Murchison 
 says, " a successive rise in the scale of being may 
 be traced ;" and hence, as Mr. Page argues, " unless 
 science has misinterpreted the past, the future must 
 transcend the present ; just as the present tran- 
 scends that which has gone before it." 
 
 Owen. And this, you think, confirms the state- 
 ments and the anticipations of Scripture? 
 
 White. Does it not ? Read St. Paul's glowing 
 language in 1 Cor. xv. " It," that is, the human 
 body, "is sown in corruption; it is raised in incor- 
 ruption : it is sown in dishonour ; it is raised in 
 glory : it is sown in weakness ; it is raised in* 
 power : it is sown a natural body ; it is raised a 
 spiritual body." " As we have borne the image 
 of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the 
 heavenly." " The dead shall be raised incor- 
 ruptible, and we shall be changed." So to the 
 Philippians he writes — " We look for the Saviour, 
 
TO THE TRUTH OF THE BIBLE. 1 1 9 
 
 the Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change our vile 
 body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious 
 body; according to the working whereby He is able 
 even to subdue all things unto Himself." (Phil, iii.) 
 Such, also, as I said just now, is the language of 
 Isaiah, of Daniel, of Ezekiel, of Malachi, and of St. 
 John, concerning the future of this earth. All 
 speak of a glorious time, shortly to arrive, when 
 " the righteous shall shine forth as the sun in the 
 kingdom of their Father." 
 
 Given. What is the particular fact, then, in 
 which you consider that geology confirms Scripture 
 in the matter which we have been considering ? 
 
 White. It is that of progress. Read, as the 
 Bible used to be read by our grandfathers, two 
 ideas, and two only, were commonly gathered — to 
 wit, one earth and one heaven. The world was 
 considered to have been created about 5800 years 
 ago, and its whole history to have been told in the 
 books of Holy Scripture. That history was con- 
 sidered to be closed, in prophecy, by a tremendous 
 fact, which was yet future, when this earth was to 
 be utterly and finally destroyed, and its inhabitants 
 removed to two other scenes in God's creation — 
 named, respectively, heaven and hell. Such, I say, 
 was the idea formerly entertained of man's past, and 
 present, and future. Now, however, these views 
 have been greatly modified and enlarged. The re- 
 searches of geology have shown us that, between 
 "the beginning" spoken of in the first verse of 
 Genesis, and the chaos spoken of in the second, 
 there must have intervened many periods of im- 
 measurable length, in which the earth underwent 
 mighty revolutions, but which, as not belonging to 
 man's history, were not revealed to Moses, or made 
 
120 THE TESTIMOIsY OF GEOLOGY 
 
 any part of his narrative. Geology also tells us, 
 that the prodigious changes, the burning up with 
 fire, foretold in Scripture, will not be new or un- 
 paralleled events, but rather a repetition of immense 
 convulsions, which have rent the earth in past re- 
 volutions. It also adds, that in these past revolu- 
 tions one feature has been always visible — i.e. that 
 the change has been one of progress; that each new 
 creation has been of a higher and nobler kind than 
 that which preceded it. Hence geology, on the 
 whole, points us to the conclusion that a fresh con- 
 vulsion, destroying all visible things, is likely again 
 to occur, as it has often occurred before ; while it 
 is equally probable that the new earth which will 
 then be brought forth, and its new inhabitants, will 
 exceed the earth, and the men and -women of our 
 time, just as they have exceeded all that went 
 before them. 
 
 Owen. And as to the expectations of the last 
 three centuries, that the earth would wholly vanish 
 away, and its inhabitants be removed to some other 
 spot in God's creation, you deem them to have 
 been erroneous ? 
 
 White. Nay ; I only remark, that while geology 
 has been showing us, on the one hand, that this 
 earth has had a long existence, under other circum- 
 stances, before the days of Adam, — criticism has 
 been examining the text of Scripture with new care, 
 and has brought many to the conclusion that the 
 language of Isaiah, of Ezekiel, and of St. John, does 
 not point to a future period of blessedness in heaven, 
 or in some other sphere, but on the earth itself. 
 And so the earth's whole history, instead of being 
 limited to the human period only, or from Adam 
 down to the last day of the present dispensation, is 
 
