accuracy as to numbers and spaces which answers to the delicacy of the work to be produced; and this pre-arrangement of the threads is preceded by the construction of paper-maps and patterns, in which every stitch of the fabric is set down and counted out, by as exact and laborious a process of notation and calculation as can well be imagined; and then from these maps marked all over with an infinity of minute squares, those who fit up the loom with threads work out the necessary arrangements for both warp and weft. At length, the machine moves; and the result of an action, so complicated as to defy the remotest approach to comprehending it by a stranger's mind, is the production of a web of lace, a shawl, a dress, a bridal veil, embroidered all over with the richest ornament, and demanding for its purchase almost its weight in gold. Thus do men work for the clothing of the corruptible body, and for the ornaments of a beauty that is fading rapidly away. And, if we intend to serve God in our daily life, or to exchange the " filthy rags" of our unrighteousness for something that is worthy of the palace of the Great King; if on our loom of life we propose to bring forth any fabric that will endure the view, or the handling of the Supreme Judge, we must work in minutiæ, we must study carefully the details of improvement, and devise, with an earnest eye, the beautiful patterns of that clothing and veil of humility and obedience, in which the soul shall appear acceptably at the bridal of the Lamb.

"Little deeds of kindness, little words of love,

Make the earth an Eden like the heaven above."

REVIEW.

REPORT OF THE MEETING OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION AT

NEWCASTLE.

THE issues involved in the NEWCASTLE DISCUSSIONS in the Ethnological Section of the British Association were not distinctly stated, although the bearing of the conclusions contended for is well understood by every educated person in the empire. Sir Roderick Murchison affirmed that all the most eminent scientific authorities were satisfied of the validity of Sir Charles Lyell's argument for the "antiquity of man ;" and Sir Charles Lyell's argument is held to be inconsistent with the truth of the Mosaic narrative of the Adamic creation, and of the chronology of Scripture. More than this, the results now set forth with so much confidence, seem inconsistent with the explicit teaching of Him who is honoured in Christendom as the Son of God and the Saviour of the world. It is probable that many of the distinguished persons who have thus announced themselves converts to the opinion of Sir Charles Lyell hold the persuasion that Christianity may be substantially maintained as a Divine revelation, even if the doctrine of the Pentateuch on the time and method of man's creation be abandoned. But those who thus think can scarcely have considered the many

explicit references made by Him who "spake as never man spake' to the Mosaic narrative as to matters of fact, nor the extent to which the truth of that narrative is assumed as the basis of the whole Apostolic theology. To speak plainly, the question has now come up for decision whether we are to accept the conclusions of Sir Charles Lyell and of those geologists who agree with him in respect to the origin of humanity, and, consequently, to abandon our faith in the word of Christ; or whether we shall hold fast our belief in the authority of Christ and His Apostles as confirming the Mosaic history and chronology, and thereupon impugn the conclusions of our scientific men; or whether it be possible to suggest any third hypothesis, founded upon evidence sufficiently probable to entitle us to affirm, that the general deductions of the geologists as to the antiquity of rational life upon the earth may be admitted, along with a firm adhesion to the specialities of the Mosaic narrative.

It may prove serviceable in the period of perhaps agonizing doubt which these speculations will inevitably introduce amongst Christian people, to recall the conditions under which we enter upon the controversy. In the first place, the direct evidence of the Divine mission of Christ is independent of any results, true or false, which may be arrived at respecting the origin of flints in the drift or the comparative epochs of mammoths and human beings. The prophetic, the miraculous, and the spiritual evidence of Christianity is decisive and irrefragable, and cannot be set aside by any speculations on the genesis of the human race. From whatever source the living nations may have sprung, from whatever hands came the flint arrow-heads of the Somme, at whatever period these instruments may have been fashioned, still the historical testimony cannot be set aside that Jesus Christ performed miracles, and spake and acted in all respects suitably to the claims of One who " came from God." The clearest light of evidence shines around the most important part of revelation, its central person, its central facts, its central doctrines. Whatever may happen in relation to the outlying circumference of Scripture history or to opinions bearing upon it, here, at all events, is clear illumination and a solid basis of assurance.

