have equally accepted as sound. Is it not better to look into those premises than to quarrel with the conclusion? Or if the conclusion startles us, is not that a solemn call and obligation to inquire whether we may not be cleaving to a principle which involves it? If we are, surely we can only avoid the result by shutting our eyes; and we may not be able, any more than Bishop Colenso, always to keep them shut.

Still, is there not a fear of dislodging some old and dear faith whilst we draw this distinction, even though the Bible warrants it? Shall not we outrage the decisions of the Church even if we adhere to the doctrine of the book which the Church recognizes? There is an illustration, also taken from the present controversy, of that danger. The Bishop of Natal does not like to read the passage in our service about the Israelites being led through the Red Sea," figuring thereby thy holy Baptism." Of course he does notof course he cannot. He feels Baptism to be a witness of a truth. He supposes the passage of the Red Sea to be a miraculous legend. But now observe how the composers of the Baptismal Service felt about this passage of the Red Sea, and how exactly, how felicitously, they expressed

the true mind of Christendom concerning it. That deliverance was not, in their eyes, a special anomalous transaction, to be set down among the world's curiosities. It was the type and example of all deliverances that had been wrought for nations ever since; of this, the great Redemption of mankind by the baptism and death of the only-begotten Son. All were God's deliverances. In every salvation, little or great, that ever came to an individual, to a family, to a nation, to the universe, He was making a way for his ransomed to pass over, He was commanding the water to stand on the right hand and on the left, He was throwing the horse and the rider into the sea. Is not the whole literature of Christendom, as Dr. Stanley has so well shown in his admirable Lectures on the Jewish Church,' leavened with this conviction? Has not this story of the Red Sea given faith to men in sore trials when they needed something else than fictions to rest upon P Yes! The modern method of treating these as mere exceptions in the order of the divine government, not striking and glorious illustrations of it, is a hard, cruel, destructive method. It must lead to such denials as those of Bishop Colenso. We should be thankful for knowing that it does.

Believing that the history of Israel is not a Homeric legend, but a revelation of the Lord of heaven and earth, the Lord of man, I can do justice to the Homeric legends. I can see in them a confession of a divine protection and government in the affairs of men, of a divine inspiration of the thoughts and acts of men. world becomes a mere stage, on which men are playing different parts and wearing different masks, without this message concerning a Living Word. With it, the stage becomes a place of real actors. One is in the centre of all, directing all.

All the

But do I care nothing whether Moses or Samuel, or any man whom I have reverenced most, should turn out to be an impostor; not some ancient Descartes, but some ancient Cagliostro ? I care immensely! To think of Samuel as some critics think of him, would be as painful to me as to count the dearest friend or kinsman I ever had a rogue. But for that very reason I would not have him snatched away, like a Homeric hero, in a cloud, just when the darts are striking him. I should wish the character of my own friend to undergo investigation, not to be saved from it or to be sustained by any foregone conclusion. I can trust God

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THE BIBLE AND SCIENCE.

with His own acts. I can trust Him with the defence of His servants. Let all criticism-the severest-be applied to them. I think they will endure it. I am sure that He will be justified when He speaks, and will be clear when He is judged.

Affectionately yours,

F. D. MAURice.

107

LETTER X.

THE DELUGE.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

You approach your third question with much timidity. You say that "it is op"pressing the minds of those who love their "Bibles, and who cling to the infallibility of the "letter of Scripture as the ground of all their "hopes."

I am sure that there are such persons as those whom you describe; I am sure, at least, that there are persons "who love their Bibles," and who yet think that "they cling to the infallibi

lity of the letter of the Scriptures as the ground "of all their hopes." But I cannot admitafter what I have said in previous letters you. cannot expect me to admit-that their love for the Bible is identical with this clinging, or is the cause of it. When they confess that the