Marlborough Express. Published Every Evening. MONDAY, JANUARY 5, 1891. MR GLADSTONE ON GENESIS.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXVII, Issue 3, 5 January 1891, Page 2

Marlborough Express. Published Every Evening. MONDAY, JANUARY 5, 1891. MR GLADSTONE ON GENESIS.

0 Though it i 3 one of the unwritten laws which govern modern journalism that anything savouring of the polemical on religious questions is out of place m the columns of a secular paper, there are limits within which we may allude to matters sacred, without m any way entering on the disputatious. It may not bo known to all our readers that for some months past Mr Gladstone has been contributing articles to " Good Words " on " The Imperial Rock of Holy Scripture," and, apart from the fact that whatever creed wo may be, or whether m fact we have any at all, the weight of his name to such a series of papers is enough to warrant us m thinking that his views are not unworthy of notice. He does not enter into any disputed points of , doctrine, and his articles might with equal impartiality have been written for the Tablet, the Nonconformist, or the Jewish World, -as they deal only with matters on which the whole religious world is at one m meeting the opposition of Professor Huxley, and hisles3 brilliant Freethought followers. Those who have m any degree become acquainted with the modern literature on Christian dialectics, must know that Darwinism and geology have been accounted by many as being virtually opposed to the Mosaic cosmogony, and while there has been much warfare on minor points, and particularly of late years as to the authenicity and authorship of the Gospels, the account of the Creation has been of all the most debateable ground. It was therefore with interest we turned to a resuma by Mr Stead of Mr Gladstone's October article entitled " Recent Corroborations of Scripture," as to which the Review of Reviews thus sum 3 up. •' The article is one which will form the material for many a sermon m the Old World and the New. Many a bard worked e'ergyman might do wor3e than read it from his pulpit m extenso, instead of belabouring his brains to produce a more or less imperfect version of Mr Gladstone's article." In this article Mr . Gladstone begs no question, but openly asserts that modern science is a' great reinforcement to the belief m inspiration. Believing that the subject is of considerable I interest to many of our readers, perhaps to almost all, we offer no apology for I quoting from the resume somewhat i liberally. It says:— "To begin witb, ho incidentally points out that the doctrine of evolution, which holds that the vast and diversified scheme of organic life has been developed from a few simple types, or probably from one, would enlarge and confirm the great argument of design. Then again, original sin is set ' upon its feet by the doctrine of heredity. ' Original sin, or as he calls it, " birth sin," is simply recognition of the hereditary dis- ! order and degeneracy of our nature. The 1 story of the creation, Mr Gladstone maintains, is established first by natural, and 1 then by historical, science. Without preterhuman aid, or divine revelation, he believes that it was impossible for the Mosaic writer to have written an outline of the history of the planet which agrees so" closely with the series of geological con. elusions at which modern science has arrived, and he believes that it is not improbable that astronomy will confirm tho earlier portion of the chapter as geology has confirmed the latter. Even if this anticipation is not fulfilled, Mr Gladstone holds thas he is justified m regarding natural science as rendering a new and enormous ; ssrvice to the great cause of belief m the unseen underpinning of the structure of 1 divine revelation m the book of Genesis, by [ a new and solid pillar built up on a foundation of its own from beneath. The confirmation of historical science is supplied by , the discovery of the Babylonian version of creation, an account which omits that evident intention of series and orderly development or evolution which is bo wonderfully a feature m the Mosaic narra- , tive. Genesis give 3 a narrative of regular structure, orderly and progressive; the Chaldean tablets give one which is dark and , confused. Mr Gladstone then teUs the story of the flood as it is told m the Baby- : lonian tablets. Comparing the two narratives, Mr Gladstone thinks that the Bible story, more sparing m its details, but far ; broader and more direct m the terrible lesson it conveys, may reasonably be judged to ha"ye come down, with the smallest amount of variation, from the original. When Mr Gladstone comes to deal with Professor Huxley's contemptuous dismissal of the deluge from the point of view of science, he confines himself to little more than an observation that other votaries of science hold quite a different opinion. Sir W. Dawson, Mr Howorth (!) and the Duke of Argyll, all of whom Mr Gladstone thinks are surely to bo considered as 'serious scientific inquirers.' He also insists that the historical evidence as to the occurrence of some great cataclysm m the shape of a ■ deluge ia so thoroughly established, on the ! basis of universal tradition, that it can ■ hardly be treated as an open question. Mr ' Gladstone then proceeds to deal with the dispersion. He maintains that this singular, and, so to speak, exposed tradition i has received, m the most fundamental and 1 vital points, from the researches of historical and natural science, striking and conclusive confirmation. Philology lias resolved human languages into the very three-fold division which Genesis anticipates and requires. Philology has not , asserted , as the Bible does, that the language of mankind was originally one; but Mr Gladstone quotes Max Muller to justify his expectation that on this point also science may play the part of the Prussians at Waterloo. Mr Gladstone's last point is that ; the result of the survey of the Siuaitic peninsula by officers of the British Ordnance was that the instruments of modern science showed such complete coincidence with the actual features of the eouatry, as described m the Mosaic narrative, as to prove it tG be a contemporary record of the events to which it relates." It is certain that Mr : Gladstone will not go unanswered, but though he has generalised considerably, and has brought into his geological department only one really good name, that of Sir W. Dawson, who, it must be remembered too, ', is reckoned somewhat one-sided, ho has , njada out a good case, and haa comprehensively ieati v/tth all that is recent m the matter of evidence m ihe yaviong departments of Christian apologetic literature on this question.