"INQUIRER" ON DR. ELLIS'S LECTURE."

New Zealand Herald, Volume XIII, Issue 4460, 29 February 1876, Page 5 (Supplement)

"INQUIRER" ON DR. ELLIS'S LECTURE."

To the Editor of the Hekalx>. Sir,—l read the letter signed " Inquirer" in your issue of the 12th inst., with not a little amusemeut. Like all documents issuing from the same school, it combined the blankest ignorance and the most positive dogmatism, in such a manner as to lead me bo think it unworthy of anything beyond «a laugh, believing that the schoolboys of an intelligent community could discover its worthlessness as an argument. Residing at a distance, I had not the advantage of hearing Dr. Ellis's lecture, and the paper containing the report of it has not reached me. It appears, however, from your remarks on the 24th, that the subject is still exciting interest, and, if you permit me, I should wish to place before your readers a few suggestions to aid genuine enquirers, not dogmatists, who only assume the character for a purpose, and betray their unreality by their bone. Concerning the reports of Dr. Cowie's sermon, I do nob feel at liberty to say anything, because they are only reports, and in ill probability very inaccurate; and because .t would be unfair to a kuown public man to issail his positions with my vizor down ; md further, because I can hardly think a gentleman in his position would go so far as ;o say that "ho held the Mosaic account cf ihe creation to be allegorical and poetical." There is absurdity in the very terms, for if t is allegorical and poetical, it is not an iccount of Creation at all. Hoping that the Bishop may be led to give the world the benefit of his enquiries in print, I shall adIress myself for a little to " Inquirer's" illusion. The first thing which arrested my ittention in it was its strong style of issertion, so out of harmony with the issumed title of its writer. You will excuse ne for being unable to see its " great force )f reasoning." Such assertions as, "the | Mosaic account of creation has never yet i >een reconciled with the testimony of the •ocks j the two are at variance, and absolutely contradictory, the one of he other," and "the word day as used n the first chapter of Genesis is exceedingly jrecisein its meaning," and his calling Dr. Sllis's attempt at reconciliation, " the perversion of the meaning of the word day," nay stand as specimens. The words " must" md " cannot" are used by " Inquirer" in a iimilar positive fashion. The second thing vhich shewed his unfitness for the task he lad undertaken was the evidence of ignorance ind inaccuracy contained in such a sentence ,8 the following : —"Geology tells us that he phenomena of day and night proceed rom the rotation of the earth on its axis, cc." A man whose researches range from he Kile mud and the'gravel of the Valley of ;he Somme to the empyrean, if he knew pliat lie was writing about, could not be ;uilty of, this. A plain proof of his inaccurcy is found ia the statement twice made in ucceeding sentences, " The sun was created •n the fourth day." No such statement is liade anywhere in Scripture, and yet upon his repeated positive false _ assertion, ests the force of his reasoning against he fact of the creation of vegetaion on the third day. I must conent myself with these specimens. You ould not allow me space for the exhibition f all; they are too numerous. Let us now Dok at the facts for a moment. The second 4 day," in tlio first chapter of Genesis and Isewhere, is used to designate a period not onfined to twenty-four hours. We do not ecd to resort to the "Hebrew language," or call to our aid any " eminent scholars." L child with his English Bible in his hand an prove it. Let us take the thirty-five erses included in Genesis i, 1 to 31, 2 to 4, nd we find it designating four periods, demonstrably differing in duration from acli other. Genesis 1 to 4: "And God ailed the light day, and the darkness He ailed night; and the evening and the mornng were tlie first day." Here in its first use b refers to ouly the light; in the second, to he period including evening and morning, ud if that signifies a day of twenty-four tours, the word day in this one verse desiglates two periods, one of which is twice as ong as the other. In Genesis 1 to 14, the rord day, in its second occurrence, is used pparently in its common acceptation, as it iccurs in the enumeration of periods of time 1 * for signs and for seasons, and for days and r ears," but in its first occurrence, it is used | or the light portion of a day, or only half. Similarly in verse 17. Its second occurrence n verse 14 gives us a third signification in the ihapter, as it definitely and without doubt signifies a day marked by the rotation of the larth. If now we look to Genesis*2 to 4, we dis:over a fourth signification, including, under ;he word " day" all the periods of whatever ength included in the six days preceding. 'Tlieso are the generations of the heavens md of the earth when they were created, in ;he day that the Lord God made the earth ind the heavens." Here the word "day" includes all the six days. In the light of ;his simple inquiry, what becomes of the strong assertion of the pseudo "Inquirer," ;hat "the word day, as used in the first ;hapter of Genesis, is exceedingly precise in ts meaning. Not once only, but six iimes over, are we told, after each distinct ict of creation, that the evening and the norning constituted the day—the day, that s, in the common acceptation of the word, xs everyone understood it, from the time of Moses to the dawn of modem scientific jeology J" What can we think of a writer tvlio is so recklessly regardless of truth as to issert such things in the face of the simplest' evidence to the contrary ? Lest anyone may nave a doubt respecting the correctness of bhe English version, I should mention that the Hebrew word yOni is that which is everywhere represented by the English " day." This use of the word day for period is very common in Scripture. In Isaiah xii. chap. 1 verse, xlix. chap. S verse, and 2nd Cor. vi. chap. 2 verse, it refers to the whole period of the Messiah's redemptive work. But if "Inquirer," or some other equally intelligent person, should say that such a use of words condemns the book in which it is contained, that day must mean 24 hours, or the language is deceptive, I would request them to remember that no such rigid accuracy as they demand exists, or i 3 possible. How mauy days are there in a year in Greenland? But come to common language:—Do we not speak familiarly of Shakspere's day?—of Milton's day! Nay, does not the historian do it ? And yet, when the same historian speaks of the day when the battle of Edgehill was fought, we understand him to speak of a definite 24 hours. When the proverbialist says, "Every dog has his day," he ig not held to mean that the dog lives 24 hours only. When Mr. Tennyson says—

