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THE WAR ON MIDIAN.

This chapter is a perfect specimen of the Thomas Paine style. The Bishop is thankful that we are not called to believe the story of the slaughter of the Midianites, which he compares with the Cawnpore massacre. But he might have known that He who created and who, every moment, sustains man has a perfect right to take the life he gave, and more so, when a people set them selves to oppose Him, and when they become an abomination in the earth as was the case with the people of Midian. | In executing the sentence passed upon them He, too, had an equal right to appoint the instrumentality. Pestilence, earthquake, famine, might have been employed without reflection upon the goodness of God. If He preferred to use the sword of those who were to possess the land and thus teach them a lesson, by way of solemn warning, who can say anything against the wisdom of that resolve? Man may not of his own will take the life of his fellow, but He who grants life, property, and all man has, may revoke the grant at any time, and employ such agents as He sees fit in the carrying out of His purpose.

Then Colenso asks, "How it is possible to quote the Bible as condemning slavery, when we read of Jehovah's tribute of slaves, thirty two persons?" The answer is - by shewing that the slaves were captives taken in a just war, and that death was the penalty of man stealing (Ex. xxi. 16.)

In the next place he urges that a succession of events recorded in connection with this war, could not have taken place in the time allotted to them. But then he assumes that during the month they mourned for Aaron the whole army did nothing, and he takes it for granted that all the events took place in the succession in which they are named, and counts the 600,000 fighting men to have been engaged in each event, whereas detachments might, and no doubt did, gain victories simultaneously. That this was the case in some instances, is seen by Num. xxxii. It is further objected, that 12,000 men could not, as the story requires us

to believe anything of the sort. In the first place, we would set the captives to drive the cattle, and leave the Israelites to guard the captives. Then when a people are overpowered and their lives are at the mercy of their conquerors, they need not much guarding or driving-they sue for life, and to retain it will obey commands. Further we are not taught that there were only 12,000 Israelites. There were 12,000 warriors, but how many campfollowers, volunteers, were within reach we know not. Then he objects to the possibility of 12,000 Israelites slaying 48,000 of the enemy, without the loss of a man, but he does not take into view that those people had learned from the soothsayer, lured by the Moabites, that neither enchantment nor anything else could stand against Israel-and that the overthrow of the hosts in the Red Sea had appalled the peoples. Then the Divine hand was engaged, and the warriors recognized it, and so did the Midianites-but the Bishop does not, and hence his difficulty. On this point Mr. Hill says

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And yet we will take Dr. Colenso on his own chosen ground. We will put Providence out of the question, and see how far the statements of Moses are extravagant. At the battle of Plassey Lord Clive's forces consisted of 900 Europeans and 2300 Sepoys: the army of Suraja Dowla numbered 68,000, with five times the number of cannon. This host, thundering away from eight A.M. till five P.M. managed after all to kill and wound only 72 men-that is, each cannon took nine hours to kill a man a-piece. The Hebrews to Midianites were as one to four, Clive's men to Suraja's, one to twenty-one-which of the narratives is extravagant ?' Well, cannons here may have made the difference, though Suraja had fifty cannon, and Clive eight six-pounders and two small howitzers only. Take, then, the battle of Marathon, where the Persians were 110,000 horse and foot, and the Greeks only 10,000. Here Greeks to Persians were as one to eleven, and yet the Persians lost 6000 and the Greeks 200 only. One Greek fought eleven Persians, and yet twenty Persians are killed to one Greek; and one Hebrew

Harbinger, May 1, '62.

nence. That one so recently enlightened himself that he has not felt justified in refusing to modify his opinions out of deference to those whom he has consulted—and having so imperfect a grasp of his conclusions that they have been largely reshaped between the preparation of the first statement of them in Africa and their publication in this country, within the compass of a few months should set himself rashly against the learning and criticism of ages, is extreme immodesty and vanity. And that one, qualified only in this very limited degree, should invite us to accept a conclusion which rejects the historic truth of a document which has been regarded by the ancient nation to which it relates, and by all Christendom, as true history- a conclusion which contradicts the conviction and faith of all who have worshipped one only living and true God, as Jehovah, and as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ-is an instance of assurance and presumption that can be paralleled only by other cases taken from the proverbial recklessness of infidelity. Mr. Matthew Arnold, no narrow, prejudiced, or suspiciously orthodox critic has expressed all that we further mean when we condemn Dr. Colenso's work as an impertinence, in saying that, as it neither informs the learned nor edifies the unlearned, it is impossible for it, on either literary or moral grounds, to vindicate its existence. When Dr. Colenso tells us that such studies as these [of his] have made very little progress as yet among the clergy and laity of England,' and that the study of the Hebrew language has been very much neglected, he writes in the vein of a conceited and pretentious half-scholar, and his words are truer of himself than of any other English writer on the Pentateuch that ever came in our way. Once more, Dr. Colenso, notwithstanding the profession of reverence and responsible feeling, which we wil lingly accept as sincere, is clearly destitute of any true sense of the significance and value of a revelation at all. He tells us that, though not only the Pentateuch, but the whole Bible were removed, our belief in the Living God remains as sure as ever'—that His voice within the heart may be heard continually, and that shall be our teacher and guide.' One cannot but

