Moses had been a fable, or an invention, or even a corrupted tradition, Geology would assuredly have detected, long since, its fallacy or its inaccuracy. Especially would this have occurred, with respect to the real age or date of the human race. No other record than that of the Bible exists, in which any precise age or date is fixed, as that of man's appearance on the earth. The Bible, and it alone, fixes such date, and places it at a point not quite six thousand years ago. And geologists remark, that this leading fact is confirmed by the general result of their researches. It finds, in the face of nature, various "natural chronometers by which the age of the human race may be estimated; and it is as remarkable as it is satisfactory, that the results are in no discordance with the dates of creation supplied by chronology based on tradition and revelation. 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."* Cuvier says, "I am of opinion, with M. Deluc and M. Dolomieu, that if there is any circumstance thoroughly established 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."+ A chief feature in the case, however, is this: Geologists find fossil plants, reptiles, fishes, birds, and enormous quadrupeds, to which they unhesitatingly assign an antiquity of tens of thousands of years before the time of Adam. But in these ancient strata of the earth, they find no human remains. The absence of all such remains proves most conclusively, that these periods were, the latest, one in which elephants, rhinoceroses, oxen, and deer existed, but no human beings; that being preceded by an age of vast lizards, crocodiles, and other monsters; and that, by one of prolific vegetation, with fishes, and mollusca; and that, by one in which no kinds of living things existed. But there was nothing in all these ages which any prophet was required to record. Man lived not in the Azoic, or the Paleozoic, the Secondary, or the Tertiary periods. He lived not until the present, the human period. He lived not till Adam was created; and hence we find, that not until man and his family had provided matter for history, was Moses raised up to write it. The Hebrew prophet, under Divine inspiration, took up his pen to narrate the history of man; but of mastodons and mammoth elephants,-of the dinotherium and megatherium, he wrote nothing. His concern was with immortal beings of the monsters of the PreAdamite days, he probably had some knowledge, but assuredly,

in these he felt little interest.* He knew full well, that one child of Adam, born to live for ever, was a more lively object of interest to the angels of God, than whole continents of pterodactyles and rhinoceroses.

an

We quit, then, here, the starting-point of human history. We believe that the narrative of Moses is strictly and wonderfully true. We believe that, after several, perhaps many, previous states or periods of the earth, each ended by a tremendous convulsion,—the last, preceding the human period, was closed by "outburst of great volumes of igneous matter from the interior," and that this catastrophe left this globe" a wreck and ruin,' empty and void, with darkness covering the deep." We believe that the Divine Spirit then began the production of a "new earth;" and that the WORD, the express image of the Father, "by whom He made the worlds," called forth, in six days, the beautiful earth which we inhabit, just as easily as, four thousand and thirty years after, he called a man who had been four days dead, to come forth out of his grave.

99.66

Adam and his consort were first placed in Eden; and we may reasonably conclude that on their removal from it, they did not travel to any great distance from that spot. Its position on the earth's surface is indicated to us by the specific mention of the rivers Hiddekel (or Tigris) and Euphrates. This shows us that it was in that part of Asia where, in the present day, the Persian and Turkish empires approach each other. Here, we may rationally conclude, the first human family dwelt, until by the murder of Abel, and the flight of his murderer, a separation, and permanent division, of the family took place.

APPENDIX.

The ancient Chaldeans had a tradition of the world's origin, some remains of which have been preserved by Syncellus and Eusebius, from Berosus and Polyhistor. They taught that there was a time when all things were darkness and water, in the midst of which resided various monsters of most horrible forms. Over these presided a woman named Omoroca, who reigned in solitary independence. At length the destined hour of creation arrived. Omoroca was slain and cut asunder by Belus; the earth was formed out of one half of her, and heaven out of the other half. Afterwards Belus cut off his own head. and the other gods, mixing the blood with earth, formed out of the compound the human species. Hence man is endowed with reason, and partakes of the Divine knowledge. Belus, they also said, divided the darkness from the light, separated the earth from the heavens, and called the stars into existence.

*When we find that the Ancient Chaldeans believed that there was a time when all things were darkness and water, in the midst of which dwelt monsters of horrible forms" (Berosus)-we see that they had some just ideas of the

Pre-Adamite world. How they could have gained a knowledge of these facts, it is not easy to understand, except by tradition from some one, who, like Moses, had had communication with the world's Creator.

In the Gothic Edda we find a poem, "Voluspa," in which we are told that, in the beginning of time all was one vast abyss, without plant or verdure. Yet there then existed Muspelshena, a world luminous, glowing, not to be dwelt in by strangers, and situate at the extremity of the earth. Surtur reigns there: in his hand he holds a flaming sword. At the end of the world he shall come: shall vanquish all the gods, and shall give the universe a prey to the flames. In the beginning, a breath of heat spreading itself over the vapours, they melted into drops, and of these drops was formed a man. man was named Ymer: from him descended all the giants. he slept he fell into a sweat, and from his armpit were born a male and female.

This

While

The tradition of the Phoenicians was preserved by Sanchoniathon, and handed down to us by Eusebius. They held that the universe originated from a dark air and a turbulent evening chaos. Ilus or Mot was the seed of the world, and the productive cause of all things. The sun, the moon, and the stars all equally sprang from Mot. The air beginning to emit light, winds and clouds were produced, and thus lightning and thunder were caused; males and females were stirred up in the earth and in the sea; and thus appeared the various tribes of the brute creation. Lastly, from the primæval wind, Colpia, and his consort Baout, were born the first two mortals.

The Egyptian belief is found in a book ascribed to Hermes or Thoth; it ran thus:-There was originally a boundless darkness in the great abyss; but water and an intelligent ethereal spirit acted by divine power in chaos. Then sprang forth holy light; then the elements were compacted of the moist sandy substance of the chaotic mixture: then all the gods made an orderly distribution of things out of seminative nature.

