or the moon ever smites men, would my faith in
Christianity, or in the divine inspiration of the Bible, be shaken
thereby? Not at all. Nor would it destroy or weaken the effect of the
passages on my mind in which those allusions to the sun and moon occur.
I should still believe in the substantial truth of the passages, namely,
that, day and night, the good man is secure under the protection of God.

A man says that he has lately been under 'disastrous influences.'
Literally, the words disastrous influences mean the influences of
unfriendly stars. But there are no unfriendly stars. Then why does he
use such an expression? Because, though it does not now in its current
meaning refer to the stars at all, it means calamitous, unfavorable,
influences. I do not believe that the sun like a strong man runs a race:
I believe its motion is only apparent,--that the _real_ motion is in the
earth. But do I therefore question the divine inspiration of the Bible
which uses that expression? Not at all; for the words are substantially
true. And so in a hundred other cases.

And so in passages of other kinds. It does not matter to me whether the
account of creation in Genesis answers literally to the real processes
revealed by Geology, or whether the account of the flood answers exactly
to past facts. Both accounts are perfect as lessons of divine truth and
duty, and that is enough.

Those who undertake to prove that every passage of the Bible is
literally true, must fail. If they _were_ all literally true, they would
never have done. There are more difficult passages, and more apparent
little contradictions, than any man could go through in a life-time. I
would no more undertake such a task than I would undertake to prove that
every leaf, and every flower, and every seed, of every plant on earth is
perfect, and that each is exactly like its fellows. God's honor and
man's welfare are as much concerned in the one as in the other. They are
concerned in neither. The leaves, the flowers, and the seeds of plants
are right enough,--they are as perfect as they need to be,--and I ask no
more. And the Bible is as perfect as it needs to be, and I am satisfied.

The following is abridged from a work entitled CHRISTIANITY AND OUR
ERA, by the Rev. G. Gilfillan of Scotland.

Mr. Gilfillan speaks of it as a 'Generally admitted fact, that there is
a human, as well as a divine element in Scripture,' and adds, 'that this
should modify our judgment in