secours surnaturel dont, comme chrétien, vous devez les croire guidés? Oh? Dans l'esprit absolument nouveau qui anime leur narration, bien que la forme en soit restée presque de tout point la même que chez les peuples voisins.[1]
[Trans.—But if it is so, I may be asked, where, then, do you see the divine inspiration of the writers who made this archæology, the supernatural aid by which you, as a Christian, must believe they were guided? Where? In the absolutely new spirit that animates their narration, although the form of it may still be in almost every point the same as with the neighboring peoples.]A second principle is expressed with such appositeness to the present purpose, by an English commentator, that his words may be given at length:
Here lies the whole matter. It is involved in the mere meaning of revelation, and proved by its whole expression, that its subject-matter is that which men could not find out for themselves. Men could find out the order in which the world was made. What they could not find out was, that God made it. To this day they have not found that out. Even some of the wisest of our contemporaries, after trying to find that out for half a lifetime, have been forced to give it up. Hence the true function of revelation. Nature in Genesis has no link with geology, seeks none and needs none: man has no link with biology, and misses none. What he really needs and really misses—for he can get it nowhere else—Genesis gives him; it links Nature and man with their Maker. And this is the one high sense in which Genesis can be said to be scientific. The scientific man must go there to complete his science, or it remains forever incomplete. Let him no longer resort thither to attack what is not really there. What is really there he can not attack, for he can not do without it. Nor let religion plant positions there which can only keep science out. Then only can the interpreters of Nature and the interpreters of Genesis understand each other.—Nineteenth Century.