TO THE TRUTH OF THE BIBLE. 121 
 
 expanded to far larger dimensions. It appears to 
 begin as a mere insensate orb, destitute of spirit, 
 or life of any kind. After a long existence of this 
 kind, life now appears in its lowest forms. Huge 
 convulsions, at intervals of perhaps millions of 
 years, take place, by each of which all existing 
 creatures having life are destroyed ; but each such 
 convulsion is followed by long periods of peace, in 
 which higher and higher forms of life are brought 
 forth. After many creations, destructions, and 
 new creations of this kind, the human period 
 arrives, and man, the noblest of all God's works, 
 appears. The analogy of the past seems to coin- 
 cide exactly with the declarations of God's Word, 
 and to show it to be exceedingly probable, from a 
 view of the past, as well as certain from the decla- 
 rations of Scripture, that a moment will arrive 
 *' when the earth and all that is therein will be 
 burnt up;" and that after this tremendous event, 
 " new heavens and a new earth will appear, wherein 
 righteousness will dwell." 
 
122 THE TESTIMONY OB' GEOLOGY 
 
 DIALOGUE VII. 
 
 CREATION A FACT AND A MIRACLE. 
 
 Oweri. Good morning. Have you any other 
 of your thoughts on creation and on geology which 
 may usefully occupy our time to-day ? 
 
 White. Yes ; there is one other idea which I 
 should be sorry to omit. Perhaps you will hardly 
 understand me when I say that geology seems to 
 me to furnish a conclusive refutation of certain 
 objections which have lately been started with 
 reference to the miracles of Holy Scripture. 
 
 Owen. No, certainly, this thought never oc- 
 curred to me ; neither can I, at first sight, under- 
 stand what you mean. 
 
 White. Well, I will try to explain it to you. 
 I think you must have remarked that the strange 
 and startling ideas which have been mooted in 
 the course of the last few years, all, in p )int of 
 fact, have their root in atheism. It is, however, 
 a covert and disguised atheism. Its disciples avoid 
 shocking men's common sense by looking abroad 
 upon the glorious sun or the starry heavens, and 
 exclaiming, " These all made themselves, or came 
 into existence by accident;" they are willing to 
 admit that in the far-distant "Beginning" some 
 Divine Mind, some Universal Father, may have 
 put this vast machine in motion, and may have 
 imposed an immutable law upon it; but, having 
 made this admission, they are resolved to go no 
 
TO THE TRUTH OF THE BIBLE. 123 
 
 further. They are firm in the belief that here 
 the great Author stopped ; that having set the 
 universe in motion, and imposed a law upon it, He 
 henceforward took no further part in its govern- 
 ment. Hence, the God of the Bible — the God 
 who is " about our path, and about our bed, and 
 spieth out all our ways," they cannot bear to hear 
 of. A dominion of unchanging, universal law, is 
 their theory ; and as the thought of any departure 
 frdm its regularity of movement is hateful to them, 
 so they want not, they see no use for, an ever- 
 present God. The idea of a miracle they declare 
 to be intrinsically absurd; and, like Hume, they 
 hold that no amount of testimony could possibly 
 establish such a fact. Such is the theory which 
 has latterly been revived in some quarters. I say 
 revived, for it is nothing else than the system of 
 Epicurus under new phraseology ; and this system, 
 I repeat, geology utterly demolishes. 
 
 Given. How so? You must excuse me, but I 
 do not yet understand you. 
 
 White. I will explain the matter as I go. A 
 miracle, these philosophers tell us, is intrinsically 
 impossible. We point to the first chapter of 
 Genesis, and say, " There was a week of miracles;" 
 and, very naturally, they reject the narrative of 
 Moses, treat it as an old Hebrew tradition or fable, 
 and set up schemes of " development" in its room. 
 According to them, all things began in germs or 
 molecules. Life, they think, can be produced by 
 certain chemical combinations — a principle of 
 gradual growth or development is impressed upon 
 all things. Such is the theory advocated in two 
 or three works of some notoriety, which have been 
 published in the course of the last twenty years. 
 
124 THE TESTIMONY OF GEOLOGY 
 
 Now, this whole scheme is utterly broken up and 
 destroyed by the discoveries of geology. 
 
 Owen. Pray explain to me how. 
 