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ask whether Dr. Colenso knows anything about the history of the religions of the world?-anything about the state of man without revelation ?-anything about the outcome in theory and life of the unaided and uninterrupted religion of nature? The man never knew what revelation is, what Christianity is, who can say, with a pretence to spiritual fervor, what Dr. Colenso's language really implies, My friends, if you can not be Christians, you can at least be Deists-never mind.' Dr. Colenso of fers those who are troubled by his conclusions the use of his own Commentary on the Romans, and of brief passages from Cicero and a Sikh Gooroo : but he seems utterly unable to appreciate the flagrant absurdity of his present enumeration of the great essential principles of Paul's Epistle, from which he omits all reference whatever to Christ as a Redeemer; and equally unable to see the difference between the Heathen sayings for which he claims the voice and authority of God's Spirit in common with the Bible-and the characteristic fact and doctrine of Christianity as a redemption. Mr. Matthew Arnold, to whose article in Macmillan's Magazine we have before referred, satirically enough comments on these shallow and vain passages by suggesting that Dr. Colenso, should he find any of his readers lying on the road to the heavenly Jerusalem, robbed of his biblical treasure, beaten by rationalistic logic, and spiritally half dead, is prepared to act the good Samaritan by him, and 'place him on his own beast-the Commentary-and to pour into his wounds the oil and wine of Cicero and the Sikh Gooroo. And we doubt not, after all, the poor traveller will have reason to wish that Dr. Colenso had passed by on the other side.'

But a believer in the Bible can scarcely regret the publication of a work which has called forth such an amount of intelligent and learned defence of Old Testament credibility, such as could hardly have been expected by the critical charlatans who have thought fit to assail it; and Dr. Colenso's only distinction will be, that he has produced a book which has received from men of all varieties and grades of culture, and of every section of religious belief, a unanimous and unsparing condemnation.

D. K.

Harbinger, May 1, '63.

WE have gone through this volume with a deep feeling of interest and finish the perusal with some amount of disappointment. Carefully to review a volume like this requires time not now at command. Still we thought to present an outline, but this can be done so fully to our mind in the words of a contemporary now before us, that we thus dismiss the matter for the pre

sent.

"We were fully prepared for the kind of 'Evidence' which Sir Charles has drawn up. His object was perfectly well-known, his skill as an author and his attainments as a man of science have long since been proved; but now that his much heralded pages have come forth, we feel that the result is disproportionate with such distinguished antecedents. Sir Charles's object is to show that the human race is of very much greater antiquity than is commonly supposed that the assumption of man's having tenanted the world for only about 6,000 years must be abandoned, as incon sistent with obvious and demonstrable facts. The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man, consist properly in setting forth these facts. Has Sir Charles succeeded in doing so? He has certainly spent a good deal of time in describing socalled 'works of art,' which, it is admitted, appear to persons unaccustomed to deal with them to be works of no art at all, but which probably are so notwithstanding. He has been no less laborious in the study of old bones which have been in many less important instances turned up by the Geologist, but in the most important in stances have been dug out by laborers em ployed in various engineering works, and sometimes under circumstances which have given occasion to suspicion. Commencing with some observations on the interest of the subject, and with a suggested change in geological nomenclature, the learned author proceeds to treat of the works of art discovered in Danish peat, and in Danish dust and rubbish heaps, elegantly call ed 'kitchen-middens.' They are found in stone, in bronze, and in iron, and give occasion to yet more names, for which there were possibly never the equivalent things -the age of stone, the age of bronze, and the age of iron 'The age of stone in Denmark coincided with the period of the first vegetation, or that of the Scotch fir, and in part at least with the second vege

tation, or that of the oak. But a conside rable portion of the oak epoch coincided with the age of bronze,' for swords and shields of that metal, now in the Museum in which oaks abound. The age of iron at Copenhagen, have been taken out of peat corresponded more nearly with that of the beech tree.' The works of art derived from the peat are similar to those derived from the kitchen-middens,' of which Sir Charles writes:- Scattered all through them are flint knives, hatchets, and other instru ments of stone, horn, wood, and bone, with fragments of coarse pottery, mixed with charcoal and cinders, but never any implements of bronze, still less of iron. The stone hatchets and knives had been sharp. ened by rubbing, and in this respect are one degree less rude than those of an older date, associated in France with bones of extinct mammalia. The mounds vary in height from three to ten feet, and in area are some of them 1000 feet long, and from 150 to 200 wide.' In the same mounds are found remains of sundry vertebrates, but all belonging to species known to have inhabited Europe within the memory of man. They contain no human bones, however, and we conclude therefrom that the builders of the mounds were at any rate not cannibals. Small round skulls have been found both in peat and in tumuli of the stone period - skulls such as now-adays are found among the Laplanders— while those of the bronze age, obtained from Danish peat, are like those of the iron age, larger and more elongated. Putting together all these circumstances, and taking into account the time which is requisite for the formation of the peat that has afforded these treasures, we conclude

at least, Sir Charles Lyell concludesthat man is very much older than the common chronology will allow us to suppose.

With regard to the bones of man and of sundry extinct mammalia discovered in the South of France and in parts of Germany, Sir Charles acknowledges that his opinions have been materially changed. The change has been so recent; moreover, that if any of our readers like to order at once the book under notice and the latest

edition of the Principles of Geology, he will find two different views enunciated by the same author on the same subject. We do not wish to make more of his inconsistency than it is worth, for no man can live and think without occasionally changing his opinion; and of course when such a change has once occurred, it may be true of him