The Persian tradition is found in the Zend-Avesta, a translation of which was made by M. Anquetel de Perron. They held that the good Ormuzd created the world, at six different intervals, amounting in all to a year. In the first period he created the heavens; in the second, the waters. The third was allotted to the production of the earth: the fourth, to the formation of trees and plants. In the fifth, the animals were created; and the sixth period was devoted to the creation of man. The first father of the human race was compounded of a man and a bull. He was succeeded by a second bull-man, who flourished at the time of an universal deluge.

When we remember during how many centuries the children and descendants of Noah must have lived in the vicinity of Persia, we shall easily understand how so large a portion of the truth came to be handed down in the Persian tradition.

The ancient Etrurians had their tradition, of which Suidas gives us an outline. They believed that God created the world in six thousand years, and appointed the same period to be the length of its duration. In the first millenary he made the heaven and the earth; in the second, the visible firmament; in the third, the sea and all the waters; in the fourth, the sun, moon, and stars; in the fifth, the birds, reptiles, and quadrupeds; and in the sixth, man alone. seems tolerably clear that both the Persians and the Etrurians had heard something of the Hebrew records.

It

The Hindoos have the Institutes of Menu, supposed by Sir W. Jones to have been composed in the time of the Judges. The history of the creation given in this treatise is too long to be copied at length; but it represents Menu, first, with a thought, creating the waters, and placing in them a productive seed. This seed became an egg, and from that egg he was born himself, in the form of Brahma. He, the supreme ruler, created an assemblage of inferior deities; gave being to time, to the stars, and to the planets, to rivers and oceans; and he then caused the four Hindoo castes of mankind to proceed from his mouth, his arm, his thigh, and his foot.

The Chinese account of the creation is still more wild. The first of men, they hold, was Puoncu. He was born out of chaos, as it were out of an egg. From this egg, also, were formed the heavens,-from the white of it, the atmosphere; and from the yolk, the earth.

The Greek cosmogonies are more modern, and less puerile. Hesiod tells us that, first existed chaos; next was produced the spacious earth, the firm seat of the immortals; Tartarus hid in its recesses; and Eros, the dispeller of care. From chaos sprang Erebus and black night; and from the union of night and Erebus were born ether and the day.

In the same poetic style wrote Aristophanes :-" Chaos, and night, and black Erebus, and wide Tartarus, first existed. At that time there was neither earth, air, nor heaven. But, in the bosom of Erebus, blackwinged night produced an aerial egg, from which, in due season, beautiful love, decked with golden wings, was born. Out of chaos, in the midst of wide-spreading Tartarus, he begot our race, and called us forth into light."

Any one who desires to peruse these cosmogonies at greater length, will find a more complete account of them in Mr. Faber's Origin of Pagan Idolatry.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE.

1. The Westminster Review. 2. The National Review.
3. Macmillan's Magazine.

WE are not ambitious to earn a transient importance by carping at our neighbours. We are more disposed to follow our own course, leaving it to others to follow theirs. But the aspect which our periodical literature just now presents, is so peculiar, that we must for once step aside and invite our readers to pause while they glance with us at the strange portentous spectacle.

1. The Westminster Review has now existed for some years; the avowed organ, and, beyond comparison, the ablest organ, of radicalism in religion and in politics. Of the latter, we say nothing; of its religion it is difficult to speak with confidence. Is it deism or is it atheism? In the sense in which Mr.

Maurice and his friends may be said to hold the doctrine of an atonement, it may, perhaps, be charitably conceded that Theism or Deism is its proper characteristic. In general it seems to recognise some unknown, superior, all-pervading intelligence; but as we come to investigate the nature of the deity to whom its homage is paid, for worship it has none, we are often seriously in doubt whether atheism, as at least one amongst other possibilities, does not lurk in the background of the writer's mind. Yet the Review is popular; it is read, quoted, and admired; and there is a rising school, possessing a certain degree of influence in society, who command us to reverence its authority on pain of incurring their own sovereign contempt.

In a

The October number contains an article on "Neo Christianity," which is thrown into the form of a Review; and the Oxford "Essays and Reviews," which furnishes the text. better cause, the courage of the Westminster would secure our admiration: there is no shuffling, no mean equivocation here at least. We know what the unhappy writers mean; so far, at any rate, as a meaning gleams through their creedless creed. They hail the Seven Essays with a cordial welcome. "This Review, at any rate," they say, "ought not to be silent while so much candour and courage call for recognition and support." Thus applauded, the essayists are introduced upon the stage, and with a flourish of trumpets presented to the audience. But soon the scene begins to change, and the new allies have intimations given them, that they have manoeuvres to practise and a discipline to undergo, for which, at present, they are but awkwardly prepared.

After a few pages devoted to their encouragement, the work of chastisement begins. The reviewer is said to be himself an Oxford man, and his chastisement is not the less severe because his words are courteous; nor will it be felt the less keenly because it proceeds not from an opponent, but from one who set out where the essayists themselves begin, and has had the daring to follow their own premises to their terrible but legitimate conclusion. The essayists, while undermining the authority of almost every part of the Bible in detail, still affect a certain respect, nay reverence, for the volume as a whole. The reviewer will have none of this hypocrisy. With an unfaltering pen he shows, that on their principles, and his own, the Bible is utterly worthless. He delights in showing up its apparent inconsistencies; he deprecates its influence; he scoffs at its pretended sanctity:-"was ever a literature," he exclaims, SO provokingly unreliable? The mind wanders over the waste of waters like the dove seeking dry land." And he challenges the essayists to say on what ground they still continue to commend such a collection of idle trash to the serious attention of mankind.