veterans his sympathies did not perish in his prime. His mind was not forever recurring to the "old days," whose manners and customs are supposed by elderly persons to have been so far superior to those of our degenerate times. An expansive intellect kept him in touch with the later developments in literature, in science, and in art, while the consistency of his strong, independent nature preserved him from the baneful effects of senile bigotry. He delighted in the works of Swinburne and of Darwin, and we have seen what he thought of Boehm as a sculptor. He was not too much of a Liberal to be blind to the merits of Mr. Disraeli, whom he described as "a great man directing the impulses of a stubborn country. He told me that he sat next to Mr. Disraeli at

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the Byron meeting. Disraeli asked me to say a few words in favor of the object we had met to promote. I told him that I would have spoken before, but would not speak after him, as I considered his speech had covered the whole ground. Disraeli said he would like to call upon me, and asked where I was living. I did not wish to bring him so far out of the way for nothing, so I told him that my home is at Worthing, thus avoiding the prospect of a visit.”

The same spirit that had prompted Trelawny to assist the Greeks in their struggle for independence, caused him to rejoice at the unification of the German Empire, whose brilliant victories consolidated the strength of a nation that had long suffered oppression. He was roused to indignation by the protests of the Hanoverian Kingdom, which he described as "a petty province setting up its selfish pretensions in the face of inexorable destiny."

I feel tempted to prolong this reminiscence for the pure pleasure which it gives me in the writing. But the reader will perhaps have had more than enough already; out of respect for his patience I withhold the rest. Trelawny will live in the "Records" which he published in 1878 and in the pages of Mrs. Marshall's book. It is a remarkable fact, and one which speaks well for his own social worth, that Trelawny was not only esteemed by the two men whose fame had attracted him to Pisa, but also by Mary Shelley, the Williamses, and the whole of that somewhat heterogeneous coterie.

Trelawny was no sycophant-he always

spoke and wrote as he felt-a circumstance which makes his testimony of the highest value. He may perhaps have been prejudiced against Byron when he compared him with the gentle, unsophisticated Shelley, but he never for one moment swerved in his loyalty toward him ; and though they parted in Greece never to meet in life, Trelawny in his old age always spoke of Byron with affection. That he loved Shelley is not surprising, and it would be strange if he had not drawn a comparison - inevitably invidious-between two characters so essentially dissimilar. Trelawny had neither the faculty nor the wish to analyze character; he took men as he found them, and in the good and gentle Shelley's frank generosity he was content to behold a superiority, not only over the more complex Byron, but also over all men living. Although he well knew my enthusiasm for Byron, he never pandered to it. pandered to it. He spoke his mind out with that fearlessness which attracted all those with whom he was intimate, and which made him respected to the last hour of his life.

With the exception of a short sojourn in Italy, Trelawny's last years were spent in England. Always active, always generous, always full of information, well read and highly sympathetic, he could be, when he liked, a charming companion. How many hours have I spent in his company, astonished at his vigor and vivacity and at the depth of his knowledge of men and books. Alas! the dauntless Cornishman who in his youth swept the seas with De Witt, who in his prime fought with Byron for the independence of Greece, and who in his old age commanded the sympathy and respect of all true lovers of romance, has passed away. In the peaceful calm of a summer evening, just a little more than eight years ago, Edward Trelawny, who had so often braved death by sea and land, perceived that his hour was come. But the life-sands flowed steadily to the last grain ere his massive frame surrendered to the subtle foe. He had recently complained of weariness, and showed but little inclination to rise from his couch. Those who stood around him remarked that his eye was still bright, his voice firm, and his memory fresh as of But the scene was changing rapidly on the 13th August, 1881, a glorious haven, peopled by the loved ones of his

yore.

for the Hebrews, or than it could have in any of those ages when men believed, perhaps even too freely, in special modes of communication from the Deity to man, and had not a stock of courage or audacity enough to question the possibility of a divine revelation. For we have now to bear in mind that the Book of Genesis generally contains a portion of human history, and that all human history is a record of human experience. It is not so with the introductory recital; for the contents of it lie outside of and anterior to the very earliest human experience. How came they then into the possession of a portion of mankind?

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 now,

based on the researches of natural science.

But, in the first place, this recital cannot be due to the mere imagination of a poet. It is in a high degree, as we shall see, methodical and elaborate. And there is nothing either equalling or within many degrees approaching it, which can be set down to the account of poetry in other spheres of primitive antiquity, whatever their poetical faculty may have been. But the Hebrews do not appear to have cultivated or developed any poetica! faculty at all, except that which was exhibited in strictly religious work, such as the devotions of the Psalms, and (principally) the discourses and addresses of the prophets.

