tianity; that it was not even a stage of
progress, or preparatory step towards the kingdom of Christ.]

[Footnote 2: And was _sure to be_ sooner or later, when a science of
Biology and Palaeontology became possible.]

The great truths that God is really the Maker and Author of all things,
and that man has a spiritual being, and so forth, surely _gain nothing_
from being conveyed to the world in the folds of a fable. And when it
is not in a confessed fable, but a fable put forth as fact--"God said,"
"God created," "it was so"--not only is there no gain, but our sense of
fitness and of truth receive a shock. A parable is always discernible as
a parable, a vision as a vision. When our Lord, for example, tells us of
the ten virgins, we do not suppose Him to be revealing the actual
existence of ten such maidens, wise and foolish. We know that He is
reading a lesson of watchfulness. But looking at the Genesis narrative,
who could suppose it to be a parable? If sober, unmistakable statement
of fact is possible, we surely have it here, in intention, at least.

The plan of teaching truth in an envelope of error is _per se_ difficult
to conceive. But how much worse is it when we consider--what criterion
does mankind possess for disinterring and distinguishing the elements of
truth? If in religion we had only to do (as some would perhaps contend)
with obvious enforcements of common morality and kindness, there might
be a possibility of getting over the difficulty, because man would
possess some kind of criterion whereby to distinguish what was
fictitious, by the simple process of considering whether any given
statement bore on morals or not. Such a test would not indeed go very
far, because the human race is by no means agreed on all moral
questions; nor does it always find it easy to say what is, and what is
not, directly or indirectly connected with morals. But, in fact, the
scope of religion cannot be so confined: and then the difficulty
returns; for a revelation that tells us anything of the nature of God
and His method of government, of the nature of our own being and of a
future state, must necessarily go beyond our own ethical knowledge and
powers of judging, or it would not be a revelation. Supposing that the
revelation regarding such vital subjects is occasionally conveyed
through the medium of erroneous statements, where in any given case
would be the certainty as to what was Divine truth, and what not so?

This argum