 White. Why, as I have said, creation is essen- 
 tially a miracle, and hence these philosophers abhor 
 the idea of creation. But no man can investigate 
 the earth's history, as exhibited in its crust or ex- 
 ternal structure, without meeting with " creation" 
 at every step. So argues Sir R. Murchison, who 
 declares that " Geology reveals to us, that during 
 immeasurable periods, long anterior to the creation 
 of the human race, whole races of animals were 
 successively created, lived their appointed time, 
 and perished."* And again: " He who, com- 
 mencing with the earliest visible signs of life, can 
 thencetbrward trace a successive rise in the scale 
 of being, until the period when man appeared on 
 the earth, must acknowledge in such works re- 
 peated manifestations of the design and supL^r- 
 intendence of a Creator" (p. 530). Therewith 
 agrees Professor Agassi z, who says, " For my part, 
 I am convinced that species have been created suc- 
 cessively, at different epochs." But the whole his- 
 tory of this earth is most vividly sketched in a few 
 sentences by Hugh Miller, in one of his finest pas- 
 sages, which I always keep in my pocket-book. 
 Here it is: — 
 
 " Nature lay dead in a waste theatre of rock, 
 vapour, and sea, in which the insensate laws, 
 mechanical, chemical, and electric, carried on their 
 blind, unintelligent processes. The creative fiat 
 went forth, and amid waters that straightway 
 teemed with life in its lower forms, vegetable and 
 animal, the dynasty of the fish was introduced. 
 * Siluria, p. 4. 
 
TO THE TRUTH OF THE BIBLE. ['26 
 
 Ages passed, during wliich there took place no 
 further elevation, when the fiat again went forth, 
 and, through an act of creation, the dynasty of the 
 reptile began. Again ages passed by, marked, ap- 
 parently, by the introduction of a warm-blooded 
 animal — the bird; when, again, the creative fiat 
 went forth, and the dynasty of the quadruped ap- 
 peared. Once more, after the lapse of ages, an act 
 of creation took place, and, with the appearance of 
 man upon the earth, the moral government of God 
 in this world took beginning."* 
 
 Owen. Yes, that is all very fine ; but is it 
 any more than a vivid picture drawn by a fervid 
 imagination ? 
 
 White. That is the whole question. I say that 
 Hugh Miller's description is a description of known 
 geological facts ; and I charge it upon the promul- 
 gators of the development theory that, while pro- 
 fessing to be rational philosophers, they do, in 
 reality, rear up, or try to rear up, a system of belief 
 on no facts whatever. Take, for instance, any of 
 the great revelations of geology — the huge mam- 
 moth, or the vast mastodon. We come to these 
 enormous creatures in the geological strata sud- 
 denly, and without any preparation whatever. 
 How came they there ? 
 
 Owen. I think that one of the essayists says 
 something about " the grand principle of the self- 
 evolving powers of Nature," and of " the origina- 
 tion of new species by natural causes." 
 
 White. Yes, I know he does ; and that is just 
 the idea which is utterly annihilated by geology. 
 
 Owen. How so ? 
 
 White. Simply by proof positive that the fact 
 * Footprints, p. 294. 
 
126 THE TESTIMONY OF GEOLOGY 
 
 is Otherwise. The theory of development is that, 
 beginning with the earliest and lowest forms, such 
 as limpets and star-fish, "the self-evolving powers 
 of Nature" gradually produced new, and newer, 
 and nobler forms, so that the little reptile advanced 
 into the rank of a monkey, the monkey into a 
 larger ape, and the ape into a man. Now, this is 
 all mere theory, based upon nothing more than an 
 ascertained improvement in a few cases. It is as 
 if a gardener, finding that he could by cultivation 
 grow finer roses and heart's-ease than he had ever 
 had before, should, therefrom, deduce the conclu- 
 sion that a rose was only a daisy largely developed. 
 But let us turn to geology. There we have a vast 
 magazine of facts. We find, as I have said, the 
 mammoth, or the mastodon. Specimens of these, 
 whole skeletons, or large portions, have been found 
 in a great number of places. They all bear the 
 same likeness to each other that a number of speci- 
 mens of the ox or the horse would among our- 
 selves. Now, an advocate of the development 
 theory, denjdng that the mammoth was created, 
 asserts that the creature grew, by a hundred suc- 
 cessive steps, out of the molluscs of the early Pa- 
 laeozoic period. We need not stop to dwell upon 
 the absurdity of this theory ; we come at once to 
 the question. What is the testimony of fact ? Had 
 such a change ever occurred, must not the evi- 
 dence of it exist? Among the 24,000 different 
 fossils already catalogued, must there not have 
 been some specimens showing the incipient mam- 
 moth ? Nay, as the mammoth is one, while the 
 steps between the mollusc and the mammoth must be 
 many, ought we not to find twenty specimens of the 
 developing mammoth for one of the matured animal? 
 
