stationary and exhausted, call us to pause and wait before we make our assertions and lay down our conclusions.

But to return to Genesis i. ; let us admit that Moses relates a vision. We have referred to the different epochs of creative energy as marked out and defined by geology.

But, as far as we know, geology is silent about the actual state of the earth at the termination of one period and the commencement of another. Is it any forcing of scientific truth to suppose that the vision of Moses brings before us the earth as it was after these successive periods had passed away?

At this time it was wrapped in darkness. There is a difficulty here from this fact. The sun was not made to appear (whatever may be the meaning of the word set) above the earth till the fourth day.

Yet the animal remains of pre-Adamite date show the existence of eyes which must have required light as ours do. Many of the animals, too, must have had for their development a far higher temperature than the earth enjoys now. Therefore it is argued the world must have had the benefit of a sun as we have. Grant this; but are we assured, does science prove it necessary, that the light which the pre-Adamite animals enjoyed emanated from the identical sun which we enjoy?

Is it not within the range of possibility that the earth may have passed from the influence of one sun to another, as it is supposed comets have done?

Are we bound to conclude that the law of gravitation, as now enounced and understood, has been at all times the law by which all the movements of the heavenly bodies have been regulated? Is it impossible to conceive that a law not contradictory of, but circumscribing this law, may exist, and may be discovered, which may explain away all the difficulties we feel, either in supposing that the earth may have passed from one system to another; or had appeared to be poised in space for a short season in a state of darkness, being removed from the perceptible influence of any sun?

Is it impossible to suppose that Moses saw in vision the earth thus poised in the midst of space and wrapped in darkness? He would then hear the voice of God proclaiming, "Let there be light." Should the light have shone from one direction and the earth have been possessed of rotatory motion, day and night would have been at once produced.

The second day he sees the waters lifted up aud the clouds formed; and between the clouds above and the sea beneath he witnesses the insertion of the ether, the clear expanse of heaven. From this statement about the formation of the firmament, it is clear that there was either no atmosphere, or one too thin and rarified to support the clouds. And as air, as well as light, must have been necessary for animal life before, there must at once have been a withdrawal both of the light and the sur

rounding atmosphere. How this was effected, science does not teach us. If rain had fallen in past days, there must have been clouds; but by the withdrawal of the atmosphere, these must have collapsed and mingled with the seas. It was the work, therefore, of the second day to separate them again by the reinsertion of the atmosphere. Whether Moses fully understood, or not, all that we understand by an atmosphere, or whether his own notions of celestial phenomena confused his ideas of the vision which he saw, is nothing to us; the only question is, did he relate what he actually saw? On the evening of the fourth day Moses would see the light of the first day for the last time. God might have brought the earth within the range of its present orbit; and as night came on, the eyes of Moses might for the first time have gazed on the magnificent spectacle of the starry hosts and the moon walking in her brightness; and when morning dawned, instead of the light which he had previously seen diffused over the earth, he would behold the splendid spectacle of the sun rising in unclouded majesty.

The foregoing remarks upon the first chapter of Genesis do not pretend to anything more than to offer some suggestions which may tend to remove the difficulties which some thoughtful persons feel on the subject of the reconciliation of science

with revelation.

A CLERGYMAN.

IS THE COMMUNION TABLE AN ALTAR?

Cornwood Vicarage, Ivy Bridge, South Devon, 4th June, 1861.

REV. SIR,-Permit me to observe, that the writer of Article VI. in the June Number of the Christian Observer has apparently forgotten one place in Holy Scripture which materially affects his argument. In page 472 the writer asks, “Why, then, did our reformers, when they had become better instructed in the letter and the spirit of the New Testament, carefully and deliberately exclude the word altar from the communion rubrics?"..."the piece of church furniture, &c. . . . is a table and not an altar.'

In Heb. xiii. 10, the Christian apostle says, "We have an altar," &c.

As churchmen, I conceive we have the letter of Scripture, and the spirit also, in favour of using the term altar. The reformers cannot exclude the use of the term altar, if Holy Scripture sanctions it. St. Paul uses the terms "the Lord's table" and "altar." Why should Christians now not use both terms? I will not enter further into the writer's argument, but refer him to a former bishop of Exeter, bishop Sparrow, who, in his Rationale upon the Book of Common Prayer, holds

the language and doctrine of the church of England in terms similar to the present bishop of that see; and to the truly Christian temper of Canon vi., 1640, which declares that the holy table "is, and may be called an altar by us, in that sense in which the primitive church called it an altar, and in no other." The rule of charity commanded in the close of the same canon certainly suggests a course of action which leaves churchmen liberty at least to use the word "altar" without falling under the condemnation of their brethren. Trusting you will excuse the liberty of these remarks, I am, yours faithfully, WILLIAM F. GRAY.

P.S.-I refer more especially to the "communion service" in bishop Sparrow's work, and to pp. 303, 304, in Parker's Edition, 1843, beginning, "Now that no man take offence at the word altar," &c.

