church or man. If, therefore, their surface appearances indicate that it is something else, those appearances must be false. The child might imagine that Æsop's fables were given for the mere purpose of relating curious stories of the conversations of birds and beasts which took place in the long ago, but that does not prove the child to be correct. A belief in error never makes error true. But the well instructed man knows better. He is full aware that the real design of those fables is to teach a lofty moral by means of a written story.
Much more is this true of the Word of God, of which the fables of Æsop are a faint imitation. History is here used not for the history's sake, but for the sake of the spiritual lesson which lies concealed within it. Geography is used, not to give any lessons concerning the relative situations of the seas, rivers or lakes, cities, countries or mountains of olden times, but because of their adaptability to expressing the relative spiritual situations or states of men. An account of creation is given, not with the idea of furnishing man with an epitome of geological science, but because it forms a fitting dress for the portrayal of the regeneration of man. As all Scripture is given in parables and for the sake of its spiritual teaching, a history of creation must be, in its essential meaning, a description of the creation and development of the spiritual nature
