s unconnected with their prospects in life; we desire
to know what the educated laymen, the lawyers, the
historians, the men of science, the statesmen think; and
these are for the most part silent, or confess themselves
modestly uncertain. The professional theologians alone
are loud and confident; but they speak in the old angry
tone which rarely accompanies deep and wise convictions.
They do not meet the real difficulties; they
mistake them, misrepresent them, claim victories over
adversaries with whom they have never even crossed
swords, and leap to conclusions with a precipitancy at
which we can only smile. It has been the unhappy
manner of their class from immemorial time; they call
it zeal for the Lord, as if it were beyond all doubt that
they were on God's side, as if serious inquiry after truth
was something which they were entitled to resent. They
treat intellectual difficulties as if they deserved rather
to be condemned and punished than considered and
weighed, and rather stop their ears and run with one
accord upon any one who disagrees with them than
listen patiently to what he has to say.

We do not propose to enter in detail upon the
particular points which demand re-discussion. It is
enough that the more exact habit of thought which
science has engendered, and the closer knowledge of
the value and nature of evidence, has notoriously made
it necessary that the grounds should be reconsidered
on which we are to believe that one country and one
people was governed for sixteen centuries on principles
different from those which we now find to prevail
universally. One of many questions, however, shall
be briefly glanced at, on which the real issue seems
habitually to be evaded.

Much has been lately said and written on the authenticity
of the Pentateuch and the other historical books
of the Old Testament. The Bishop of Natal has thrown
out in a crude form the critical results of the inquiries
of the Germans, coupled with certain arithmetical
calculations, for which he has a special aptitude. He
supposes himself to have proved that the first five books
of the Bible are a compilation of uncertain date, full of
inconsistencies and impossibilities. The apologists have
replied that the objections are not absolutely conclusive,
that the events described in the book of Exodus might
possibly, under certain combinations of circumstances,
have actually taken place; and they then pass to the
assumption that becau