NOTE. Surely Mr. Gray will not, after consideration, maintain that the passage in Hebrews xiii. 10, refers to the communion table; though it may possibly refer to the great sacrifice made upon the cross, in the benefits of which the Jew, as we are taught in the epistle to the Galatians, had no share while he remained a Jew, or "served the tabernacle." But, with many of the highest authorities, critical and theological, we prefer the more literal meaning, and expound it thus; bearing in mind that the epistle to the Hebrews was written before the temple service had ceased: "We ourselves, being Jews, have an altar whereof even the priests which serve the tabernacle have no right to eat. For in the offering by which our high-priests are consecrated (see Exodus xxix.), though the blood of the victim is brought into the sanctuary, yet the body is not the property of the high-priest; he has a right to eat no part of it, as of other sacrifices; it is to be burned without the camp. And this is typical of Christ our great high-priest; who, that he might sanctify, not the Jews only but the Gentiles also, "the people," with His own blood, suffered without the gate." This makes a meaning consistent with the context, preceding and consequent. The application of the passage to the communion table is harsh and violent, and, besides other objections, is inconsistent with either; though we are aware it is not without its advocates.

With reference to the canons of 1640, they were illegal ab initio; and had they not been so, they were repealed by Act of Parliament in 1642, and have never been re-enacted. But, indeed, to refer us to a canon drawn up by archbishop Laud, is to beg the whole question at issue. Bishop Sparrow, though valuable as a theological antiquarian, and collector of rare tracts, is certainly not an authority in the church of England on matters of doctrine.-EDITOR.]

CARTHAGE AND HER REMAINS.

Carthage and her Remains; being an account of the Excavations and Researches on the site of the Phoenician Metropolis in Africa, and other adjacent places. By Dr. N. Davis, F.R.G.S., &c. London: Bentley. 1861.

THE exhumation of buried cities of celebrity appears to be a part of the vocations of the present day. It is a desirable labour, as throwing a light upon history, a light most timely in its incidence in the case of Nineveh. The very stones of the palaces of that city began to cry out against handing over the records of the Bible to the domain of fable. As to the interest attaching to the operations themselves, and to their story, we have only to recall to mind how our imagination followed the Arab workmen in the employment of Mr. Layard; how we pictured his pleasure, as discovery after discovery was made; and with what wonder and delight we looked upon lion and bull, and sculptured tablet, and cuneiform inscription, as they successively stood once more in the light of day, after ages of concealment and undisturbed repose.

Carthage wants the interest of a certain and direct connection with the sacred history, in this respect standing much below Nineveh. But she holds too eminent a position in the history of the human race to be ever regarded with indifference. Famous for her commerce in the earliest times, great as a city of merchants, but also powerful as the metropolis of northern Africa, renowned for military glory, especially in the unrivalled achievements of Hannibal, and afterwards invested with a new interest by her Tertullian and her Cyprian, with other martyrs, Carthage attracts towards herself all eyes, when the mattock and the spade are about to be employed in laying open her ruins. The very denunciation uttered against her, when the Punic wars were in their third and last stage, make us crave to combine a knowledge of her relics, with the written record of her destruction.

A book, therefore, with the title, Carthage and her Remains, is sure to be welcomed and read; and this book unquestionably contains much interesting matter. Spread over its 630 pages, there is enough of information to have filled a paper for the Geographical Society, and to have provided materials for a lecture or two before a Literary Institution. We should not have been surprised to have found them in a modest volume, if only the contents answered the expectations justified by the title-page. But we must say that it is wearisome in the extreme to have again to dig out for ourselves Carthage and her remains from the rubbish of endless stories, and disquisitions too often not worth reading.

We have encountered that toil; we have delved with as much patience as we could command; and so far as we have succeeded in the pursuit of knowledge under considerable difficulties, our reader shall have the advantage of our pains. The site of Carthage is about ten miles distant from Tunis. The scenery of the bay is described as of great beauty. The country inland is an extensive plain, bounded by a mountain range, at a distance of about fifteen miles. It is fertile, but its productiveness is ill developed, through the idleness of the Arab villagers. The climate is exceedingly hot, the atmosphere pure and transparent, bringing distant objects into seemingly close proximity to the eye. The population is scanty; there are two small villages within the ancient borders of Carthage, but the inhabitants are incurious, and know nothing of the great city whose ruins repose beneath them, though they turn the fact to some profit by availing themselves of the mounds as repositories of stones, with which to construct their own miserable buildings. One of these villages, Moalka, consists of habitations formed out of the ancient cisterns, which the great aqueduct supplied with water in the days of the prosperity of Carthage. The other is named Dowar Eshuth, for the most part an irregular mass of hovels, chiefly built of ancient materials, in which granite. columns, and fragments of bas-reliefs, and of statues, have been erected indiscriminately with timber and mud, in the construction of the walls. (p. 52.)

Sir Grenville Temple wrote, in the last century, that there were no visible vestiges of the former grandeur of the city, and that, from a hill which commanded a view of the whole surrounding country, he "beheld nothing more than a few scattered and shapeless masses of masonry," and found that the very name of the city was unknown to the people dwelling above its ruins. The present author corroborates that testimony. Some remains which he believes to be the ruins of the famous temple of Saturn, portions of ancient sewers, a range of stupendous cisterns, and colossal masses of wall on the beach,such are the principal visible remains of Carthage.

Judging after the manner of men, the city was worthy of a grander memorial. It was a colony from Tyre, of later date than its neighbour city Utica, but founded probably as early as B.C. 846, about the time of the reign of Joash king of Judah. It soon became great as an emporium of commerce. Phoenicia, Egypt, the shores of the Red Sea, Spain, Mauritania, and Gaul, exchanged their commodities through the medium of the merchants of Corinth. Growing in wealth, she grew also in power, till the whole of that northern portion of Africa became tributary to her, and owned her for their metropolis. Her power in arms, by sea and land, made her terrible to all who provoked her displeasure or excited her cupidity, and her con