In the next place, without pretending to undervalue the weight that fairly belongs to the authority of such men as Sir Roderick Murchison and Sir Charles Lyell, we must govern our respect for their positive statements by our remembrance of the imperfection and mutability of scientific opinion. More than once the leading philosophers in different departments of study have announced as well-ascertained truths representations which subsequent discovery has compelled them to modify. Only so recently as the present year, the familiar measurement of the earth's distance from the sun has been revised, with results which differ by 4,000,000 of

miles from the previously accepted calculations. Such facts should not teach the unlearned and the half-learned a vulgar and ignoble scepticism, but they may encourage a judicious caution in the reception of scientific statements, whenever there remains any considerable possibility of error or mistake. The measure of this possibility may perhaps be estimated by the degree of difference in opinion existing among scientific persons, and by the extent to which proposed conclusions clash with facts already thoroughly ascertained in the same or other departments of inquiry. In the present instance, the diversity of judgment respecting the origin of mankind is such as greatly to qualify the obligation to surrender at once our faith in the old doctrine. Those who are agreed in rejecting the Mosaic narrative fight like the ancient megatheria over the questions whether human nature has been gradually developed out of frogs and monkeys, descending in this way from one original pair of naked savages in remote antiquity, and gradually improving as time rolled on; or, whether creative power has produced at different eras a great variety of more or less respectable human races suited to the successive conditions of the globe, or to the climates of its many territories. On one side we have Mr. Darwin and Sir Charles Lyell; on the other, Professor Agassiz and Mr. Craufurd. Surely this is not science in a state of development entitled to bid the Bible begone without granting it even the ceremony of a respectful trial. For ourselves, as is right, we profess due willingness to receive all the conclusions of science which command the general assent of the learned, satisfied that such conclusions will sooner or later be proved to be reconcilable with Scripture rightly interpreted. But so long as there is no definite hypothesis to put in the place of the Mosaic history, we believe that, in consideration of the overwhelming positive evidence of Christianity, we shall do well to suspend our scepticism.

But this is not the complete statement of the case. There is a third scientific party which earnestly maintains that the ascertained facts do not compel the inferences of either of the parties referred to above, but, viewed in the broad light of both history and cosmical science, are reconcilable with the literal truth of Scripture. In the July number of the Bibliotheca Sacra, which we reprinted not long ago, there is a long dissertation by Dr. Edward Hitchcock, of Amherst College, "On the Subordination of Nature's Law of Constancy to the Higher Law of Change," in which that able geologist grapples with the practically godless theory on which the new speculations are founded. It is there, in our judgment, demonstrated that a just philosophy should learn to look upon the genesis of the globe and of mankind in the light of that God who has so manifestly revealed Himself as a direct agent in the recent history of the world. It may answer the purpose of some scientific men to

say that science can take no account of "miracles" or of special interventions of Providence; but true science regards all historical facts, and amongst them the "miraculous" production of new species and the "miraculous" revelation given to the world in Christianity. Here, then, is an element in the problem of the ancient world which baffles all the conjectures of those who endeavour to found a chronology of nature solely on the phenomena of our own or recent ages; it is an element which science itself must admit to have been real and active; and it is an element which renders credible the immediate creation of man by Divine power, and the very rapid transformation of one race under a divine purpose into the various types which appear on the primeval monuments of Egypt.

Then there are those who admit the facts set forth by Sir Charles Lyell in proof of the existence of rational agents on earth long before the Adamic epoch, but deny the conclusion sought to be drawn from those facts. It is held that Scripture affirms nothing beyond the recent creation of the present human race; that it makes no declaration respecting the pre-Adamite inhabitants of the globe. It is maintained that there is no direct evidence to identify the race which formed the arrowheads of Amiens with the present family of man. Previous intelligent races may have existed, and have finished their course without death, leaving in the alluvial strata some few monuments of their existence.

And, finally, there are philosophers who contend that there is nothing less clearly ascertained than the date of the final cessation of those ancient species, amongst whose remains the instruments of human life have been discovered; and the comparative speed of those revolutions of the surface in ancient Europe which have resulted in burying these implements beneath other strata in the drift. Eighteen hundred years ago the site of Glasgow was under sea-water. Of that there is no doubt whatever. Sweden is rising visibly every century. We require further assurance of the vast antiquity of the contents of these gravel pits. The authority on the other side of M. Elie de Beaumont may well sanction the delay of public assent. The time is not yet arrived for abandoning the Scripture narrative of the "miraculous" creation of man, of the "miraculous" dispersion of nations, much less for the rejection of the Gospel of God!

SHORT NOTICES OF BOOKS.