Oar little systems hare tholr day; They have their day, and cease to be,

he would be astonished i£ anyone understood him to mean that they only lasted 24 hours. Nothing is more absurd than to demand of Scripture that it shall speak in a language different from the human. The usage. I •refer to is -wide as the world, aud has prevailed throughout all ages. - As to the state-: merit o£ f< Inquirer," that " everyone understood it [that day meant 24 hours in Genesis i. chap.] from the time cf.Sfoses," &c., it,ia.-, as untrue as it is bold. " Inquirer's" proof, that the word day conld ' not' mean anything else 'th&n its common : acceptation,' , is found in the statement, "JSveniirg waa and morning was." But surely this is no jproof. ... Has he never",heard of " the f evening of Ufe," u the morning of -life," and.

many similar phrases ? Does he insist, "when he hears of the evening of a man's life, that must have died the day he was bom ? With all his blundering I cau hardly think him such a fool, for he knows that the term is not applied to short lives at all, and it is currently well understood. 1 -As he pretends to science, I might ask him whether he ever heard of the Eocene—"the morning of-the* new?" It is a geologist s word. Did the scientist who coined it ever think that that long extended series of formations which it ushered in was completed in twenty-four hours ? . Must he then put a prosaic inter - ( pretation upon the-Scriptures which would be nonsense when applied to geology ? or must God, when giving an account of the grand work of the creation of the universe, be;more prosaic than the investigator ? It is a contemptible style of criticism which makes such demands, and yot " Inquirer" only follows his masters in it. He thiuks he has found an overwhelming argument against " day" meauiug an indefinite period in the and makes the most of it. But remembering how the word is used in Genesis i. for periods of various

length, and taking away the word "indeti-* nite," which is no part of the definition of the word "day," 1 would ask him what great absurdity there is in God appointing a

shorter period to be observed in commemoration of a longer ? : It simply comes to this: The Sabbath was appointed as one day in the week, which was well understood, and God said, " Remember the Sabbath Day," a period which everyone knew meant an ordinary day; "form six days (or periods) the Lord made heaven and earth," aud everyone could see for himself, by reading the account, that theso periods were not definitely said to be days of the ' week. is only necessary to add, that in I contradicting " Inquirer's" assertion that the I

sun was created on the fourth day, I proceeded upon both the English aud the Hebrew. The former has "made;" and everyone knows that a wide difference exists between "created" and "made." But the Hebrew word hasah never signifies created, being totally different from that used in verse 1. It often signifies "constituted,"

" appointed," and might appropriately be so translated in vorse 16. I must conclude by saying that the parting dart flung at the Bible, about the miracle in Joshua, -which is an essential part of the stock-in-trade of such persons as "Inquirer," is no more asserted by the believer to be reconcilable to the truths of astronomy than that of the resurrection of Christ is to the truths of physiology ; but this does not hinder his believing both as the acts of the living God. Hoping that " Inquirer" will see the necessity for a litt'e

more carefulness in assertions when he next tries the patience of the public, and that some others may think before they follow such blind guides,—l am, &c., A Believing Scientist.