MR GLADSTONE ON SCRIPTURE.

Evening Star, Issue 8267, 12 July 1890, Page 1 (Supplement)

MR GLADSTONE ON SCRIPTURE.

THE CREATION TALK

[From Ocr Correspondent,J

The May number of ' Good Words ' contains the second of the Grand Old Man's articles on ' The Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture.' It deals (says the ' Daily Telegraph ') in the main with the story of the Creation, and is more analytical and less general than its predecessor. An odd personal reference occurs in the course of the article. " Certainly," says Mr Gladstone, " I can lay no claim to be heard here more than any other person. Yet will I say that any man whose labor and duty for several scores of yearß have included as their central point the study of the means of making himself intelligible to the mass of men, is in a far better position to judge what would bo the forms and methods of speech proper for the Mosaic writer to adopt than the most perfect Hebraist p. 3 such, or the most consummate votary of natural sciences as such." Subject to that view or his literary function, Mr Gladstone begins by noting that recent controversy on the trustworthincas of Scripture turns largely upon the Creation Story —or "Tale of Creation," as he variously terms it ami the special and separate consideration of this subject he regards as ijtiitc justified by the form given in Scripture to the btory itself. "It is," ho says, "a solitary and striking example of tho detailed exposition of physical facts, For such an example we must suppose a purpose, and wo have to inquire what that purpose was. Next, il seems as it were to trespass on the ground of science, and to assert a rival authority. And further, forming no part, unless towards it.3 close, of the history of man, and nowhere touching on human action, it severs itself from the rest of the Sacred Volume, and appears more as a preface, to the history than us a part of it." The references to the primordial works e-f Creation in Job, in the Psalms, and above all ia the Song of the Three Children—- " in Genesis," Mr Gladstone says, " it ia a narrative, in the Song it is a panorama " are taken to be evidences of its recognised importance and authority among the Hebrews. "It is conceivable that a theory of Creation and of the ordering of the world might be bodied forth in poetry, or might, under given circumstances, be, as iiov.-, based on the researches of naturel science, But, i:i the first place, this recital cannot lie; due to the mere imagination of a poet. It is ia a high degree, as we shall sec, Inelhodic.ll and elaborate. And there is nothing either equalling or within many degrees approaching it which can be set down to the account ci poetry in other cpheres of primitive antiquity, whatever their poetical faculty may htve been. ... So neither were

