civil government is of the Devil, or that man is incapable, with the light and teachings of God's Revelation to aid him, of drawing up a form of government which, properly administered, shall secure the great ends for which government was instituted?

But while we thus speak, we enter our unqualified protest against all creed-worship and creed-supremacy. They are matters of mere convenience. They have no authority in themselves, nor can they derive any merely from the will of the body enacting them. Their sole authority is derived from the Word of God. All creeds must, like the stars in the firmament, shine with a borrowed light. Let them, then, occupy their humble, subordinate, but not useless sphere, receiving and reflecting the light of God's holy truth, and the world may be blest by their beneficent influence. We believe the doctrine of our Confession of Faith is the true position upon this question:

"The Supreme Judge, by whom all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scriptures."—Con. F., chap. 1, sec. 10.

Again: "An offense is anything in the principles or practice of a church-member, which is contrary to the Word of God."

"Nothing, therefore, ought to be considered by any judicatory as an offense, or admitted as matter of accusation, which can not be proved to be such from Scripture, or from the regulations and practice of the Church, founded on Scripture," etc.-Book of Discipline, chap. 1, sec. 3, 4.

SCIENTIFIC AND MORAL ARTICLES.

CHRISTIANITY AND SCIENCE.

THE pertinacious efforts and oft-vaunted success of infidels in trying to extort from the revelation of nature a contradiction of the truths of the Bible, have caused many serious Christians to fear and distrust scientific investigations into the teachings of nature. They hence look coldly on all attempts to fathom her secrets, regard the man as little better than an infidel who avows his faith in any alleged new discovery, and regard as deceptive any new light that may be thrown on the laws and properties of matter or mind. This feeling may find some apology in the thousand pretended discoveries of superficial observers, which for a time have occupied the attention of men, and have then been exploded and succeeded by some new wonder equally foolish and false. But this attitude of hostility to the researches of science, and this tremulous apprehension lest some evidence should be extracted from the volume of nature to throw discredit on the records of revelation, is unworthy of intelligent Christians, and dishonorable to their holy religion.

All Christians believe that the Creator of the universe is the author of the Bible. They believe that the revelations of nature and of the Scriptures have both emanated from the same infinitely wise and perfect mind, a mind that is alike incapable of mistake or contradiction. It follows that these revelations must harmonise with and mutually confirm each other. The object of both revelations is the same, the exhibi tion of the glory of God through the holiness and happiness of men; the one is in part a history of the other. Both are intended for the instruction of the same intelligent beings, and relate in many things to the same subject. It follows as an inevitable conclusion from all this, that these revelations must mutually illustrate and establish each other, and that it must be the very madness of atheism that leads any person to try to extort from the perverted pages of the one, a contradiction of the other.

As was to be expected, therefore, we find all the past efforts of infidels in these attempts, have signally failed. Again and again, indeed, has the world rung with their boastings over some alleged discovery of science that had completely exploded the credibility of the Christian Scriptures. But no sooner have these pretended discoveries been investigated than it has been found that they have been false in themselves, or that their alleged opposition to the Bible has been founded on an entire misrepresentation of the teachings of the holy volume. The weapons with which the unbelievers have sought to destroy the citadel of revealed truth, and the foundation of the Christian's hope, have been turned with terrible effect on the cobweb theories of the infidel.

Of the truth of these remarks the present position of geological science furnishes a pertinent illustration. In nothing more than the alleged revelations of geology has infidelity sought for evidence to destroy the claims of the Bible to be the word of God. For a time the Christian world looked on with alarm, and investigation into the phenomena of the geological formations was discouraged and distrusted. This was just what the infidels wanted. Loudly did they scoff at the fears of Christians, and boastingly did they proclaim that they were afraid to examine into the structure of the earth, as the evidence furnished would inevitably overthrow their faith in the Bible. But the field was at last entered by the believers in revelation, and at every step of their investigations have they found the most abundant confirmation of the truth of the inspired records. The contradiction to its teachings which the infidels pretended to have discovered, were found to rest upon the most superficial observation of the phenomena of nature, and upon the most false and distorted views of the facts.

