EOLOGICAL EFFORTS AT COMPROMISE.--TRIUMPH OF THE SCIENTIFIC VIEW.

The theological effort to compromise with science now came in more
strongly than ever. This effort had been made long before: as we have
seen, it had begun to show itself decidedly as soon as the influence
of the Baconian philosophy was felt. Le Clerc suggested that the shock
caused by the sight of fire from heaven killed Lot's wife instantly and
made her body rigid as a statue. Eichhorn suggested that she fell into a
stream of melted bitumen. Michaelis suggested that her relatives raised
a monument of salt rock to her memory. Friedrichs suggested that she
fell into the sea and that the salt stiffened around her clothing, thus
making a statue of her. Some claimed that a shower of sulphur came
down upon her, and that the word which has been translated "salt" could
possibly be translated "sulphur." Others hinted that the salt by its
antiseptic qualities preserved her body as a mummy. De Saulcy, as we
have seen, thought that a piece of salt rock fell upon her, and very
recently Principal Dawson has ventured the explanation that a flood of
salt mud coming from a volcano incrusted her.

But theologians themselves were the first to show the inadequacy of
these explanations. The more rationalistic pointed out the fact that
they were contrary to the sacred text: Von Bohlen, an eminent professor
at Konigsberg, in his sturdy German honesty, declared that the salt
pillar gave rise to the story, and compared the pillar of salt causing
this transformation legend to the rock in Greek mythology which gave
rise to the transformation legend of Niobe.

On the other hand, the more severely orthodox protested against such
attempts to explain away the clear statements of Holy Writ. Dom Calmet,
while presenting many of these explanations made as early as his time,
gives us to understand that nearly all theologians adhered to the idea
that Lot's wife was instantly and really changed into salt; and in
our own time, as we shall presently see, have come some very vigorous
protests.

Similar attempts were made to explain the other ancient legends
regarding the Dead Sea. One of the most recent of these is that the
cities of the plain, having been built with blocks of bituminous rock,
were set on fire by lightning, a contemporary earthquake helping on the
work. Still another is that accumulations of petroleum and inflammable
gas escaped through a fissure, took fire, and so prod