,
"have a strange birth and original. Pliny saith, Shell fish is the
wonderful geniture of a pearl congealed into a diaphanous stone, and the
shell is called the mother of pearl. Now at a certain time of the year
this shell fish opens itself, and takes in a certain moist dew, after
which they grow big until they bring forth the pearl. By which it seems
they have their birth from heaven in a marvellous manner." Planting his
foot upon this story, the worthy expositor gravely and devoutly
prosecutes the parallel; but already, although it is only a century and
a half old, his speculation serves only to provoke a smile. The comment,
written in England a hundred and sixty years ago, is antiquated and set
aside by the light of the present day; but the parable, spoken in
Galilee eighteen hundred years ago, stands in the middle of the
nineteenth century, enduring in safety the scrutiny of adversaries, and
ministering to the delight of friends, as fair and fresh as on the day
of its birth. "Whence hath this man this wisdom?"[22]

[22] For the sake of its bearing on the divine authority of the
Scriptures, and the questions that are agitated at the present time,
I subjoin a similar example, extracted from a lecture which I
contributed to the Exeter Hall series of 1860-61:--

"A very remarkable expression occurs in the Apocalypse (xvi. 18)
bearing on the work of preparing the earth for man, before man was
made: 'And there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men
were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake and so great.' There
the advent of man, as an inhabitant of the earth, is formally given
as an epoch after which great earthquakes did not occur. It is well
known now that earthquakes must have rent this globe before the
birth of man, which make all that have occurred since sink into
insignificance; but how was John, the fisherman of Galilee, led to
employ, eighteen hundred years ago, a phraseology which the
researches of our own day have now for the first time shown to be
philosophically exact? Speaking of this verse, and quoting it
freely, John Bunyan ("Reign of Antichrist,") says, 'For the
earthquake, it is said to be _such as never was_, so mighty an
earthquake and so great.' He thought the phrase, 'since men were
upon the earth,' was equivalent to 'never:' so he wrote and fell
into the blunder. Who led John the Apostle safely past the mistake
into which John Bunyan fell?"