TO THE TRUTH OF THE BIBLE. 127 
 
 Owen. Yes ; I should think so. 
 
 White. Well, then, what is to be said when, 
 against a great number of mammoths in their 
 complete form, there is not a single developing 
 mammoth to be placed ? Each of these creatures, 
 standing alone, is a witness to the fact of creation. 
 Geology tells us, with unhesitating voice, that for 
 millions of years in its Palceozoic period there was 
 no mammoth ; that for millions of years in its Se- 
 condary period there was no mammoth ; but that 
 in the Tertiary period multitudes of mammoths 
 suddenly appeared. The inference is obvious — 
 " The hand of the Creator has been at work." 
 " No," say some, who dislike the idea of creation : 
 " these creatures were merely developed." To which 
 we reply, " Show us some pi^oof of this ; for, with- 
 out it, your supposition is simply absurd. Just as 
 easily may we give credit to the dreamy legends 
 of the Hindoo or the Chinese, as receive the sur- 
 mise of a would-be philosopher without an atom of 
 proof. If, for tens of thousands of years, inferior 
 animals were constantly developing into higher 
 kinds, there must have been specimens and ex- 
 amples of this change among the myriads of fossils 
 which everywhere abound. Their non-appearance 
 is a proof of their non-existence. Your theory is 
 submitted to the test of fact, and it is disproved" 
 
 Owen. You think it clear and certain, then, 
 that if these great quadrupeds were gradually 
 formed by enlargements and improvements of in- 
 ferior creatures, some evidence, some specimens of 
 these animals in the course of " development," must 
 exist? 
 
 White. I leave it to you. Is it not a dictate 
 of common sense ? The fact, be it observed, is as 
 
128 THE TESTIMONY OF GEOLOGY 
 
 certain as any one fact in geology can be, that 
 during the whole of the Palaeozoic and Secondary 
 periods, embracing millions of years, no such crea- 
 ture as a mammoth can be found. Yet other crea- 
 tures, fish and reptiles, are met with by thousands. 
 We pass on to the Tertiary period, the period pre- 
 ceding the present ; and now we find huge quad- 
 rupeds in multitudes. How came they there? We 
 reply. By the same Almighty fiat which produced 
 fish when there were none, and life itself, where no 
 life had existed before. " These creatures," says 
 Professor Sedgwick, "have no zoological base to 
 rest upon. They were not called into being by 
 any known law of Nature, but by a power above 
 Nature; they were created." The like argument 
 applies, in turn, to all the other classes ; to birds, 
 to reptiles, and to fishes. " How were birds called 
 into being?" We reply, "They were created." 
 We are met by a supposition that these great quad- 
 rupeds had grown by development, or improve- 
 ment, out of the fish or reptiles of the earlier 
 periods. We reply, by calling for proof. Just as 
 all geologists agree that man did not exist until 
 the present or human period; because they have 
 investigated the earth's crust in thousands of places, 
 and have discovered tens of thousands of pre- 
 Adamite creatures, but have never met with the 
 slightest trace of man; so we say that development 
 is a dream, a mere fiction of some foolish atheist: 
 inasmuch as, if such a thing had ever been, some 
 traces of it must have remained. No such fact can 
 be discovered; and hence we say that no such fact 
 ever was. To use the words of Professor Sedg- 
 wick, " Geology, taken as a plain succession of 
 monuments and facts, offers one firm, cumulative 
 
TO THE TRUTH OF THE BIBLE. ]29 
 
 argument against the hypothesis of develop- 
 ment."* 
 
 Owen. Well ; but supposing all this to be ad- 
 mitted, how does it bear on the question of 
 miracles ? 
 
 White. Most palpably, and most unanswerably. 
 A philosopher, of course, will not look upon the 
 earth with reference only to the present or human 
 period. He looks upon it as having existed for 
 millions of years. Well, the question is, whether, 
 on being first dismissed from its Maker's hands, 
 it was left to the government of the laws of 
 Nature alone, or whether its Author has some- 
 times interposed and overruled those laws by 
 interpositions which we call miracles? Those who 
 dislike this idea object to the notion of creation, 
 just as much as they do to that of a miracle; for, 
 in fact, they have discernment enough to see that 
 creation is a miracle. To call a mammoth sud- 
 denly into existence, is as great an interference 
 with " the laws of Nature," as to call a dead man 
 out of the grave. Hence, to admit the fact of the 
 successive creation of the lower creatures, then of 
 the higher, and then of man himself, renders it 
 irrational for a man, after this admission, to ques- 
 tion such facts as the incarnation, resurrection, or 
 ascension ; and thus geology, while it rejects and 
 overthrows the fiction of development, establishes 
 the fact of creation; and creation is nothing else 
 than the first and greatest of miracles. 
 
