There Can Exist No Discrepancy
Between True Revelation Of The Bible.
Amongst the most predominant impulses of mankind
may classed curiosity, or the desire of attaining knowledge of those
things of which we are ignorant. Although this feeling may degenerate
into a mean and petty vice: it exercises perhaps more influence for good
than any other tendency of which the human mind is susceptible. From it
spring into existence those arts which adorn, and those sciences which
elevate and humanize mankind. We see it in the first efforts of infancy,
in its tiny endeavour to become acquainted with each object within its
reach: in the destructive researches of the boy, as he makes the knife
and the hammer become acquainted with things for which they have no
affinity; and in the man of maturer years, as he wanders through the
ponderous tomes of former ages, in his search for the history of the
past, or soaring amongst the orbs of space, in his eagerness to become
acquainted with their beautiful mysteries, or seeking, ‘mid the rocky
tablets of the earth, for the knowledge of the day of its formation.
What impelled the alchymist, in the day when the
world was young, to forego the pleasures of society, and devote his time
to the investigation of the properties of matter? What gave power to the
oracles of antiquity, and reared the temples to the spirits of delusion?
What caused the mariner to brave the terror of of unknown ocean, in the
search for the lands in the distant West?
Though this impulse is thus the chief lever of
instruction, and is, when properly directed, the hand-maiden of
religion: still its tendency may become mischievous, and its
investigations uncertain, whenever it throws off the guidance of
reason, to follow its more brilliant but less trustworthy companion, the
imagination. But even then, at the touch of truth the tinsel flies off,
and reveals the metal in its true light.
For a time the chronology of the Bible had rested
on a firm foundation. Its history had been authenticated by the records
of every nation, and its truths vindicated by the existence of the very
people whose lives it had delineated: when arose one who supposed the
records of that nation, whose monuments existed before the commencement
of profane history, would point out the landmarks to the knowledge of
those dim and distant ages when nations were still in their infancy.
Fortunately for the student, time had done little
to efface the monuments of Egypt, whose mild and placid atmosphere left
man alone to despoil his own formations. Man too, had been gentle here;
and if the hieroglyphics told the truth, here were records of events
still existing, that put even the antiquity of the Mosaic narrative to
the blush. Kings had reigned, and their dynasties had been forgotten by
kings and dynasties that had succeeded to their thrones: and these too
had been forgotten in the long line of kings that preceded the Pharoahs
of Mosaical memory; contemporaries, no doubt, though much older than the
heroes and demigods of Grecian and Roman history. China, though governed
by the brother of the sun, had not seen the corner stone of Egypt laid;
nor had she commenced the long wall that closed to the barbarians the
view of the celestial empire, at the time the last pyramid was finished.
In a word, Time himself was but a youth when compared with this ancient
dame; and Methuselah but a baby, if manhood is recorded by years. What
was Babylon of ancient renown, or Tyre, the queen of cities, compared to
Thebes with its hundred gates? Time, time, time! could have only done
all this. You may in a few years clasp the world in an iron zone; you
may level mountains and fill up valleys, that the fire-horse may go
snorting unmolested on his way; you may walk beneath a mighty river,
with a nation’s commerce over your head, without danger; or bid rivers
flow diversely, a thousand miles from their course; you may plant a
continent with people; and raise them to a high state of refinement in a
few hundred years; or you may bid ten thousand temples rise to the
honour of God. But what are such works, when compared to the monuments
of Egypt, but as the ephemeral objects lasting a day, fit only for a
nation’s pastime, to be wafted away by the first breath of heaven? And
then, too, as to arts and refinement—could Egypt’s advance in them be
attained in a few thousand years? What if scarce ten centuries have
elapsed since refinement was trampled under the feet of barbarians, and
the arts lost in the gloom of the dark ages? Can your knowledge stand
the test of the ancient science here shadowed forth? or your arts reach
as high as the ancient knowledge? Your inventions are but discoveries,
and your discoveries are but such as were attained in our first flights
of science. You know the structure of the elements, the lore of the
stars, and the laws of the universe:—why, the very things that but to
guess at immortalizes you, were with us but the common topics of childhood’s discourse.
And so in the first researches of geologists, how
the wise ones laughed, that there were some still stupid enough to
believe that this earth of ours had not seen six thousand summers, and
that the moon and the stars were but a few years old. Why the very rocks
could tell them a different story: and the earth herself, did they but
listen to her teachings, show them the folly of their belief. Chance
threw the Scriptures again into the hands of these seekers after
knowledge, when lo!—a wonder!—“In beginning God created the heavens and
the earth,” looms forth in visible characters. Well, the Scriptures may
be true after all: for they do not state how long an interval existed
between that beginning, when the heavens and the earth were created, and
the first day of our era, when the spirit of God moved over the face of
the waters; for only from that day when “God said, Let there be light.
and there was light” was this world of my importance to man; for only
then was the commencement made towards fitting this earth for his abode.
