stationary. Scientific terms vary with the advancing developments of a science, and with the changes, connected more or less with those developments. Terms designating supposed facts and the theories founded on them, must be exchanged for new ones, as these facts are falsified or modified by later and more accurate investigations. The common language of sense is alone fixed; and the sacred writers, who wrote immediately for the benefit of their contemporaries, must needs have employed it, and not that of technical science, which would have been simply unintelligible, and sounded like perfect jargon. (2) We should here mark the distinction between Revelation and Inspiration. The force of the objection lies in the supposition that the design of the Almighty (Josh. x. 12-14) was to impart scientific knowledge and physical philosophy by Revelation, whereas the miracle is the inspired statement of an event as it presented itself to the naked eye. If the same miracle were again to happen, common observers would again say the sun and not the earth stood still. While the assertions and allusions of a scientific nature, found in Scripture, have been vindicated, as true learning has made progress (David, it is quite possible, knew the world was round, ages before its rotundity was demonstrated by science); yet, obviously the purpose of the Bible is not to teach in or by the formulas of the schools.1 Against apparent discrepancies between natural science and Scripture, it is well urged, that "no one truth can be contradictory to any other truth." If the Bible be Divine (and its Divine character rests upon its own distinctive evidence), then it is certain that no fact in the universe can be really inconsistent with it. If any inconsistency arises, it is only apparent, and proceeds either from ignorance of the real sense of Scripture, or from inaccuracy in the investigations of philosophers. There must be essential harmony between Nature and Revelation, between "the finger and the tongue of God." What Revelation has to fear is not full and fair investigation, but sciolism, imperfect or partial knowledge. Doubtless there are, as St. Paul warned Timothy, " oppositions of science 'In the Psalter translation (as in Ps. xviii. 15) we read of "the round world." The expression occurs also in Ps. lxxxix. 12, xciii. 2, xcvi. 10, xcviii. S. The word used for world is a poetical, and not a prosaic one. Some derive it from a word signifying to go, or walk; thus alluding, perhaps, to a rolling world. Others from a word signifying perfected or rounded-out; thus alluding to a round world. Perhaps both derivations point the same way; for it is not easy for anything to roll unless it be round. So there may have been an antedated allusion in the word to the world's scientific configuration. falsely so called " (I. Tim. vi. 20). If, in men's minds, there be a divergence between the truth of Nature as science has disclosed it, and the truth of Revelation as set forth in Scripture, it is but a seeming divergence, and as researches in both are pushed toward perfection, they will at length be seen, in the eyes of all, to meet on common ground, each a page of the same book, emanating from the same personal and supreme God, and both mutually explanatory of each other. And even at the present stage of scientific investigation, it is incumbent upon all who aspire to an enlightened intelligence, to discriminate between those facts which science has really disclosed, and the theories of some, and especially of some very dogmatic scientific men. The facts which the elaborate researches of Darwin have perverted, could, under the hand of a Bacon, a Butler, or a Barrow (to say nothing of a Cuvier or a Newton), be made to contribute to a system radiant with Divine illumination. Unhappily, science has fallen, to a large degree, into the keeping of those who are disposed to shape and attemper its facts for the support of systems inimical to the Christian religion. They hate Christianity, because it predicts retribution; because it talks of sin and judgment. And if this hatred, coupled with wide-spread ignorance, on the part of Christians, of the evidences of Christianity, is to bring upon the Church Catholic a deluge of infidelity, God, it is believed, will guide the storm, and cause the waves of calamity to heave upon the shore It has been remarked, that the terms used to describe occurrences in the earliest portion of the world's history, are sometimes ambiguous or unscientific-for example, light is represented as being created before the sun. But we should remember that in that initial, plastic period, events and their conditions must have been very different from what take place now-different in a manner and extent, of which we are totally unable to form a just conception; and that the terms in which they are described, terms deriving their significance from their application to events occurring now, are necessarily ambig uous. Or, to take another view, we may suppose the first verse of Genesis to describe a completed, and the second verse, a disorganized creation. In the Septuagint, and other ancient