If "the trustworthiness of our Lord Jesus Christ" is to stand or fall
with the belief in the sudden transmutation of the chemical components
of a woman's body into sodium chloride, or on the "admitted reality"
of Jonah's ejection, safe and sound, on the shores of the Levant, after
three days' sea-journey in the stomach of a gigantic marine animal, what
possible pretext can there be for even hinting a doubt as to the precise
truth of the longevity attributed to the Patriarchs? Who that has
swallowed the camel of Jonah's journey will be guilty of the affectation
of straining at such a historical gnat--nay, midge--as the supposition
that the mother of Moses was told the story of the Flood by Jacob; who
had it straight from Shem; who was on friendly terms with Methuselah;
who knew Adam quite well?

Yet, by the strange irony of things, the illustrious brother of the
divine who propounded this remarkable theory, has been the guide and
foremost worker of that band of investigators of the records of Assyria
and of Babylonia, who have opened to our view, not merely a new chapter,
but a new volume of primeval history, relating to the very people who
have the most numerous points of contact with the life of the ancient
Hebrews. Now, whatever imperfections may yet obscure the full value of
the Mesopotamian records, everything that has been clearly ascertained
tends to the conclusion that the assignment of no more than 4000 years
to the period between the time of the origin of mankind and that
of Augustus Caesar, is wholly inadmissible. Therefore the Biblical
chronology, which Canon Rawlinson trusted so implicitly in 1859, is
relegated by all serious critics to the domain of fable.

But if scientific method, operating in the region of history, of
philology, of archaeology, in the course of the last thirty or forty
years, has become thus formidable to the theological dogmatist, what may
not be said about scientific method working in the province of
physical science? For, if it be true that the Canonical Scriptures have
innumerable points of contact with civil history, it is no less true
that they have almost as many with natural history; and their accuracy
is put to the test as severely by the latter as by the former. The
origin of the present state of the heavens and the earth is a problem
which lies strictly within the province of physical science; so is that
of the origin of man among living things; so is that of the physical