Word of God necessitates our rejection of the first alternative-it equally necessitates the adoption of the last. In truth, the Bible is the great revealer and fosterer of the idea of the advancement of the human race towards a reign of universal righteousness, peace, and prosperity; and moreover, is itself the great agent appointed and fitted to bring about the realization of its own sublime predictions. For if ever a period so blessed as that indicated by the prophet's words shall dawn on this world, it will be by the universal dissemination, influence, and triumph of the Christian religion. And whatever some of our modern apostles of human progression may think of the Old Book, they, in spite of themselves, do homage to it when they preach their little coming millennium, for to the Bible they owe the idea; and the tiny conceit which they are labouring to construct out of the chips and straws of human philosophy, is nothing more nor less than a poor, ill-shapen copy of that grand revelation of the Word of God,—a WorldJubilee, seen afar off by patriarchs, heralded by Hebrew prophets, sung by Hebrew bards, based in the incarnation and advent of the Son of God, proclaimed by apostles, and cherished by all Christian men in all ages as a most sure and blessed hope.

But the mode as well as the matter of divine revelation furnishes us with a reason why the former days should not be better than these. For what so clearly stamped on the method in which it pleased God to communicate His will and gracious purposes to men, as progress? How manifest the gradual advance, step by step, from the less full and more obscure to the ampler and clearer, both as regards doctrines, precepts, and promises! Just as our Lord taught His disciples, illustrated in these words of His, 'I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now'-so God educated His chosen people, and through them, so far, the human race. The Bible was not given all at once and in a piece. Revelation, like day, had its early dawn, its morning and its noon. Types and symbols preceded the great facts and spiritual realities of the gospel. Not as a river leaping full-grown from the broad bosom of a mighty lake, but as a mountain streamlet trickling down the grassy slopes of its native hills, yielding at first but water sufficient for the inmates of the shepherd's cot in the glen, yet gradually widening and deepening its channel as it proceeds, and as its work enlarges so the revelation of God's grace flowed forth to men. And there was fitness, doubtless, as well as design in this-the fitness lying in the fact and revealing it, that notwithstanding partial, and even extensive and serious declension and retrogression in some things, the general movement of mankind from generation to generation is onward.

Nor is there any real force in the objection which may here be urgedthat the Bible has long since been completed. For although the Word of God is not now progressive in the sense of receiving additions from without, and least of all, let us say, from the inventions or discoveries of men, yet, given by Him who knows the end from the beginning, it holds in solution, we believe, all that is required to meet the specific circumstances and wants of each generation, while it ministers that which alone can satisfy the wants common to all generations of mankind. In the world-march of improvement the Bible will ever be in the van.

Whether we reflect, therefore, on the constitution and powers of man, the character and government of God, or the matter and mode of divine revelation-the conclusion we arrive at is the same: that the former days should not be better than these.

And now we proceed to present

II. SOME FACTS TO PROVE THAT THE FORMER DAYS WERE NOT BETTER THAN THESE.

The preceding reasons and reasoning, however cogent and conclusive we may think they are, must, we frankly admit, go for nothing if facts are against us. Many a well-knit theory, and many an invulnerable-looking piece of a priori demonstration, have been blown to atoms by the irresistible force of a single fact. Never were deductions, however, better or more fully borne out by facts, than are those we have advanced on this subject. The difficulty one feels here is, where to begin, what to select, and how to classify. The field is so wide, and its departments so numerous and varied, that we cannot, with the space at our disposal, do more than briefly and cursorily indicate the sources and character of the proof which might be adduced to show that the former days were not better than these.

To begin, let us glance, First, at those mechanical and industrial arts and appliances which so materially influence the condition of individuals, communities, and nations. What marvellous progress has been made in these within the recollection of many whom we now address! Look at the innumerable applications of steam power, and at the wonders of the electric telegraph. Only some forty years have elapsed since the first locomotive started on its trial trip, while scarcely half that number of years have run their course since the first message darted along the electric wires,—a message which, strange to say, linked the infant telegraph to the cause of morality, law, and justice, by being the means of capturing a murderer. And now, how much does the world owe to these two inventions of our own day! How have they developed the material resources of every nation under heaven, diminished distance, and bound together by a common interest and mutual dependence, the most diverse and distant countries! Does any one ask what connection these things have with the great question of human progress, or what influence they exert on the vital concerns of human life? Our answer is, Much every way. There never has been a discovery or an invention of any importance in mechanical or industrial science or art, however remote it might at first sight appear, but what has ultimately done good service to Christianity. What, it might have been asked some four hundred years ago, when Laurence Köster was sitting cutting out his clumsy wooden blocks in the town of Haarlem, wherewith to print his Speculum Humance Salvationis, or when John Guttenberg, some years after, was busy over his cut metal types-what has this invention of printing to do with Christianity, and the progress of the human race in divine and spiritual things? Will any one ask that question now? Twenty years or so after Köster made his first rude attempt at printing with wooden blocks, the first great triumph of the new invention was achieved, when in 1460 the first copy of a printed Bible appeared. And to what but to the application of steam power to the printing-press, and to the production of book-materials,—to the union of the great discovery of the nineteenth century with the great invention of the fifteenth,—do we owe our cheap copies of the Word of God, and our mass of Christian literature?—a union which has enabled Bible and Missionary Societies to scatter the living truth of the gospel a thousand-fold, more freely than they could otherwise have done among the godless at home and in heathen lands. Contrast with this, the big Bible chained in the crypt of old St Paul's, to which thirsty souls flocked as men and women to a public well, and say if the former days were better than these.

