Nor, lastly, is it any reproach to the Church, as keeper of the Divine Revelation, that its opinion of certain passages should vary with the growth of knowledge.  It would be hardly necessary to make this obvious remark but for the fact that it has been reproached against Christian belief, that science is contrary to the Bible, and that the Church has ever had to confess itself wrong, after having persecuted people for not following its peculiar views.  It is, indeed, unfortunate that a blind zeal for God has led, in the past, to persecution; the Church failing to see that such men as Galileo and Bruno never denied God at all, nor did their discoveries really contradict the Word.  But persecution is not a sin peculiar to the Church; it is a sin of human nature.

It is also true that Christian views may be wrong, but the fault is in the views, not in the Bible.

Scientific men, of all people, should be the last to complain of change in views, seeing that what was science two hundred years ago is now (much of it) exploded nonsense.

There is no harm whatever in changing our views about the meaning of difficult passages—­provided we never let go our hold on the central truth, and put the error to our own account, not saying that the Word itself is wrong.

It may, in this connection, be at once observed that any particular explanation, or that one which I propose presently to suggest, of the first chapters of Genesis, may not commend itself to the reader, and yet the general argument I have adduced will hold good notwithstanding.

All that I care to contend is, that science does not contradict a syllable of the narrative on one possible interpretation, and that changes in view as to interpretation are no arguments against the truth of the passage itself.

CHAPTER XII.

METHODS OF INTERPRETING THE NARRATIVE—­ASSUMPTIONS OF MEANING TO CERTAIN TERMS.

Returning, then, to the narrative in the Book of Genesis, I think we may take it as clear that the passage stands in such a concise and condensed form, that it is obviously open to be interpreted.  Further, that we should not be surprised if the interpretation at the present day, with our vastly increased knowledge of Nature, is different from what it was in earlier times.

I make no apology for repeating this so often, because it is really amazing to see the way in which “anti-theological” writers attack what they suppose to be the interpretation of the narrative, or what some one else supposes to be such, and seem to be satisfied that in so doing they have demolished the credibility of the narrative itself.

If you choose to assume that Creation as spoken of by the sacred writer means some particular thing, or even if the mass of uneducated or unreflecting people assume it and you follow them, I grant at once that the narrative can be readily made out to be wrong.