 Oweii. Yes, I see what you mean now; and I 
 do not think that the possibility of miracles can be 
 questioned, except the questioner has first denied 
 creation, and so has practically denied the very 
 existence of a God. 
 
 * Edinburgh Review, No. clxv. p. 62. 
 
130 THE TESTIMONY OF GEOLOGY 
 
 White. Why, as I have said, atheism, or a de- 
 nial of the existence of a God, is the real founda- 
 tion of the development-theory. I knoAV, indeed, 
 that they will shrink from this charge, and assert 
 that they admit a First Cause, and are willing to 
 concede that, millions of years ago, the laws of 
 Nature emanated from some Divine mind; but this 
 First Cause is the only Deity that they will allow 
 to exist. A God actually ruling over the world 
 which He had made, and creating or calling forth 
 new ones, is an idea which they receive with evi- 
 dent disgust ; and therefore it is that I attach so 
 much value and importance to the fact that geology 
 shows us creation in its several stages, and ex- 
 hibits that very power in operation, which our 
 atheists so evidently dislike and so earnestly deny. 
 
 Owen. Yes ; I have always felt that there was 
 something strange, unproved, and unprovable, in 
 the development-theory. Did it never strike you 
 that there was a character of absurdity imprinted 
 on its very face ? 
 
 White. Absurdity ! it is more than that. It is 
 a standing proof of the truth of the Psalmist's 
 saying, that it is only "the fool" that " says in his 
 heart. There is no God." Think of a man being 
 so resolved not to believe in creation, because he 
 hates the idea of an active, ever-present God ; that, 
 to avoid this, "we are called on to believe that 
 geese may hatch rats, that cassowaries may hatch 
 kangaroos, that seals may breed into lions and 
 whales into elephants ; and that monkeys, through 
 good-breeding, may become men!" Amidst the 
 voluminous chronicles of human folly, there is, I 
 think, no single case of fatuity which surpasses this. 
 
TO THE TKUTH OF THE BIBLE. 131 
 
 DIALOGUE VIII. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 White. Good morning, friend Owen. I think 
 we may conclude that subject this morning on 
 which we have been lately conversing. 
 
 Owen. You have no more proof, then, to bring 
 from the investigations of geology, for the estab- 
 lishment of the truth of Scripture ? 
 
 White. I can hardly say that ; but I think that 
 enough has been done. In some cases five or six 
 witnesses are as good as a score. If you and four 
 or five other credible persons told me that you had 
 seen a meteor last night, I should not want the 
 evidence of a dozen more persons to convince me of 
 the fact. 
 
 Owe?!. Well, at least, you consider that sufficient 
 has been said. Will you, then, go rapidly over our 
 past conversations, and let us see what is the real 
 amount of proof which they have furnished ? 
 
 White. Very willingly. I have regarded Geo- 
 logy, not as some do, as an enemy, but as a credible 
 and an important witness. I am certain that the 
 works of God, if fairly investigated, can never 
 contradict His word. God is " of one mind," and 
 " He cannot deny Himself." Hence I feel satisfied, 
 that if the testimony of geology be fairly given and 
 fairly received, it must agree with, and not con- 
 travene, the plain statements of Holy Scripture. 
 
 Owen. You had better consider, then, Geology 
 
133 THE TESTIMONY OF GEOLOGY 
 
 as a witness, and deal with its testimony after that 
 manner. Let us review the whole question from 
 that point of view. 
 
