this argument, though perfectly sound with reference to such passages as Joshua x. 12-14, where an event is described as it appeared to those who witnessed it, is not admissible in such a passage as Psalm xcvi. 10, where the supposed immobility of the earth is alleged as a proof of God’s sovereignty, and is made the foundation of the duty of proclaiming that sovereignty among the heathen.  When the supposed proof was found to be a fallacy, the statement in support of which it was alleged would be more or less shaken.  In such a passage, then, the theory of limited inspiration is evidently untenable.  At last the only sensible course was adopted.  Recourse was had to the original, and it was at once apparent that the supposed difficulty had no real existence, but that there was a very trifling inaccuracy in the translation; for that the word translated “shall not be moved” really signified “shall not be shaken or totter.”  The same word is used in Psalm xvii. 5, “Hold up my goings in Thy paths, that my footsteps slip not.”  Instead, then, of an error, we have an exact description of the earth’s motion—­a motion so steady and equable, that for thousands of years no single individual out of the myriads who were continually carried along by it had ever suspected its existence.

Well had it been for all if the lesson thus taught had been deeply laid to heart.  But unhappily it was entirely unnoticed.  Science pursued its way with increasing energy, and more facts were year by year brought to light which seemed entirely to contradict the teaching of the Bible, and again alarm and distrust sprung up in the minds of what, for want of a better name, we may perhaps be allowed to designate as the “Theological Party.”  The power of the Church of Rome was by this time so far curtailed that the old means of repression were no longer available; but the old spirit survived, and not in Rome only.  There was the same blind distrust, the same mistaken zeal for supposed truth, the same indignation which naturally arises when things which we hold precious are attacked, and, as it seems to us, without any sufficient reason.

There was indeed much to account for and even to justify the feelings of anger and alarm which were excited, for the time when these discoveries began to be brought prominently forward was the latter half of the last century.  At that time the famous French Academy was doing its deadly work, and the new discoveries were gladly hailed by the infidel philosophers of France, as weapons against the Bible.  But the reception given to these discoveries by the theological party, though partially justified by the circumstances of the times, was nevertheless very mischievous in its results.  For though the new discoveries were hailed enthusiastically by the infidel school, a very large portion of the men by whom they were made, and of those who were convinced of their truth, were men of a very different character.  They were simple