the rising and setting of the sun, and as it will continue to do to the end of the world; and secondly, because in such instances it was necessary that revelation, leaving secular education to human progress, and intent upon spiritual and not scientific instruction, should assume the garb of current ideas to be intelligible to those to whom it was first addressed. Still the relief is but partial; for all the references of the Bible to such matters cannot be placed in the category of passing incidental popular allusion. Some portion of its contents, such as the first chapter of Genesis, is to a certain extent didactic and historic, and intended to teach actual occurrences. Yet when so understood, and when interpreted in the manner natural to an ordinary reader, the Bible appears to contradict the well-established conclusions of astronomy, geology, and zoology, as to the age of the earth, the order of creation, and the occurrence of various natural phenomena. Hence results wide-spread skepticism, and that from two relations of the matter: the inconsistency itself, and the manner in which it is often met by theologians.

The inconsistency itself shakes the faith of many minds; for how, they reason, can this book be of God when it contradicts the works of God? Can we hesitate which to believethe volume of nature, which all but atheists concede to be from God, or the volume of Scripture penned by man, and claiming, amid frequent denials, to be inspired by God? But allowing now the force of the objection, we insist that faith in the Bible unnecessarily breaks down from such a difficulty, by reason of a fallacy which deceives also on other subjects, and which logicians term "The fallacy of objections." We cannot better set this forth than in the words of Whately, in his work on Logic, where he remarks that this fallacy consists in

Showing that there are objections against some plan, theory, or system, and thence inferring that it should be rejected; when that which ought to have been proved is, that there are more or stronger objections against the receiving than the rejecting of it. This is the main and almost universal fallacy of infidels, and is that of which men should be first and principally warned.

And in a note the author adds more explicitly:

They find numerous objections against various parts of Scripture, to some of which no satisfactory answer can be given; and the incautious hearer is apt, while his attention is fixed on these, to forget that there are infinitely more and stronger objections against FOURTH SERIES, VOL. XIV.—36

the supposition that the Christian religion is of human origin, and that, where we cannot answer all objections, we are bound in reason and in candor to adopt the hypothesis which labors under the least. That the case is as I have stated, I am authorized to assume from this circumstance: that no complete and consistent account has ever been given of the manner in which the Christian religion, supposing it a human contrivance, could have arisen and prevail ed, as it did. And yet this may obviously be demanded, with the utmost fairness, of those who deny its divine origin. The religion exists; that is the phenomenon; those who will not allow it to have come from God are bound to solve the phenomenon on some other hypothesis less open to objections. They are not, indeed, called on to prove that it actually did arise in this or that way, but to suggest (consistently with acknowledged facts) some probable way in which it may have arisen, reconcilable with all the circumstances of the case. That infidels have not done this, though they have had near two thousand years to try, amounts to a confession that no such hypotheses can be devised which will not be open to greater objections than lie against Christianity.

It is a curious fact, showing the imperfection of human faculties and knowledge, that on many of the most important subjects, take which side of an alternative we may, objections will arise that cannot be obviated, while yet one of the two views must be true. Indeed, all intelligent men know that even a child may propound difficulties on points considered to be well settled, that do not admit of a direct and satisfactory answer. And on topics of doubtful disputation, admitting of positive evidence and also of many serious objections, the old philosophical puzzle is reproduced, What will be the effect if an irresistible force meets an immovable object?

ness,

It is in entire forgetfulness of this fallacy that men of science 'conclude hastily, and often reluctantly, we believe, against the inspiration of the Bible. It is an instance of intellectual weakand arises, in part, from their ignorance of the number and strength of the independent and positive evidences in favor of the Scriptures. They should rather reason that here is a conflict between two witnesses who are both entitled to credit. May it not be that one or the other is misinterpreted, and that we need accuse neither of falsehood? When we understand both science and Scripture better, may they not prove to be in perfect harmony? Indeed, have not many such difficulties been happily solved in time past as a lesson for the future? Meanwhile may we not accept both, in their distinct spheres,

on their independent evidence, and wait, in acknowledged mystery, till we can bridge the chasm now impassable?