tiny in any sense scientific. . . . hut, further, ;i3 the talc of Creation is not poetry, nor ii it science, ho neither, according to its own aspect or profession, i.s it theory at all. The method here pursued iu that of historical recital.'' Mr (Hailstone proceeds to argue that, au the Creation story deals with iiic.tkr.-3 of iact which, from tlie nature of the cise, are altogether inaeessible to inquiry, because they (lite before the creation of our race, " it it i.;, t.s ;t r.;urcly pvol'esf b to ho, a serious conveyance ci truth, it cm only be n communication from the Most High ; a communication to man, aud tor the n.-;i> of man, therefore iu a form adopted to liis mind and to his iu,e. If thus considered it is true, then it carries stumped upon it the proof of a divine revelation ; an as.'-crtion I which cannot aommouly he asserted from ! the nature of the contents as to this or that I minute portion of. .Scripture at large." So far Mr Gladst me holds the balance equal between the popular theories of the Jiroad Church school and the suppositious of orthodox scholarship. The question which lie see!::! t:> answer, subject >;o the limitation set down by himself, is : " Whether the statements of tlie Creation Story appear to stand in such a relation to the facts of natural tciencc, so far as they have been ascertained, as to warrant or require our concluding that the statements have proceeded, in .". ma:mer above the ordinary manner, from tlie Author of the Creation itself.'' Tho-.;o who take the atiirmative view upon this question Mr Gladstone calls "Reconcilers," and those who oppose il; "Contradietionis'k." He speaks throughout of tlie "Mosaist," or the "Mosaic; writer," which ho thinks " would not be reasonable if there were ;\:iy thing extravagant in the supposition that there hj a groundwork of fact for the tradition which treatß Morses as the author of thy Pentateuch." Note also that among tlie limitations he stipulates that the question finally to he decided ia not whether the Mosaic narrative is cither precipe or complete. " It may here be general, there particular ; it may here describe a continuous process, and it may there make large omissions, if the things omitted were either absolutely or comparatively immaterial to its purpose"; indeed, "it may be careful of the actual succession in time, or may deviate from it, according as the one cr the other best subserved the general and principal aim." Coming, then, to the Bolutiou of the great problem upon which Mr Gladstone evidently intends to expend the richest I'm it of his intellect, situdy, and experience, he lays down these as the moral and spiritual lessons which the Mosaiat had primarily to communicate—and not oniy to communicate, but to infuse or to impress—even in a plain historical narrative:—(l) To teach man his proper place in Creation in relation to its several ciders; ('2) to exhibit to him, and by means of detail to make him know and fuel, what was the beautiful and noble home that be inhabited, and with what a fatherly and tender care Providence had prepared it for him to dwell in. " It seems also probable," he continues, "that the Creation Story was intended to have a special bearing on the great institution of the day of rest, or Sabbath, by exhibiting it in the manner of an object hj ssr-n." However, the purpose of the Mosaic writer is broadly distinct—viz, "to convey moral and spiritual training. . . . The truth to be conveyed was, indeed, in its basis physical, but it was to serve moral and i spiritual ends, and accordingly by these ends the method of its conveyance behoved to be stated and pictured." Mr Gladstone iB full of admiration tor the Mosaist method, and contrasting it with the " rude and bold approximations with which the practised intellects of our scientists can convey a conception of the actual process by which chaos passed into l-oxmo.i, confusion became order, medley became sequence, seeming anarchy became majestic law, and horror softened I into beauty " —ho believes that the method j of the relator was not only good, but superlatively good, for the aim he had in view. It is impossible to follow Mr Gladstone in detail through the lengthy and, it must be confessed, somewhat, mazy argument, which follows upon the several points on which science is apparently at'issue with tlie Mosaic narrative, it will be of sufficient interest to give in outline a few of the conclusions at which he arrives. First, a3 to the creation of light, the objections relating to which are " usually handled by the Contradictionists in a tone of confidence rising into a pamn of triumph." After setting out the views of this class of critics, and the observed facta which constitute their data, Mr Gladstone thus sums up :—" Considering, then,_ what are the relations between the conditions of heat and those of moisture, and how the coatings of vapor—' the swaddling band of cloud'—might affect the visibility of bodies, may it net be rash to affirm that the sun is, aa a definite and compact body, older than the earth ? or that the Mosaist might not properly treat the visibility of the sun in its present form as best marking for man the practical inception of his existence ; or that, with heat, light, soil, and moisture ready to its service,' primordial vegetation might not exist on the surface of a planet like the earth before the sun had fully reached his matured condition of compact, material, well-defined figure, and of visibility to the eyo ? May not, in short, the establishment of the relation of visibility between earth and sun be the moat Buitable point for the relator in Genesis to bring the two into connection ? And here, again, I would remind the reader that J;he Mosaic daya may be chapin a history ; and that in despite of_ the law of series, but with a view to its best practicable application, the chapters of a history may overlap." The

concluding words of this remarkable passage refer to Mr GladatoDe'u previous contention that the days of creation are nuttier th<; solar 1 days of twenty-four hours nor the "geological periods" which the geologist himself ia compelled, in a manner utterly remote from precision, to describe as millions and millions of years. "It seems to me that the days of the Mosaist are more properly to be described as chapters in the HISTORY OF THE CUEATION. [TIIO Small capitals are adopted by Mr Gladstone.,! That is to say, the purpose of t.lio writer in speaking of the days was the same as the purpose of the historian i? whoa he divides his work iuto chapters. His object is to c;ive clear anil sound instruction. So that he can do this, and in order that he may do it, the periods of time assigned to each chapter arc longer or shorter according as the one or the other may minister to better comprehension of his subject by hi 3 readers. The resources of tho literary art, aided for the last, four centuno.i by printing, enable the modern water to confront more easily the-e difticnlties of arrangement. . . . The Mosaist, in his endeavor to expound the orderly development of the visible world, had no :-:ueh resource?. .His expedient was to lay hold on that which to the mind of his time was tlie best example of complete and orderly division. This was the day, an idea at once simple, definite, and familiar." Mr Gladstone supports this entirely novel vieiv by contending that the day is figuratively used, not here only, but throughout tiie .Scriptures, and even down to the present time, in familiar speech, to describe periods periectly undefined as such, hut defined thus for practical purposes by tiic lives or events to v. hich reference is made.