cation has necessarily flourished, liberty has
taken root, and the higher nature of man has been developed to the
full. Driven from many other countries by tyrannical interference with
liberty of thought and discussion, or by a short-sighted
ecclesiasticism, it has taken up its special abode with the greatest
commercial nations of our time; and, scattered by their agency
broadcast over the world, it is read by every nation under heaven in
its own tongue, and is slowly but surely preparing the way for wider
and greater changes than any that have heretofore resulted from its
influence. Explain it as we may, the Bible is a great literary
miracle; and no amount of inspiration or authority that can be
claimed for it is more strange or incredible than the actual history
of the book. Yet no book has ever thrown itself into so decided
antagonism with all the great forces of evil in the world. Tyranny
hates it, because the Bible so strongly maintains the individual value
and rights of man as man. The spirit of caste dislikes it for the same
reason. Anarchical license, on the other hand, finds nothing but
discouragement in it. Priestcraft gnashes its teeth at it, as the very
embodiment of private judgment in religion, and because it so
scornfully ignores human authority in matters of conscience, and human
intervention between man and his Maker. Skepticism sneers at it,
because it requires faith and humility, and threatens ruin to the
unbeliever. It launches its thunders against every form of violence or
fraud or allurement that seeks to profit by wrong or to pander to the
vices of mankind; all these consequently are its foes. On the other
hand, by its uncompromising stand with reference to certain scientific
and historical facts, it has appeared to oppose the progress of
thought and speculation; though, as we shall see, it has been unfairly
accused in this last respect.

With its antagonism to the evil that is in the world we have at
present nothing to do, except to caution the student of this venerable
literature against the prejudices which interested and unscrupulous
foes seek to cultivate. Its doctrine of the origin of man and of the
world, and the relation of this to modern scientific and historical
results, is that which now claims our attention; and this more
especially in the relation which the Mosaic cosmogony, considered as
an early revelation from God, may be found to bear to the facts which
modern scientific research