 White. Willingly. I open the Book of Genesis, 
 then, and I ask Geology what is the interpretation 
 to be put upon verse 1, "In the beginning?" It 
 is quite clear that Moses gives us no clue to the 
 date of this "beginning." It may have been just 
 before Adam's creation, or it may have been many 
 millions of years before that date. Neither view 
 contravenes anything that Moses has said. The re- 
 ply of Geology is, that, judging from the appearance 
 of the various strata of the earth, and considering 
 how many thousands of years would be occupied 
 in the formation of a thousand feet in thickness of 
 chalk ; how many hundreds of thousands of years 
 would be required for the vast coal formations ; 
 and then, looking at the length of time required 
 for the oolite, the sandstone, and the granite, it is 
 impossible to doubt that the earth must have been 
 millions of years in arriving at its present state and 
 condition. Well, I consider all this, and I remark 
 that it is vastly more consonant with the plain 
 sense of many passages of Scripture than our 
 limited view of an existence of less than six thousand 
 years. We are accustomed to ask. Why was the 
 coming of the Messiah delayed for four thousand 
 years? Why is Christ's return so long delayed? 
 How can this delay be reconciled with His promise 
 of " coming quickly?" These questions all spring 
 from the same error of using a wrong standard of 
 time. If we really believed the Psalmist's words, 
 "A thousand years are in thy sight as yesterday, 
 and as a watch in the night," — if we listened to 
 St. Peter's exhortation, and felt satisfied that a 
 
TO THE TRUTH OF THE BIBLE. 133 
 
 thousand years are in God's view as one day, — we 
 should no longer say, " My Lord delayeth His 
 coming." Thus it helps us to believe and know the 
 truth, to be assured that this earth of ours has 
 already passed through a history of many millions 
 of years ; so that the days from Adam downwards 
 have been merely a very brief episode of the whole 
 story. If a friend says, "I will see you again 
 soon," we are not surprised if he remains absent 
 for two or three days. Realise the truth, that 2000 
 or 3000 years are with God as two or three days 
 are with us ; ponder upon the fact, that even this 
 earth itself has rolled on its axis many thousand 
 times a thousand years ; and then all the language 
 of Scripture is simple, and true, and quite exact. 
 So far, Geology confirms Scripture, instead of being 
 at variance with it. 
 
 Next, I will ask Geology at what conclusion the 
 searchers into the earth's formation have arrived, 
 as to the circumstances attending the incoming of 
 the present or human period. And the answer is, 
 that the different stages or periods in the past life 
 of the globe seem to have been divided from each 
 other by vast convulsions, mighty earthquakes, 
 attended by the outburst of internal fires; and that 
 the last of these great revolutions appears to have 
 occurred about six or seven thousand years ago. 
 That convulsion left the earth " the wreck and 
 ruins of a former world." All kinds of life had 
 been extinguished ; and the outbreak of subter- 
 ranean fires must have turned oceans into masses 
 of vapour, and so have wrapped the world in dark- 
 ness. In a word, Geology describes the beginning 
 of the human period precisely as Moses describes it 
 when he says, " The earth was without form, and 
 
134 THE TESTIMONY OF GEOLOGY 
 
 void ; and darkness was upon the face of the 
 deep." 
 
 Thirdly, I call upon this witness to say what 
 light has been thrown upon the question of the 
 beginning of our measure of time at the beginning 
 of the present period. If the earth existed long 
 before man existed on it, did it know, in those old 
 times, the same nights and days, the same times 
 and seasons, which we know ? The answer of 
 Geology is decidedly in the negative. The re- 
 searches of geologists have satisfied them that the 
 climate of the pre- Adamite world was wholly un- 
 like that of our own period. The regions now 
 frozen were then warm. One inquirer asks whether 
 astronomical reasons can be assigned for this re- 
 markable change. Another suggests that the axis 
 of the earth must have suffered some change. But 
 the fact is universally agreed upon, that the climate 
 of the old world differed greatly from that which 
 we now experience. Here, then, is another con- 
 firmation of Scripture ; for Moses tells us, that in 
 the course of a certain week, not quite 6000 years 
 ago, our present days and nights, our times and 
 seasons, our winters and summers, all had begin- 
 ning. And Geology agrees with this so far as to 
 be quite certain that the human period, which 
 began about 6000 years ago, has a different cli- 
 mate, a different cold and heat, probably a different 
 day and night, from the pre- Adamite ages. 
 