But if skeptical men of science ought to reason thus, so ought theologians also. And they do more often than formerly. Yet it is common for them to yield to a supposed necessity, and attempt to demonstrate the perfect harmony of Scripture and science. In a gratuitous and unmanly timidity they forget, as really as the skeptic, the bearing of the fallacy of objections, and imagine that they are under a necessity of reconciling Genesis and geology, or else abandoning the whole Christian scheme. Acting under this delusion, we see them making wild and often disingenuous attempts to close the breach. They ludicrously assail science in departments of which they are mostly ignorant; or they attempt, by wholesale denunciation, to discredit scientific results; or they resort to forced interpretations of Scripture to change the impression which it naturally, if not necessarily, makes on an intelligent mind. In dealing with the geologist, a Trinitarian expositor will have recourse to glosses, and proposed emendations of the text or translation, which he would brand as dishonest if used by a Unitarian in other passages to escape the proof of the divinity of Christ. The result is, that he has an uncomfortable suspicion of failure in his own mind, and leaves the skeptic a confirmed unbeliever. Far better were it to canvass the subject candidly and generously, accepting such useful hints as might be furnished from any quarter, recognizing partial success and, as carefully, partial failure, and then remanding the unsolved problem to the future study of the man of science and the biblical interpreter, each in his own independent method and department. We are verily persuaded that such a course would ultimately remove the difficulty, and meanwhile preserve many thoughtful minds from skepticism who are now led into it not more by the objections which science offers to the language of Scripture, than by the dishonorable manner in which such objections are often met by the defenders of the faith.

Nor is the truth at all aided, but rather much injured, when enthusiastic Christian men of science undertake to turn the tables upon their skeptical brethren, by a virtual transfer of the war to Africa, as they seek to show that the Bible long since

indicated some of the most marvelous discoveries of modern science, especially in the department of astronomy. Crowded audiences of good, pious men, whose wishes are fathers to their thoughts, led on, it may be, by admiring ministers in the front seats or on the platform, may applaud the wild imaginings and wretched exegesis of such a lecturer, supposing that he is turning the weapon of infidelity against itself; but neither intelligent skeptics nor sound theologians will be convinced. The astronomer who propounds such a view may be a man of matchless scientific attainments, but he is only a tyro in the interpretation of Scripture. Newton's "Principia" may be his primer, but he is nevertheless a blundering commentator on Job and the Psalms. The maxim applies to him as truly as to theologians who, ignorant of science, insist on discussing its problems: "Ne sutor ultra crepidam!"

Let science and religion stand on independent bases, then, establishing their respective conclusions by their peculiar processes, and each recognizing in the other a friend and coadjutor. Neither can take the place of the other, nor should be judged by the laws of the other, but must work out its own results by its own methods. They have their mutual relations and their bearing upon points of common interest; but that should serve only as a caution against precipitancy in reaching important conclusions, and not as a restraint upon the widest range of observation, the most logical induction, and the greatest freedom of honest and intelligent judgment. Thus will differences gradually disappear before increasing knowledge of God's works and word. Science will ascertain new facts, announce new laws, and modify some of her previous conclusions. Theologians will study the Bible more thoroughly, as regards both the spirit and the letter, and will interpret it more accurately. There will consequently be a growing approximation of all the lines of thought till they converge in one grand center, where will be found the harmony of all truth. For the time shall be, when all forces shall tend to a single result, and the religion of Jesus shall sanctify and use all forms of knowledge and achievement, all philosophy and science, all literature and fine art, all discoveries and inventions, and when it will be as discreditable to a man of science to be a skeptic, as it will be to a theologian to be ignorant of science.

ART. II.-HAS FREEDOM IN HAYTI PROVEDA FAILURE?

HAYTI is the original Indian name of the most beautiful of the West India Islands. Its twenty-eight thousand square miles are charmingly variegated with lofty mountains and extensive plains, and the fertile soil clothes their surface with all the richness of tropical verdure. It has immense natural resources of every kind, and with its adjacent islands is capable of supporting a population of eight millions. We are informed by a Haytien historian* that at the time of its discovery by Columbus in 1492 its native Indian population amounted to three millions.

The Spaniards, who claimed it as one of their colonies, finding gold in the country soon after their arrival, speedily reduced the native tribes to such labor as ultimately exhausted them. At the present day it is doubtful whether there is a solitary descendant of its numerous aboriginal inhabitants left upon the whole island. We are informed by the author already quoted, who has written very interestingly on the primitive races of Hayti, that they were divided into tribes and had a certain type of civilization, being by no means savages. But white men bearing the name of Christ have long since driven them into oblivion by mere lust of wealth and power. History assures us, however, that among the Spanish Roman Catholic priests who came over to Hayti soon after its discovery there were some who sincerely deplored a state of things which they had not the power to control.

During the seventeenth century the French appeared in these regions, first settling as adventurers and buccaneers in the small island of La Tortue, which is about a league from the northern coast of the main island.

The rapacity of the white man having exterminated the Indian races of this large island, all eyes were turned upon Africa. The slave-trade with all its horrors was soon in operation, and in 1737 there was an African slave population in St. Domingo, the French part of the island, of nearly six hundred thousand.

* E. Nau.