Again. Look at the civil and social condition of mankind. Were we

surveying this field with the view of gathering evidence to show the necessity and urgency of a holy crusade against tyranny, oppression, ignorance, vice, and crime, we admit that we should feel at no loss in our search. For these evils do lamentably prevail. But it is not the absolute but the relative amount and virulence of these evils with which we have at present to do; in other words, whether society in general is worse or better in these and other respects now, than it was in former days. And who that knows anything of the political and social condition of Europe at the present time, and of what it was a century ago, will affirm that there has been no change for the better? Are the thrones of despots quite as stable as they were then? Do nations exist for their sovereigns, and bow as abjectly at their feet as they did then? Have not serfdom and villenage been disappearing, and the dignity and rights of manhood been rising into prominence and strength? Has not constitutional government been extending; and are not the relationships and responsibilities of social life better understood, and more generally respected? But to confine ourselves to our own country. How numerous and decided have been the advances toward the general amelioration, comfort, and well-being of the people! We appeal with confidence to those of our readers who are well stricken in years, however strong their love of the past, whether the former days were better than these. Are not the working classes and the great body of the people better clothed, better fed, better housed, better educated than was the case in their young days? Is not trade steadier, are not wages higher, is not bread surer, is not money more plentiful, are not luxuries commoner than in former times? What a change, and on the whole a change to the better, has come over our country, in these and similar matters, even since the present century began! There are few people,' says the late Lord Cockburn, who now know that so recently as 1799 there were slaves in this country. Twenty-five years before, that is in 1755, there must have been thousands of them; for this was then the condition of all our colliers and salters. They were literally slaves. They could not be killed or directly tortured; but they belonged, like the serfs of an older time, to their respective works, with which they were sold as a part of the gearing . . The completeness of their degradation is disclosed by one public fact. The statute passed in 1701, which has been extolled as the Scotch Habeas Corpus Act, proceeds on the preamble, that "Our Sovereign Lord considering it is the interest of all his good subjects that the liberty of their persons be duly secured." Yet while introducing regulations against "wrongous imprisonment, and undue delays in trials," the statute contains these words: And sicklike, it is hereby provided and declared, that this present Act is noways to be extended to colliers or salters." That is, being slaves, they had no personal liberty to protect.' Lord Cockburn adds: People cared nothing about colliers on their own account; and the taste for improving the lower orders had not then begun to dawn.' But how stand matters now? Every vestige of such servitude and degradation swept from our land-the slave trade pronounced piracy-our colonial slaves set free! Yes; and at this very moment a nation once, and that but recently, the shameless abettor and defiant stronghold of slavery of the worst type, is in the agonizing throes of a new life, which we pray God may speedily end in the birth of a glorious liberty.

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Passing by other signs and evidences of progress, let us glance, before we close these reflections, at the state of the Christian Church, and the religious

* Memorials of his Times, p. 76.

aspect of the world. Here also we discover many proofs that the former days were not better than these.