As they were not, in a general sense, poetical, so neither were they in any sense scientific. By tradition and by positive records we know pretty well what kinds of knowledge were pursued in very early ages. They were most strictly practical. Take astronomy among the Chaldees, or medicine among the Egyptians. We may say with much confidence that there existed no science like geology, aiming to give a history of the earth. So there was no cosmogony, professing to convey a history of the kosmos as then understood, which may have included, with the earth, the sun, moon, stars, and atmosphere. When at a later date speculation on physical origins began, it was rather on the primary idea than on any systematic arrangement or succession; nor had even the Greeks or Romans formulated any scheme in any degree approaching that of Genesis for order and method, so late as the time when they NEW SERIES.-VOL. LI., No. 6.

became acquainted with the Hebrew Scriptures through their translation into Greek. There is not, then, the smallest ground for treating the Mosaic cosmogony as the offspring of scientific inquiry. To speak of it as guess-work would be irrational. There were no materials for guessing. There was no purpose to be served by guessing. For a record of the formation of the world we find no purpose in connection with the ordinary necessities or conveniences of life. Not to mention that down to this day there exists no cosmogony which can be called scientific, though there are theories both ingenious and beautiful which ap-parently are coming to be more and more accepted; these, however, being of decidedly late origin even in the history of modern physics.

But, further, as the Tale of Creation is not poetry, nor is it science, so neither, according to its own aspect or profession, is it theory at all. The method here pursued is that of historical recital. The person, who composes or transmits it, seems to believe, and to intend others to believe, that he is dealing with matters of fact. But these matters of fact were, from the nature of the case, altogether inaccessible to inquiry, and impossible to attain by our ordinary mental faculties of perception or reflection, inasmuch as they date before the creation of our race. If it is, as it surely professes to be, a serious conveyance of truth, it can only be a communication from the Most High; a communication to man and for the use of man, therefore in a form adapted to his miud and to his use. If, thus considered, it is true, then it carries stamped upon it the proof of a Divine revelation; an assertion which cannot commonly be asserted from the nature of the contents as to this or that minute portion of Scripture at large. If, when thus considered, it is not true, we have to consider what account of it we are in a condition to give. I cannot say that to me this appears an easy undertaking. "If," says Professor Dana, "it be true that the narration in Genesis has no support in natural science, it would have been better for its religious character that all the verses between the first and those on the creation of man had been omitted."'*

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*"Creation." By Professor Dana. Oberlin, O., 1885 ; p. 202.

But the truth, or trueness, of which I speak is truth or trueness as conveyed to and comprehended by the mind of man, and further by the mind of man in a comparatively untrained and infant state. I cannot indeed wholly shut out from view the possibility that gradual imperfections may have crept into the record. Setting aside, however, that possibility, let us consider the conditions of the case as they are exhibited to us by reasonable likelihood; for, if the communication were divine, we may be certain that it would on that account be all the more strictly governed by the laws of the reasonable.

In an address* of singular ability on "The Discord and Harmony between Science and the Bible," Dr. Smith, of the University of Virginia, has drawn some very important distinctions. In the department of natural science, and in the department of Scriptural record, the question lies between the present interpretation of certain parts of the Hebrew Scriptures, and the present interpretation of certain parts of nature."+ "We must not too hastily assume that either of these interpretations is absolute and final.' "The science of one epoch is to a large extent a help which the science of the next uses and abandons. Dr. Smith points out as an example that down to the early part of the present century Newton's projectile theory of light seemed to be firmly established, but that it has given place to the theory of undulation, which has now for fifty years reigned in its stead." Hence, he observes, we should not be too much elated by the discovery of harmonies, nor should we receive with impatience the assertion of contradictions. Throughout it is probable, and not demonstrative, evidence with which we are dealing. There should always be a certain element of reserve in our judgments on particulars; yet probable evidence may come indefinitely near to demonstration, and, even as, while falling short of it, it may morally bind us to action, so may it, on precisely the same principles, bind us to belief. What we have to do is to deal with the evidence before us according to a rational appreciation of its force. It may show on this or that particular question the concord, or it may show the discord, between alleged facts of

*New York: Hatcham. The Address is dated July 27th, 1882.

+ lbid. p. 3.

nature and alleged interpretations of Scripture; or it may leave the question open for want of sufficient evidence either way on which to ground a conclusion.