versions, the second verse of Genesis begins with but instead of and, denoting an interrupted continuity. Sir Roderick Murchison (a grand authority) tells us the earth is not as it once was, but has passed through a convulsionary process. A moral catastrophe, such as preceded the Deluge, may have produced this physical catastrophe. Part of this catastrophe may have been, the wrapping the world in a pall of darkness, such as fell upon human eyesight during the last hours of the Crucifixion. "Let there be light" may signify not the creation of light, but its re-introduction to scenes from which it had been shut out. We have our theory about the moral catastrophe alluded to; but shall not now introduce it to our readers. a remedy for its cure; as He once brought a prophet to do His will, from the bowels of the deep. The evils of our day will lead to an ultimate and lasting triumph for the truth. The judgment of the truth will be brought forth to victory, when the faith of men will become more intelligent and firm through Christian studies, stimulated by infidel assaults, when a sense of extreme danger, breaking down the walls of "our unhappy divisions," will unify a divided Christendom-and when the whole Church of God will stand before the world in the majesty and power of The Communion of Saints restored; challenging respect and awe, where it does not command allegiance and submission. THE HE text of Shakespeare's plays has given rise to some very remarkable conjectural criticism. The variorum edition is almost as good a jest-book as Joe Miller's. We might well exclaim, in the words of Madame Roland, slightly altered, "Oh, criticism! how many follies are uttered in thy name!" Once in a great while an important and sensible emendation is effected. Thus, in the description of Falstaff's death, the words "table of Greenfields" long stood as the pons asinorum of the commentators. The scholar who suggested "a babbled o' green fields," instead, conferred a boon on mankind. But how narrow an escape did we have from a leap out of the pan into the fire! Mr. Collier's folio would read, " on a table of green frieze," the passage then standing, "his nose was as sharp as a pen on a table of green frieze," which is quite a figure of upholstery. (Here let us observe, that the conclusive argument in favor of the received emendation, seems to have escaped the attention of all the commentators until White. A mere reading of the passage suggests it: "for after I saw him fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers, and smile upon his fingers' ends, I knew there was but one way for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and 'a babbled of green fields." What more natural than to talk of green fields after playing with flowers?) It is hard to believe that Pope was serious when he conjectured that the words were a stage direction for a "supe," by the name of Greenfields, to bring in a table. The scholar who ciii.-2 shall suggest the correct reading for "runaway's eyes may wink,” in Romeo and Juliet, and for "some jay of Italy, whose mother was her painting," in Cymbeline, will earn the solid gratitude of all students of literature. But the amount of stupid and unnecessary criticism that is inflicted on the great poet is almost beyond belief. For instance, in respect to the passage in Romeo and Juliet, where Nurse, calling for Juliet, says, "What lamb! what lady-bird! God forbid! Where's this girl?" so sensible an editor as Staunton remarks on the words "lady-bird," that they were a term applied to women of light and indelicate behavior, and that Nurse, remembering this, suddenly checks herself, and exclaims, "God forbid "—that I should apply such a name to my charge! Hereupon, Mr. Dyce deems it necessary to remark, "Staunton is certainly wrong," and to explain that the meaning is, " God forbid" that anything should have happened to Juliet. One hardly knows which more to admire, the folly of Staunton or the simplicity of Dyce. If we could be permitted a suggestion, we would say that the reference was unquestionably to the popular Mother Goose melody: Lady-bird, lady-bird, fly away home, Thy house is on fire, thy children will burn. Nurse meant "God forbid " that any such bad fortune should come on Juliet as the incremation of her palace and the contingent young Capulets with which it might be stocked. This, now, This, now, is something like. Or take Lord Campbell in his conjectural pamphlet on the question whether Shakespeare was a lawyer, in which he comes to the conclusion that there is a good deal to be said on both sides. Among the arguments in favor of the affirmative, his lordship adduces the lines: But my kisses bring again If this sort of seals were now in vogue among the legal profession, a seal would probably be deemed necessary for every conceivable legal document, and consequently there would be even more lip-service among lawyers than at present. Among the conjectures concerning the occupation of Shakespeare before he became a player, none is more entertaining than that of Steevens, founded on the passage: There's a divinity that shapes our ends, |