We are well aware that very recently, in some sections of the Christian Church, strange and sad things have occurred, which appear to militate against our thesis. When, it may be asked, was ever such sight witnessed, as a bishop of a Christian Church deliberately and publicly fastening exaggeration, fable, error, and untruth on sacred Scripture? When was there ever heard within the pale of the Christian Church so much antichristian and rationalistic teaching? When was the bark of the wolf in the sheep-fold so distinctly audible? Surely the former days were better than these. Not so, friends. A little calm reflection and careful discrimination will show, that however painfully prevalent such untoward and unseemly things are in certain quarters, they by no means prove that the former days were better than these. Last century had its gross deism without the Church, and its rank Arianism within it; while the age immediately preceding our own had its dead and deadening orthodoxy-its cold, lifeless formalism. Christianity might not be attacked and openly wounded, as it is now, in the house of its friends; but it was gagged, the spirit was taken out of it; and we are not sure but if it were necessary to choose between the two evils-a dead orthodoxy and an active scepticism-we should, all things considered, prefer the latter. Good will yet come out of all this evil. The tide is not going back, because the wave on which we happen to fix our eyes is receding. It may be making all the while, and these back-going waves may very soon turn, gather strength, and roll themselves still farther in-shore. And so we believe it will be with those apparently backward tendencies in many parts of the Church at the present time, over which not a few of the godly are mourning, and many of the ungodly are rejoicing. Moreover, how much have we of a good and cheering kind to set against all this; how many harbingers are there visible, even in the midst of this darkness, of a better and more glorious day! We merely mention these three, and conclude. First, The spirit of loving forbearance in matters non-essential abroad among Christian men, which has found embodiment and expression in that pleasing sign of the times we live in, the Evangelical Alliance. Second, The increased desire for corporate union among the followers of Jesus. And third, The missionary zeal and enterprise characteristic of almost every section of the Christian Church in our day. All these are signs and proofs of a true and blessed advance in the Church of Christ; and, taken along with the evidences of progress in other fields, ought to fill every philanthropic, Christian heart with hope and joy, and prevent the unwise question being asked, What is the cause that the former days were better than these?'

READINGS IN GENESIS.

BY THE REV. DAVID YOUNG, GLASGOW.

I. INTRODUCTION.

THE Pentateuch, or Five Books of the Law of Moses, not only stands first in the roll of sacred Scripture, but is the natural basis of the whole superstructure of revelation. The New Testament without the Old would be

a flower without root or stalk,-the capital of a noble pillar without the pillar itself to sustain it in its place. It would be a fragment and a mystery. And the Old Testament without the Pentateuch would be similarly deficient. The historical books, from Joshua onwards, the prophetical books, the ethical and poetical books, would be in a great measure meaningless and purposeless, 'to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile,' but for the earlier history which they presuppose, and to which they constantly revert. Eliminate from Jewish history the call of Abraham, the lives of the Patriarchs, the bondage in Egypt, the Exodus, and all the incidents of the forty years, during which the people wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way,' and 'found no city to dwell in,' and how impossible would become the whole recorded future of the nation! The roots out of which the theocratic commonwealth sprang and flourished would be gone, and the entire fact of the commonwealth itself become utterly inexplicable.

The importance of the Pentateuch, therefore, as an integral portion of the Word of God, cannot be overrated. Assaults which are made here, are made upon the very citadel of revealed truth. The New Testament cannot be retained if the Old be surrendered; and the Old cannot be defended if the Pentateuch be given up. Renan will be comparatively powerless if Colenso be overthrown. If Colenso keep his ground, Renan may be slain a thousand times to little purpose.

It is well, perhaps, that the defence of the Bible has of recent years been drawn more and more closely around this one point. Here the German critics have mustered their respective hosts, and fought even more lustily than on the field of early gospel story. Michael the archangel contending with the devil,' has disputed about the body of Moses;' and we cannot doubt with whom the victory will rest. Michael can be indefinitely strengthened, and the cause of the strife will never be given up. Meanwhile it becomes Christians in general to give more heed alike to questions affecting the authority, and to the interpretation and study of the Mosaic books. The interest attaching to them is great; their importance as a key to the position defended by the friends of revelation is vital; and their practical usefulness will be acknowledged by every one who makes them the subject of earnest and prayerful thought.

The first of the five books commonly ascribed to Moses, stands to the whole much as the whole itself stands to the entire Scriptures. If the Pentateuch be the basis of all subsequent revelation, Genesis in turn is the basis of the Pentateuch. The books, indeed, are marked by a unity which cannot be broken, except by the most violent and arbitrary rupture. One thread runs through them; one design holds them together; one stream flows from end to end of the goodly land; and the land through which it flows can only be broken up into separate territories by imaginary crossings, not by actual boundary walls, dividing between true and false, sacred and profane. Genesis is the natural introduction to the history which Exodus and the books which follow it continue; Exodus and the rest are the natural continuation of the story which Genesis begins. The remaining books would be incomplete in one direction without Genesis; Genesis would be incomplete in another without them. And thus, even as with the entire Bible and the Pentateuch, so with the Pentateuch and Genesis-they must stand or fall together. Speaking generally, the Word of God is one living organism of the spiritual world, vital all, and the life of every part essential to the life of the whole; so that, if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it,' 'The eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of thee:

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