It is by these principles and under these limitations that I desire to see the question tried in the terms in which I think it ought to be stated; namely, not whether the recitals in Genesis at each and every point have an accurately scientific form, but, Whether the statements of the Creation Story appear to stand in such a relation to the facts of natural science, so far as they have been ascertained, as to warrant or require our concluding that the statements have proceeded, in a manner above the ordinary manner, from the Author of the creation itself. *

Those who maintain the affirmative of this proposition have by opponents been termed Reconcilers; and it is convenient, in a controverted matter, to have the power of reference by a single word to the proposers of any given opinion. The same rule of convenience may perhaps justify me in designating those who would assert the negative by the name of Contradictionists. The recorder of the Creation Story in Genesis I may designate by the name of the Mosaist or the Mosaic writer. This would not be reasonable if there were anything extravagant in the supposition that there is a ground-work of fact for the tradition which treats Moses as the author of the Pentateuch. But such a supposition, in whole or in part, is sustained by many and strong presumptions, and I bear in mind that Wellhausen, in his edition of Bleek, gives it as his opinion that there is a strong Mosaic element in the Pentateuch.

It does not seem too much to say that the conveyance of scientific instruction as such would not, under the circumstances of the case, be a reasonable object for the Mosaic writer to pursue; but that, on the other hand, it would be a reasonable object to convey to the mind of man, such as he actually was, a moral lesson drawn from and founded on that picture, that assemblage of created objects, which was be

*See the attractive paper of Professor Pritchard, in his "Occasional Thoughts," Murray, 1889.

He says on p. 261, "I cannot accept the Proem as being, or even as intended to be, an exact and scientific account of Creation," but adds that it contains within it elements of that same sort of superhuman aid or superintendence, which is generally understood by the undefined term of inspiration.'

fore his eyes, and with which he lived in perpetual contact. We have, indeed, to consider both what lesson it would be most rational to convey, and by what method it would be most rational to stamp it as a living lesson on the mind by which it was to be received. And the question finally to be decided is not, whether according to the present state of knowledge the recital in the Book of Genesis is at each several point either precise 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; it may be careful of the actual succession in time, or may deviate from it, according as the one or the other best subserved the general and principal aim; so that the true question, I must repeat, is this: Do the doctrines of the Creation Story in Genesis appear to stand in such a relation to the facts of natural science, so far as they are ascertained, as to warrant or require our concluding that the first proceeded, in a manner above the ordinary manner, from the Author of the visible creation?

What, then, may we conceive to have been the moral and spiritual lessons which the Mosaist had to communicate, and not only to communicate but to infuse or to impress.? I venture on supposing that second to none among them would be these two first, to teach man his proper place in creation in relation to its several orders, and thereby to prepare at least for the formation of the idea of relative duty as between man and other created beings; secondly, to exhibit to him, and by means of detail to make him know and feel, what was the beautiful and noble home that he inhabited, and with what a fatherly and tender care Providence had prepared it for him to dwell in. There was a picture before his eyes. That picture was filled with objects of nature, animate and inanimate. I say, one great aim may have been to make him know and feel by means of detail; for wholesale teaching, teaching in the lump, mostly ineffective even now, would have been preposterous then. It was needful to use the simplest phrases, that the primitive man might receive a conception, thoroughly faithful in broad outline, of what his Maker had been about on his behalf. So the Maker condescends to partition and set out His work in mak

ing the picture, and even-for this is the climax-to represent Himself as resting after it; a declaration which is in no conflict with any scientific record, but which surely implies a license in the use of language never exceeded in any interpretation, reconciling or other, which has been applied to any part of the text of Genesis, and which draws its warrant wholly from the strong educative lesson that is to be learned from it.

It seems also probable 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 lesson. Paley, indeed, has said that God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it (Gen. ii. 3), not at that time but for that reason. He is a writer much to be respected, but this opinion cannot I think now be followed; especially since we have learned from Assyrian researches how many and how sharply traced are the vestiges of some early institution or command which in that region evidently gave a special sanctity to the number seven, and, in particular, to the seventh day.

Man, then, childlike and sinless, had to receive a lesson such as this: It has not been by a slight or single effort that the nature in which you are moulded has been lifted to its present level; you have reached it by steps and degrees, and by a plan which, stated in rough outline, may stir your faculties, and help them onward to the truth through the genial action of wonder, delight, and gratitude. This was a lesson, as it seems to me, perhaps quite large enough for the primitive man on the facts of creation, and one after hearing and digesting which he too might reasonably rest for generations. And it seems to me to have been vital to the efficiency of this lesson that it should have been sharply broken up into parts, although there might be in nature nothing, at the precise points of breakage or transition, to correspond with those divisions. They would become intelligible, significant, and useful on a comparison between the several processes in their developed state, and of the vast and measureless differences which in that state they severally present to contemplation. As, when a series of scenes are now made to move along before the eye of a spectator, his attention is not fixed upon the joints which divide them but on the scenes