Day by day, under the omnific hand of the great I
Shall Be, grew this orb more lovely; until crowned with beauty, full of
all the animal and vegetable life most conducive to man’s happiness:
the end was attained, and man was called into existence.* But science
had found out, in its previous flights, a theory more pleasing to itself
than the mode of creation detailed in the Bible: it had found out, under
the auspices of the younger Herschell, a system much more vast; a
never-ceasing, unvarying progression from chaos to perfection.
It penetrated the vast arcana of space, and in those distant
fields which the telescope had brought within view, beheld numerous
chaotic masses, embryo worlds, assuming an orbicular shape, preparatory
to their taking position among their sister planets. But again was the
Bible triumphant. Scarcely had the world become impressed with the idea
that these nebulous masses in the heavens were planets in formation,
when the telescope of Lord Ross proclaimed the fallacy of the theory. It
proved these nebulae to be galaxies of stars, in endless profusion; suns
themselves, and centres of systems like, or still more beautiful than
our own. Not that the Bible would teach us that creation ceased “when
the foundations of the earth were laid,” but that the secret moving
power was still unrevealed, and that man should only see to wonder and
adore.
*In the early ages of the world, when the wants of
man were few, and his desires easily satisfied, he attained an age which
still surprises the world, but which was needful at that time, so as to
enable him quickly to fulfill the divine command, “be fruitful, and
multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it.”
If persons in our time, living to an advanced age,
have numbered hundreds as their descendants, how rapid must have been
the increase in those antediluvian times. As the increase proceeded in
geometrical progression, a whole nation might have been formed from the
descendants of one set of parents, even in the progenitors’ life-time.
Is it a wonder then, that if we, even in our short
and puny existence, forget the future in the present, they should only
have languished for the joys of this world, when death appeared so
remote?
After the flood, the age of man was reduced to a
period of one hundred and twenty years; but as they preserved their
vigour to the last, the earth must have filled up very rapidly with
inhabitants; and as the descendants of Noah were civilized, not savage,
nations were founded in the course of a few hundred years, and cities
built, whose remains are extant even to this day.
And thus must ever the path of science be lighted,
if she would not wander astray, by the torch of Scripture, and studded
here and there, in its most perilous ascents, with the guide-posts of
truth. Year by year may pass away, and become lost in the gulf of
oblivion; but her accents exist in the pages of the genius that hails
each new-born day as the guiding angel to those researches which render
the greatness of God more apparent.
And oh! what transport to the ardent mind to gaze
undazzled upon the wonders of creation; to investigate the grand
machinery of nature; to behold in all the same simple rules at work, the
same perfection attained, from the economy of a plant to the structure
of a sentient being; from the smallest globule that exists in nature, to
the lamest orb that traverses space. But how small the pleasure, how
lessened the desire, were each great secret open to our view. Constantly
before us are enacted miracles, as great as exist in nature; but because
they are of daily occurrence, we exhibit neither feelings of wonder nor
surprise. Years dawn and wane, and are entombed in the memory of the
past; yet we see the same surprising accuracy in the workings of the
universe, that called forth the admiration of the Chaldean seer, as he
gazed at the starry hosts of heaven, from the first watch-tower in the
cause of science. Did the sun make its appearance once in a thousand
years, then the most careless observer would behold it with admiration
and awe: did we feel but once in the existence of life the moon’s soft,
trembling, and musical light, how would prayer ascend to the Omnipotent,
in the low, sweet voice of the soul. And yet, though the sun greets us
each morning, do we follow it on its mission of joy, as it calls into
existence from the teeming earth beauty in all its myriad
forms?—exponent of its Maker’s beneficence, do we follow its visible
teachings, and, like it, live in the lives of others, gladdening the
hearts of our brethren with the rays of kindness, calling into existence
the beautiful flowers of morality, as we hasten to perform our daily
course in the sphere of existence?—or do we merely labour for a useless
brightness, and like the sun on the wastes of Africa, despoil of
existence whatever plant comes within the beams of our influence?
And the pale orb of night, did she visit us less
frequently, might allay by her sweet influence the fever of our
passions; might infuse into our systems some part of her own holy
calmness, and cause to spring forth the germs of contentment and peace.
But who now regard her silent watch in the heavens? who bathe their
spirit in her placid waters, that they may become freed from the
impurity of earthly desires, so as to be fitted in time for entering
within those portals of joy, where enters not the light of the sun or
the stars, but the rays of eternal glory?
But yet the lessons that they teach us in their
daily visitations are more teeming with love, and more full of beauty.
They tell us that we may commence anew the morning of our existence;
that He who made them and us is as beneficent to-day as He was in the
day that is passed; and that if we feel but the desire, we may enter His
dwelling, and seek with His angels for that knowledge which eternity
cannot exhaust: and oh! what joy to the soul, to pass our hours in the
investigation of the beauty of His tabernacles, and following with the
intellect the various windings of nature; and day by day, as our
knowledge becomes greater and our desires more intense, to feel more
meek in spirit, more elevated in mind, by the thought that this great
Being, the Creator of all we see, will ever be, if we are sincere in our
wishes, our guide and friend; and that our love for Him will be
increased in the ratio of our knowledge, and our happiness in the ratio
of the good we do our fellow-beings.
S. Solis. |
