it is no part of our business to
show in what way God produced the deluge. Geology shows us, however,
that the submergence of parts of the earth beneath the sea, and their
subsequent elevation, is the most common of all geological phenomena;
almost all existing continents and islands having been submerged.

The bishop is as far behind the age in his astronomy as in his geology.
He blindly follows the Infidels of the last century in their attack on
Joshua's miracle, arresting the sun and moon, as inconsistent with their
science; which taught the immobility of the sun and moon, it seems, and
was entirely ignorant of the modern discovery of the grand motions of
the fixed stars, including our sun, and of the dependence of all the
planets, including our earth and moon, upon that grand motion for the
motive power of their revolutions.[132]

One wonders from what college the bishop came out ignorant of facts
known to the boys of American common schools.

A great many of the bishop's blunders are occasioned by want of sense.
The process is very simple. The sacred history is very brief. Only the
headings of things are recorded. Much must be supplied by the common
sense of the reader. The manners of the East are very different from
ours. Three thousand years have greatly changed the face of the country.
Ignore all this, and interpret the Pentateuch as though it consisted of
the letters of Our Own Correspondent, and you will find difficulties on
every page. Such is the style of Colenso's criticism. Assume that Moses
gives a full and complete chronicle of all events which have happened
since the creation, and then dispute the recorded facts because it can
easily be shown he omitted many.

But the bishop has not the honor of discovering this method, or of
founding this school of criticism. We have heard village critics of the
loom and the forge discuss such questions as are handled by Colenso, and
the Essays and Reviews, and often with much more acuteness and
penetration. With what _eclat_ has our village critic unhorsed the
itinerant preacher with the inquiry, What became of the forks belonging
to the nine and twenty knives which Ezra brought back from Babylon? but
was, alas! himself routed in the moment of triumph by the inquiry as to
the sex of the odd clean beasts of Noah's sevens. How often has our
village blacksmith critic requested a sermon upon the genealogy of
Melchizedek, which the minister agreed to furnish when our bl