if we, by a kind of stereoscopic vision, can see the same objects with the scientific, and at the same time with the historic eye, and find both representations to agree, they would stand out before us with a distinctness, and a visible reality, such as they could not otherwise assume. The scientific Christian may know and understand things connected with the Bible, which the unscientific Christian cannot know; and the Christian philosopher may know and understand many things connected with science, unintelligible to the man who has not studied his Bible.

Upon various occasions have the friends of Christianity been startled by the confident assertions of the men of science, as to some alleged fact which had been discovered inconsistent with the Scriptures; and, on other occasions, the friends of science have been startled by the confident assertions of Bible interpreters, as if the authority of Scripture were to be placed in opposition to scientific facts, about which there could be no mistake. Science and Scripture were in both cases outraged by human presumption: the pretended discoveries by which the Bible was to be put down, turned out to be nothing more than speculative abortions, which a little more philosophy buried out of sight; and the dogmatic assertors of Scripture authority against scientific facts, have been corrected in their turn by more enlightened interpreters of Bible phraseology.

What an evidence does this afford of the Divine origin of Scripture! Not only in humanly devised religions do we find perpetually recurring fallacies and scientific errors, indicative of the state of education among the people and the age that produced them, but in all merely human productions, of whatever kind they may be, we find abundant evidence of ignorance and misinformation. So true

is this, that it would be almost impossible to write in an age of comparative darkness (except by Divine inspiration) that which will abide the light and the scrutiny of a future day.

It appears to be a fundamental principle of the Holy Scriptures never to reveal directly any philosophic truth, but to speak systematically in the language of current knowledge. Even in its most exalted revelations it adapts itself to the habits of thought and expression of the age and country to which it was primarily addressed. A little consideration will shew us that this was absolutely necessary. To have propounded one new doctrine in science, or to have anticipated one invention in art, would have been contrary to the very nature and intention of revelation. The Bible is a book for all men in all ages, whereas science and art are a progressive and never-ending career of discovery and invention; if the Bible, therefore, made any revelations whatever in such a field, it would have betrayed a human origin, and a human mind perhaps a little in advance of the age which gave it birth, but useless for ever after. One of two things was necessary, it must either systematically avoid scientific revelation altogether; or, speaking the language of science in its furthest development, it must once for all lift the vail from the face of nature, and, by one revelation, abolish further effort and further inquiry. In this respect, then, the Scriptures may be said to stand on a level with other writings that are not inspired; but even in this they exhibit the most wonderful evidence of their Divine inspiration; for, while they carefully refrain from making any direct contribution to the scientific knowledge of the world, they have never stumbled upon any statement which will not abide the light of advancing

science. This feature appears to be altogether superhuman they have preserved a thorough consistency with all that science has yet discovered; so that in the light of the nineteenth century we read the productions of the world's infancy, and discover no error and no weakness. The ignorance that then prevailed in regard to both art and science was very great, and yet the writers of Scripture were never seduced into a scientific blunder, shewing that, notwithstanding their bold step and unhesitating walk, they were guided by One who, though He knew all things, did not intend to reveal in this manner anything but the one thing needful, which neither art nor science was capable of discovering of themselves.

How interesting, also, to meditate on this aspect of our Saviour's sojourning on earth. The human mind of Jesus, so pure, so calm, so cultivated, could not for thirty years have conversed with nature and with God without making large discoveries in science, and anticipating mighty achievements in art; and yet not one word was allowed to escape His lips that betrayed even the consciousness of such a knowledge; that which would have raised Him higher than Aristotle or Newton, was equally suppressed with that which would have made Him mightier than Cæsar.

How then can the Scriptures throw any light upon science if they systematically avoid any direct revelation ? The answer to this is as important as it is simple-It is the FACTS of Scripture that are the legitimate subjects of scientific inquiry; and it is the purpose of the following chapters to shew that they form most valuable contributions to the cause, the more so as they are gleanings in a field not accessible to us in the present day. The soldier

who had part of his body shot away, and yet survived the accident, enabled the physicians to know, by actual and visible experiment, what changes took place upon different kinds of food taken into his stomach; and his case was regarded by the medical profession as a most valuable opportunity of ascertaining facts which otherwise might never be known. A traveller, in like manner, who, by some rare accident, is enabled to examine some locality which was never before or may never again be visited, would be an extremely valuable contributor to any science dependent on such phenomena as he had witnessed. It is upon this principle that the facts and phenomena attested by Scripture ought to be valuable to the scientific inquirer, because they are, many of them, disclosures of things now not seen, and yet intimately connected with the things that are. It was impossible that a narrative which describes events and phenomena connected with heaven and earth, God and man, angels and devils, that there should not be many facts related which, when viewed in connexion with modern science and with each other, are possessed of the highest scientific value. objection to receive them as legitimate contributions to natural science cannot be justified on any grounds consistent with the acknowledgment of their truth; and although they may appear to some as if they were incapable of being incorporated with the ascertained results of modern observation and experiment, a more mature philosophy will find in them, not isolated, and mysterious, and heterogeneous elements, but connecting links and consistent phenomena.

CHAPTER II.

THE BIBLE'S CONTRIBUTION TO ASTRONOMY.

THE doctrine of the Incarnation, Resurrection, and Ascension of Christ is the grand connecting link between Astronomy and a future state. An unincarnate Deity needs no material throne on which to dwell as the seat of His empire; and the mystery of a merely spiritual existence is too dark to enable us to infer with any certainty a connexion between the universe of mind and the universe of space; but when we are assured that the body of Christ ascended into heaven, carrying with it the flesh and bones which He presented to His disciples as the proofs of His resurrection, we have conclusive evidence that in the material heavens there is a material world, in which the material body of our glorified Saviour dwells. Nor is His the only human body there. Enoch and Elijah, and the saints who rose after His resurrection, form as it were the members of the glorious visible court of heaven. If He, then, be exalted above all principalities and powers, and thrones and dominions, all things being put under His feet, then can we inform the astronomer that the great and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, to whom every inhabitant of every star is subject, and at whose name every knee must bow, not only on earth but in heaven, is the man Christ Jesus, the Jew who was born in Bethlehem, died on Calvary, and