126 THE KING’S BUSINESS The implication of this is plain enough, and the answer is simple enough, if God chose a man to speak part of His message and that message included the history of redemption, He certainly would;' make him exact in recording that history. Further on the article says, “ It was not the history which inspiration was given to convey, but a message of God’s character, power, love and purposes.” This is specious but misleading, for it is by the history that the “message of God’s character, power, love and purposes” is conveyed. In fact, Christianity is not speculations, but facts. The Gospel is facts (see 1 Cor. 15 :l-4). If the facts are untrue, the revelation cannot be true. The editorial goes on to say, “ Bunyan, writing ‘Pilgrim’s Progress,’ pro duced; by God’s Spirit a volume full o f God’s truth. Yet his story is fiction— allegory.” This statement is illogical to the point of silliness. ' Are we to understand that Bunyan was inspired in the sense and to the extent that the men whom God chose to be the human instruments in the preparing of His Word were inspired? In the very next sentence the writer himself says that he was not. He says, “ To be sure, Bunyan was not inspired as the Bible writers were.”’ Then the whole argument ■ falls to the ground. The writer goes on to ask, “ Might not the Spirit have used a talent for allegory in some of them (that is the Bible writers) also?” Certainly He might in writing alle gory, but thé trouble with the present-day biblical criticism is, that whàt is definitely stated as history (and what the Lord Jesus and Paul interpret as his tory) is taken as allegory. The writer goes on to say, “ Indeed, a host of Christians have already seen the first chapter of Genesis in new meaning and bèauty ündér some such thought as this; As lorig as that chapter was taken for matter-òf-fact chronicle only, it seemed in distressing conflict with geology.” To this the answer is simple enough.. Any Christians who have seen thè first chapter of Genesis as allegory have seen it as what it is not intended to bè. It is’ given as history, its whole significance depends upon its being history,-and so far from there being any distressing conflicts, with geology, the greatest geologists that this country has ever produced have said that it was in most striking harmony with the teaching of geology. It was the privilege of the writer to specialize in geology under the greatest geologist that America ever produced, Prof. James G. Dana, of Yale, one of the greatest men of sciènce of the age, and Prof. Dana said in his hearing that one reason why he believed the Bible to be the Word o f God was because of the wonderful agreement of the teaching of the first chapter o f Genesis with the most recent discoveries, of geology. Lord Kelvin,, admittedly one of the very first scientists of our day has said that there was absolutely no conflict between the teachings of the first chapter of Genesis and the established results of modern science. When men like Lord Kelvin make such assertions as this, it is almost amusing for men who have no name whatever in the scientific world to make statements like that found in this editorial, or statements' like that made by a leading Scotch theologian who has no ñame whatever in the world of science or of history, that, any one who took the first chapter óf Genesis as being scientific or historical did not know what science or history were. Men who know more about history as a science and more about physical science in one day thàn this theological writer will in a lifetime have frankly stated that the first chapter of Genesis was accurately scientific and the very foundation of history. The writer in THE CONTINENT goes on to say, “What is the Bible
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