tion of the work, and which will serve to excite the curiosity of our readers to know how he supports his positions. For this purpose they must put themselves in possession of the entire volume.

After having indicated the errors of both ancient and modern philosophers with regard to important doctrines in physics, Professor Gaussen thus expresses himself: "But now open the Bible; study its fifty sacred authors, from that admirable Moses who held the pen in the wilderness, four hundred years before the war of Troy; to that fisherman son of Zebedee, who wrote fifteen hundred years later at Ephesus and in Patmos, under the reign of Domitian;open the Bible, and see if you will find there anything like this. No; none of those mistakes which the science of each succeeding age discovers in the books of the preceding; above all, none of those absurdities which modern astronomy indicates, in such great numbers, in the writings of the ancients,-in their sacred codes, in their philosophies, and even in the finest pages of the Fathers of the Church,-not one of these errors is to be found in any of our sacred books." The Bible "is a book which is full of oriental rapture, elevation, variety and boldness. It is a book which speaks of the heavenly and invisible world; whilst it also speaks of the earth and things visible. It is a book which nearly fifty writers, of every degree of cultivation, of every state, of every condition, and living through the course of fifteen hundred years, have concurred to make." "Well; search among its 50 authors, search among its 66 books, its 1,189 chapters, and its 31,179 verses, search for only one of those thousand errors which the ancients and the moderns commit when they speak of the heaven or of the earth; of their revolutions or of their elements; search,-but you will find none."

The Bible speaks of every thing and in all tones; it exhibits neither reserve nor constraint. With regard to composition as well as thought and manner, it has been the unrivalled model, the inspirer of all that is most elevated in poetry. "And yet this book never does violence either to the facts or to the principles of a sound philosophy of nature. You never find it in opposition, even in one sentence, to the just notions which science has conveyed to us on the form of our globe, on its size, and its geology; on the void and on space; on the inert and passive materiality of all the stars; on the planets, on their masses, on their courses, on their dimensions, or on their influences."

While there is no disagreement among the writers; while they speak of the invisible world; of the love, the fervour, the purity, and the humility of angels; of the relations of the heavenly world to God, never is there a single word uttered which is favourable to the perpetual pantheism of the heathen philosophy. Even of the visible world not one of the authors of the Bible ever suffered to escape from his pen one of those sentences which in other books contradict

the reality of facts; "not one which makes of the heavens a firmament, as do the Septuagint, St. Jerome, and all the Fathers of the Church," the word expanse being the proper term. None of them speak of the mountains as Mohammed does, or of the cosmogony as Buffon. There has not been, the Professor reiterates, one physical error yet discovered in the Scriptures, which is the more wonderful in proportion as these ancient writings are viewed from a position near at hand; while he admits that could a single instance of the sort be pointed out in the Bible, our faith in the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures would be more than compromised; it would then be necessary to confess that there are errors in the Word of God, and that these false sentences belong to a fallible writer and not to the Holy Spirit.

But, not only does the Bible not contain a false sentence, a false expression, but it often presents to us words "which make us recognize, in a manner not to be misunderstood, the science of the Almighty." "It often happens, that its language, when listened to with attention, permits us to see a science which it will not teach, but which it cannot be ignorant of, since there is in it a profound abyss. Not only will it tell us nothing false, even in passing, but it often surprises us with words which betray the voice of the Creator of the world. Often you remark in them a wisdom, a prudence, an exactitude, of which the sages of antiquity could not form an idea, and which the discoveries alone of the telescope, ard of the science of the moderns have been able to appreciate; so that its language carries, by these traits, the evident characteristics of the most entire inspiration. The discreet and unusual choice of its expressions, the nature of certain details, whose perfect propriety and divine adaptedness to the facts were only revealed three thousand years later, the reserve of the language, sometimes its boldness and its strangeness, considering the time when it was written,-all these signs make you know the Savant par excellence, the Ancient of Days, who addresses himself to his children without doubt, but who speaks as the Father of a family, and who well knows his house." Our author proceeds to illustrate the position which he assumes in the passage now quoted, and shows how wonderfully the representations of the sacred writers agree with the discoveries of

science.

This agreement he traces in regard to the shape of the globe, its rotundity, its resting on nothing; the epoch and the order of the several stages of the unravelling of the primitive chaos; the light, as being independent of the sun; the creation of plants; the atmosphere, as having weight; the nature of the clouds; the mountains; the exterior of the globe, as being a crust or shell; the interior, as composed of fire; (Job 28, 5. Literally: Beneath, it is turned up, and as it were, of fire,) the surface of the carth, as emerging or

rising out of the waters; the deluge, as having the same origin, and similar characteristics; the arresting of the moon as well as the sun, by miracle; the primitive unity of the language of mankind; the dimensions of the ark of Noah; the vast number of the stars, and their subjection to laws in their position and movements; the division of the heavens; and finally, the grandeur and immensity of creation. All of these subjects the discoveries of modern science most remarkably confirm. Professor Gaussen maintains with great learning and force of illustration, the gleamings of light which the Scriptures, rightly translated, shed upon them.

Our readers must consult the work itself to obtain a correct idea of what the author says respecting the miracle of the sun and the moon standing still at the command of Joshua. His observations also, where he shows that, from the nature of the case, the language of the Scriptures in relation to the Phenomena of Nature must be accommodated to that which mankind in all ages have commonly used, although not in substance novel, will be consulted with advantage. Even to the genius of Newton, the Bible must have been inconvenient and incomprehensible sometimes, if it had always spoken of the operations of Nature, as they really are.