 A fourth question which I put to Geology is 
 this: — Distinguishing the different periods called 
 Geological, — the Azoic, the Palseozoic, the Se- 
 condary, and the Tertiary, — in which of them does 
 man appear ? The answer is clear and positive : 
 In none of them. Not a fragment of a human form 
 
TO THE TRUTH OF THE BIBLE. 135 
 
 or skeleton can be found in all those millions of 
 years. It is man's appearance, after all the geo- 
 logical ages have passed away, which gives to the 
 present the name of " the Human period." Our 
 museums are filled with vast varieties of creatures 
 who lived in the Palseozoic age, perhaps two, three, 
 or ten millions of years ago. Then with other 
 and different creatures, who lived at a more recent 
 date, but still probably more than a million of 
 years ago. Then with a third race of beings, who 
 lived in the days preceding the last great con- 
 vulsion, but still many thousands of years before a 
 man was seen. In none of all these millions of 
 years, so far as Geology can learn, did man exist. 
 His entrance upon this earth, so far as geological 
 investigations can decide the question, was at the 
 commencement of the present period — the period 
 in which we are now living. And thus, in the 
 chief fact of all — the beginning of the human race, 
 Geology and the Bible are entirely agreed. When 
 Moses says, that in the first week of the world's 
 present history " God created man," Geology re- 
 sponds that this assertion is fully in accordance 
 with all the investigations of science up to the 
 present moment. 
 
 A fifth and a sixth question are closely connected 
 with each other. What says Geology of the pro- 
 bable future? It replies, that judging by the past, 
 and observing that many successive periods or 
 stages of the earth's existence have been suddenly 
 closed by vast convulsions, in which the outburst 
 of internal fires has generally been a principal 
 agent, it inclines to the opinion that another revo- 
 lution of the same kind may be in store. But it 
 observes, also, that each of these convulsions, in 
 
136 THE TESTIMONY OF GEOLOGY 
 
 the ages that are past, has been followed, appa- 
 rently, by a long period of calm, and by a constant 
 progress — an advance from a lower to a higher 
 kind of life, until the latest, the human period, 
 gave the earth a ruler, made in the likeness of God, 
 and having a rational soul. And hence geologists 
 agree that, gathering from the past the law of the 
 earth's existence, they trust, that if again con- 
 vulsed, as in past times, by a new and destructive 
 revolution, that revolution will bring in, like the 
 former ones, a fresh advance in the scale of being 
 — a nobler kind of life than it has yet known. 
 
 And here, too, Geology again, and most fully, 
 agrees with the Bible. All readers of God's word 
 will recal to mind, without difficulty, many pas- 
 sages of Scripture which entirely agree with both 
 these anticipations. Prophets and apostles, from 
 the beginning of the Bible to the end of it, have 
 constantly told us of a coming destruction, of a fiery 
 visitation, of a burning up of the earth. But they 
 have not ended with this. They have gone on to 
 predict, as geologists now do, the rise of " a new 
 heaven and a new earth," like a phoenix from the 
 ashes of the old. Again, therefore, the agreement 
 is full and complete. Geology confirms the de- 
 clarations of Scripture. 
 
 Once more, I inquire of Geology respecting an- 
 other matter on which new doubts have recently 
 been thrown, or rather, on which old doubts have 
 been revived. We have lately been assured, with 
 a vast assumption of scientific authority, that the 
 idea of a miracle is intrinsically absurd ; for that 
 the laws of existence, or the laws of Nature, are 
 unchangeable, and cannot be broken. I demand, 
 therefore, of Geology, what evidence or what con- 
 
TO THE TRUTH OF THE BIBLE. 137 
 
 viction it has arrived at, with reference to such a 
 subject as this. 
 
 And the reply is distinct, full, and conclusive. 
 Geology declares, with unhesitating decision, that 
 any one who chooses to dig into the crust of the 
 earth may find miracles in abundance. He will 
 find in the upper, or recent formations, the remains 
 of human beings deposited during the last six 
 thousand years. He will find no such remains 
 during the geological periods. Hence the assertion 
 of Moses is confirmed, that on a certain day, about 
 5860 years ago, " God created man." In the like 
 manner, in the Tertiary formations, huge beasts 
 are found — the mastodon, the mammoth, &c. In 
 the Secondary, no such creatures existed. They 
 appeared in the succeeding age by creation. So of 
 birds, of reptiles, and of fishes. Each came in its 
 turn by creation. And to call a bird, or an ele- 
 phant, or a man, into existence where none was 
 ever seen before, is a miracle, as great and as un- 
 questionable as the calling Lazarus out of his grave, 
 or the giving sight to the blind. Miracles, there- 
 fore, are attested by geology as facts which have 
 been ascertained, seen, felt, and handled. 
 