A single instance is all we now have room to furnish in illustration of these remarks. A work was published a few years since, called the "Vestiges of Creation." One object of the work was to establish what is called the "development" theory of animal existence. This theory is, that all animal life, from the lowest form up to that of man, is a result of the operation of the laws of nature-that currents of electricity passing through small masses of matter in a certain state generated monads, or the lowest forms of animal life; that from these the developments and improvements went on to reptiles, fishes, birds, four-footed animals, monkeys and men. The "great fact" that was adduced in support of this theory was, that the

only fossil remains found in the first or lowest geological formations were those of the lowest order of animals, and that the development and perfection of these fossils kept pace with the geological formations, thus proving that they began and proceeded together. The object of this theory was to disprove the Mosaic account of the creation, and thus throw discredit on the Bible. This was considered for a time a triumphantly established theory. But, alas for infidel confidence! subsequent investigation has proved the pretended "fact" on which the theory was based, to be no fact. The researches of Miller and others have resulted in the discovery of some of the most perfect forms of vertebrated animals, in the lowest geological formations. Thus the flimsy foundation of the superstructure of air has been overturned, and the faith of the Christian in the truth and inspiration of his Bible vindicated.

Many similar illustrations of the truth of our remarks might be furnished. We waive them for the present to make room for the following observations by an able writer, which will be found interesting:

"While revelation thus lavishes its favors on science, science in its turn, illustrates and confirms revelation. Seeming facts have, indeed, at times, been promulgated, which appeared to contradict and bring discredit on its statements; but further research, on the part of scientific men, exposed their fallacy, and confirmed the Scriptures. For example, the accuracy of the Mosaic chronology has been more than once impugned. Toward the close of the last century, the astronomical tables of the Indians formed the topic of protracted discussion. These tables professed to record observations conducted during millions of years. Attempts were made to verify this remote chronology, and to show that there was internal proof that the observations must have been actually made at the time specified. This theory was adopted by several philosophers in this country and on the continent; it was advocated by some of the leading journals, and infidelity seemed to have gained a victory. Its triumph however was short. By Bentley, Delambre, La Place, and others, these tables, to which the Brahmins had assigned so high an antiquity, were subjected to a more rigid and scientific scrutiny. The result was an unanswerable proof that they had been fabricated only a few centuries before.

Again, when the celebrated zodiac of Dendara was brought from Egypt to Paris, Dupuis and his disciples expected to

derive from it an argument in support of their skeptical reveries on the "origin of religions," and of pretended civilization, which they maintained had existed in Egypt long before the times of either Moses or the deluge. The calculations by which they attempted to prop their fallacious theories were investigated by men distinguished in the scientific world, and proved to be erroneous. Still the adversaries of revelation were unwilling to acknowledge defeat, and persisted in ascribing to their zodiac an antiquity of more than six thousand years. Quite recently, however, Champollion, in his researches among the mysterious paintings and hieroglyphics of the Egyptians, found, on the very temple from which it was. taken, two inscriptions, one of them in Greek, containing the names of Ptolemy and Cleopatra and the Roman emperors, by whom it had been built about the commencement of the Christian Era. Thus the truth of the Mosaic narrative, instead of being subverted, was confirmed, and its opponents Icovered with confusion.

The inquiries of the learned into Egyptian documents and monumental inscriptions, have thrown light on sacred history and furnished independent evidence of its accuracy: The sojourn of the Israelites, their state of slavery, the occupations at which they were compelled to labor, as well as the period of their abode, are all recorded in the documents to which I have referred.

Had Voltaire been now alive, he would not have ventured to put the sneering question, how, and on what materials the Hebrew lawgiver would write the Pentateuch; for it was proved that papyrus was in common use for writing in his time. Nor would he have tauntingly asked how, after an interval of a thousand years, Hilkiah, could find in the temple of Jerusalem, the autograph of the law; for writings and contracts on papyrus, as old as the times of the Pharaohs, still exist, and are still legible. Nor would he have incredulously inquired, how so many objects of art for the tabernacle, and the sacred vestments and vessels, could be wrought in the desert; for the arts then flourished in Egypt, and there Moses had acquired a knowledge of them. Nor would he have insinuated against Ezra the charge of having forged the sacred books which he had collected; for the written and monumental history of Egypt so coincides with these books, in dates and facts, as to demonstrate that they could not be the work of an impostor. The remark respecting this celebrated infidel, made by Benjamin Constant, an eminent philosopher who had