The third chapter of the Professor's most interesting production is occupied with the consideration of what he terms Evasions of the true doctrine. These he arranges under three heads. First: does the Inspiration of the Sacred Scriptures concern only the thoughts, or does it extend also to the words of the writers? Second: Ought the Historical Books to be excepted from the plenary Inspiration? And third: Does the apparent insignificance of certain details in the Bible authorize their exclusion from this Inspiration? Let us listen to some portions of the second section.

Our author asks, "Where will you find, among all the uninspired narrators, a man who has written anything as St. Luke has written the Acts of the Apostles? Who has known how to recount in thirty pages the history of thirty of the most beautiful years of Christianity, from the ascension of the Son of Man to heaven, to the imprisonment of St. Paul in the capital of the Roman world? Incomparable History! See at once how short and how great it is! What do we not find in it? Discourses addressed to the Jews and to the Greeks, pronounced before the tribunals, before the Areopagus and before the Sanhedrim, in the public places, and before a proconsul, in the synagogues and before kings; admirable descriptions of the primitive church; miraculous and dramatic scenes in its bosom; interventions of angels to deliver, to warn, or to punish; controversies and divisions in the assemblies of Christians; new institutions in the Church, the history of a first council and its synodic epistle; commentaries on the Scriptures; recitals of heresies; solemn and terrible judgments of God; appearances of the Lord in

the way, in the temple, in the prison; detailed conversions and such as were often miraculous, and singularly various." The Professor enumerates a number of instances illustrative of this wonderful variety and greatness of theme. He then exclaims and demands in the following terms: "And all this in thirty pages, or twentyeight little chapters! Admirable brevity! Was there not need of the Holy Spirit of God for this conciseness, for the selection of details, for this pious, varied, brief, richly significant manner which employs so few words, and teaches so many things?"

Is it thus that men narrate events? "Could you find on the earth a man that is capable of relating the assassination of his mother with the manifest calmness, the propriety, the sobriety, the coolness of the four-fold narrative of the Evangelists, recounting the death of Jesus; of that Jesus whom they loved more than one loves his mother, more than one loves his life? That Jesus whom they adored; whom they had seen prostrate in Gethsemane, and afterwards betrayed, abandoned, dragged along, with his hands tied, into Jerusalem, and finally nailed naked to the cross, whilst the sun hid his light, the earth quaked, and He who had restored the dead to life was himself reduced to the state of the dead. Was there not need of the Spirit of God in each line, in each word, of such a narrative, to choose appropriately from an age, and from a world of reminiscences?"

Then think of the divine prudence manifested by these historians, which not only revealed itself in that information which they gave, but also in their reserve, both in the terms which they employed, and in those they shunned. Take, for example, the manner in which they speak of the mother of Jesus. "What divine foresight, what prophetic wisdom, there is both in their narratives and in their expressions. How easy it would have been for them, in their ardent adoration of the son, to have expressed themselves too respectfully of the mother? Would not a single word, suffered to escape them through an imprudence so natural in their first emotions, have for ever authorized the idolatry of the ages to come towards Mary, and the crime of the worship which has been rendered her? But that word they never uttered. Did they even once call her the Mother of God?"

What do the sacred historians say of her after the death and resurrection of their Saviour? Only one sentence ! "These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren." She is not named the first or the last. Then what do they say of her before the death of the Redeemer? How few are the sentences reported to us of all the words which he must have addressed to her! "Here is the first: Woman, what have I to do with thee,' or what is this to me and thee,-when she interfered in his

ministry, which had just about commenced, and asked him to perform a miracle. Again, when a certain woman, from among the people, exclaimed in her ardent enthusiasm,- Blessed is the womb which bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked,'' Say,' he replied, Blessed rather are they who hear the word of God and keep it.' Listen now to the third: his mother and brethren had been shaken in their faith: they had listened to those who had said, 'He is beside himself!' And some one came and told him, Thy mother and thy brethren are without, who desire to see thee.' Who is my mother?' he replied. And stretching forth his hand towards his disciples, he said, 'Behold my mother ... every woman who shall do the will of my Father who is in heaven is my mother.' And when finally he saw her from the cross, he called her no more by the name of mother, but he bequeathed her to the disciple whom he loved, saying, Woman, behold thy son: John, behold thy mother; and from that hour that disciple received her into his house, not to adore her, but to protect her, as a feeble and suffering being, whose soul had been pierced as with a sword." The Professor here asks, "is it thus that man relates events, and was there not need that the prophetic Spirit should be the narrator of all these facts?"

The fourth chapter is devoted to a consideration of the Use of Sacred Criticism, in its relation to Inspiration. It is also under three heads that this division of the work is arranged. First, Sacred Criticism a Servant, not Judge. Second, a Historian, not a Diviner. And third, the Door-keeper of the Temple, and not its Divinity.

He thus describes the character and proper province of Sacred Criticism: "It is a noble science. It is so in regard to its objectthe study of the destinies of the sacred text, its canon, its manuscripts, its versions, its witnesses, the vast numbers of those who have cited it. It is so by reason of its services:-what triumphs obtained over infidelity, what objections reduced to silence, what wicked doubts dissipated for ever! It is so in regard to its history: -how many eminent men have consecrated to it either the devotion of a pious life, or the resources of the most beautiful genius! It is so, finally, by reason of its immense labours, of which no one can know the extent unless he has studied it. God forbid that we should ever oppose faith to science :-the faith which lives by the truth, or the science which seeks for it! that faith which seeks for it (the truth) directly at the hand of God, to that science which secks for it more indirectly elsewhere, and which often finds it! All that is true in one place is in pre-established harmony with that which is true in another and more elevated place. Faith, then, knows in advance, and before having seen anything, that all truth will render testimony to it. If then all true science, whatever it may be, is the friend of faith, Sacred Criticism is more than a friend;