 Oiven. You dreiw from geology, then, as many 
 as six or seven attestations of the statements of 
 Scripture. First, the real brevity of a mere 
 thousand years, and the truth of the longer 
 measures of time which are common in the Bible ; 
 then the correctness of Moses' description of the 
 state of chaos which preceded "the first day;" then 
 the fact that there really was a "first day" — a 
 first of the days now known to us — about 6000 
 years ago ; fourthly, that man was placed upon the 
 earth just at the time and in the manner which 
 
138 THE TESTIMONY OF GEOLOGY 
 
 Moses describes ; next, that there is an evident 
 probability of a destruction of this earth by fire, 
 and of the rise of a new heaven and earth, as fore- 
 told by all the prophets ; and lastly, that the suc- 
 cessive creations of different races, and of man 
 himself in the latest, is a fact "written on the 
 rocks for ever," a fact which brings miracles within 
 our sight and touch. 
 
 White. Yes ; you have accurately stated the 
 case. And may I not ask, whether, when men 
 began with pick-axe and lever to break up the 
 earth's crust, it could ever have been expected that 
 from such researches so many proofs of the truth 
 of the statements of Moses could ever have been 
 found ? That nothing destructive of our belief in 
 the Hebrew historian would appear, might be a 
 rational expectation ; but we had, I siippose, no 
 previous right to expect that positive confirmations 
 would be found. And hence the wondering admi- 
 ration which I expressed when we first spoke on 
 these topics, that Geology should have been made 
 to yield such an unlooked-for evidence of the truth 
 of the Mosaic narrative. I find in it one more proof 
 that, search where we will, we are sure to meet 
 with the works and the power of God. " If I climb 
 up into heaven, thou art there : if I go down into 
 hell, thou art there also. If I take the wings of 
 the morning, and remain in the uttermost parts of 
 the sea ; even there also shall thy hand lead me, 
 and thy right hand shall hold me." (Ps. cxxxix.) 
 The simple truth is, that the same Lord Jesus who 
 said in the days of his flesh, "Before Abraham was, 
 I am," said also, by the mouth of Solomon, " When 
 He prepared the heavens, I was there : when He set 
 a compass upon the face of the deep .... while as 
 
TO THE TEUTH OF THE BIBLE. 139 
 
 yet He had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor 
 
 the highest part of the dust of the world 
 
 when He established the clouds above : when He 
 strengthened the fountains of the deep : when He 
 gave to the sea his decree : when He appointed the 
 foundations of the earth, then I was by Him." (Prov. 
 viii.) The Creator of heaven and earth, the Triune 
 Jehovah, who said, " Let us make man in our 
 image," was also the teacher of Moses, as He was 
 of Job and of Solomon ; and He could not err, nor 
 would He mislead those whom He graciously guided 
 and inspired. He enabled Moses to describe the 
 creation of man and of man's earth accurately ; and 
 the more closely the subject is investigated, the 
 more clearly will it be manifested that the account 
 of that creation given at the opening of the book of 
 Genesis is a simple and true account, dictated by 
 Him who wrought all the works which He therein 
 describes. And so of the whole Bible. In Genesis, 
 in the Book of Job, in the Psalms, in the Proverbs, 
 and in several of the Prophets, we have glimpses of 
 creation, and of the laws which God has imprinted 
 on His various works; and among all those sketches 
 and outlines we shall search in vain for a single 
 error. It is this which distinguishes the Bible 
 from all other ancient books of philosophy. If we 
 take up the cosmogonies of the Greeks or of the 
 Egyptians, of the Chaldeans, the Phcenicians, or 
 the Chinese, we find at every step the most re- 
 volting absurdities. There is not one among them 
 all, to which even a child would give a moment's 
 credence. And this is natural enough, for the 
 writers were all mere men, speculating in the dark, 
 on matters which had happened 2000 or 3000 
 years before. But in the Bible we find ourselves 
 
140 THE TESTIMONY OF GEOLOGY, ETC. 
 
 in a different region. There are no formal lessons 
 — no lectures upon science, for the book was writ- 
 ten with a totally different view. But in a hun- 
 dred placeSj the earth and its origin, the sun, 
 moon, and stars, are spoken of, and always accu- 
 rately. It is throughout " the language of a Father, 
 addressing himself even to the youngest of his 
 children, but in such a manner that even the eldest 
 of them will never find a sentence contrtiry to the 
 truth ;" and who, while he is thinking and speaking 
 chiefly of spiritual things, " drops expressions which 
 show them that what they have learned of his 
 works during four thousand years, he knew long 
 before, and much better than they." This has 
 often been shown in astronomical and in other 
 kindred matters, but I think that it is nowhere 
 more apparent than in the chief facts of Geolog; . 
 
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