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ter what your individual conscience may think, says the state, I will it otherwise; and you must either submit or bear the penalty. A true conscience will bear the penalty rather than submit, but the state has no alternative between these two.

The real difficulty in this question lies in confounding two things radically different. The state is for time; conscience, for eternity. The state knows nothing higher than itself; conscience is responsible to God. With the state, religion is a means; with conscience, it is an end. When, therefore, these two spheres come in hostile conflict, we need not ask which should yield to the other; each must triumph on its own ground: the state, for this world; conscience, for the next; the state enforcing its own claims, and conscience adhering to the claims of God; the state using conscience as a means, and conscience triumphing in it as an end.

There is another point which should here be noticed: any argument which affirms a connection of the state with religion, and the duty of the state to maintain its religion, is very apt to be met with the objection that this might sanction any extent of religious persecution. The Grand Duke of Tuscany would thus be perfectly justified in his treatment of the Madiai; and no fault could be found with any act, however severe, put forth by a state with a view of defending or maintaining the supremacy of the religion on which it might rest. But the objection overlooks some of the principles we have advanced, and has no force against the others. Religion is not, in any proper sense, an end of the The state, though having its ground in the spiritual or religious element in humanity, has no aim beyond this present life. Its relations are altogether to mankind as an organized community; and its peculiar and entire province is, to guide the working of this community according to the highest civilization and freedom. This is its true and highest end; and while it may use everything else subordinately to this, it may use this for nothing. Religion may be employed by the state as a means to secure the end of civilization and freedom; but these latter may never be yielded to VOL. XIII. No. 52.

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subserve any religious advancement. With the individual, religion is primary and an end; with the state, it is only secondary, and a means. To suppose that there could be any other true relation between the two, would make the state a nullity. Hence whenever the demands of civilization and of freedom are disregarded, and the state tramples on these interests for the sake of any religious considerations, it has gone beyond its true bounds, and altogether transcended its legitimate authority. We may say that the state in such a case is wrong, not because it has sought to maintain its religion, but because it has made this its supreme end, and reduced to an inferior importance what are really its highest objects of pursuit. The principles upon which we must determine the right and the wrong of a state's action, in any given instance, are not those Divine laws which are to control the spiritual life of the individual for eternity. There are temporal and earthly interests for the individual ; and it is to subserve these that there is a state, a community, among men. These interests are undoubtedly secured more perfectly through the agency of some religion; and hence the proper and necessary connection of religion with the state. But in this connection, religion is ever the servant, never the sovereign. It is to be used to secure some end; and may never be changed by the sta'e so as to become, itself, the end to be secured. The highest question for the state to ask is, not what does religion demand, but what are the demands of civilization and freedom? since these cover the individual's highest temporal and earthly interests. The wrong of persecution by the state, can be demonstrated on no other grounds. It is wrong because it makes religion an end, and interferes with the highest civilization and freedom, the only true end of the state. The Grand Duke of Tuscany should not have imprisoned the Madiai, because this end of the state did not demand such an act, but denounced it. It is to the principles of civilization and freedom, that the ultimate appeal must be made in regulating any decision of state policy. These principles are coming out, more and more clearly, in the progress of time, and are already appre

hended distinctly enough to settle every great question that can arise. When then the appeal is made to these, we determine, without any discrepancy, the right of the state to teach its religion, and the wrong of the state in persecution. Religion may be taught as a means to the highest civilization; but when persecution is employed in its support, it ceases to be a means, but becomes an end, to maintain which civilization itself is overborne.

ARTICLE IV.

THE MOSAIC NARRATIVE OF THE CREATION CONSIDERED GRAMMATICALLY AND IN ITS RELATIONS TO SCIENCE.

By E. P. Barrows, Professor at Andover.

By the discoveries of geology the Mosaic narrative of the creation has been invested with new and extraordinary interest. These revelations, as might have been anticipated from the history of all past discoveries in science that touch upon the sphere of revelation, have been treated in two opposite and extreme methods, both of them alike uncandid and unphilosophical. One class of men take the position of entirely neglecting the facts of geology; generally on the ground that the science is yet in its infancy, that its cultivators are at variance among themselves, and that everything which pertains to it is uncertain. But if these men would make themselves acquainted with the subject, at least in its outlines, they would learn that it is the certainty of the great facts of geology which furnishes a basis for all the controversies among its teachers and expounders; the problem being, not whether they are sustained by valid evidence, but how they are to be accounted for. They would further learn, that while they have been disregarding these facts, others

have been making themselves masters of them, and spreading, everywhere, the knowledge of them; and that they are the very facts which have the nearest relation to the Mosaic narrative.

Another class of men, receiving the facts of geology, have hastily turned them against the sacred narrative; not considering that a record, sustained by such a mighty mass of evidence, justly demands of them that they should, first of all, make a candid and earnest attempt to harmonize with its statements the discoveries of the science; not understanding that the principle of setting aside evidence of one kind, that stands firm upon its own foundation, by evidence of another kind and resting upon another foundation, is radically unsound, since it is far more probable that some mistake has been made in interpreting the relation of the two classes of evidence to each other, than that God has arrayed irrefragable proof against irrefragable proof, in a contradictory way; and forgetting, moreover, that many discoveries of science that have been claimed, at the outset, as being on the side of skepticism, have afterwards been found to be on the side of faith.

The true inquirer after truth will avoid both of these extremes. He will not shut his eyes to the revelations of science, because the work of harmonizing them with the inspired record costs him some labor, and some sacrifice, it may be, of old pre-judgments; nor will he make his faith in the Bible to rest upon the narrow foundation of his success in this work. If he cannot solve existing difficulties, he will wait, in a believing and patient spirit, for more light.

This we believe to be the position of multitudes, at the present time, in respect to the Mosaic account of the creation. They have no idea of throwing away their faith in Moses as an inspired historian, any more than they have of substituting gas-light for sun-light in agriculture. But they have given sufficient attention to the science of geology to understand fully that, however many questions pertaining to it may be yet uncertain and matters of controversy, its grand facts are, like the granite beds which underlie its strata, im

movably settled by extended and patient investigation and induction. In their controversies with unbelievers, they have been in the habit of insisting much and earnestly upon the duty of candor in the treatment of evidence; and it would be, in their judgment, a very miserable example of candor to reject or set aside the true significance of facts which they have no power to gainsay.

It is with feelings such as these that we address ourselves to the work of interpreting the Mosaic narrative of the creation. We wish it to be understood at the outset, that we do not stake our faith in its plenary inspiration upon any theory we may adopt for bringing into harmony with it the discoveries of science. We receive it with all our heart as being, in the fullest sense, a revelation from God, and we shall continue so to receive it, though our method of reconciliation be found, upon further investigation, to be untenable. Should our views elicit any criticism, as is apt to be the case with discussions on this subject, we trust we shall have grace to bear it patiently, since the thoughts of an author, when committed to the public, become the property of the public, and, as such, may be freely discussed and controverted; all that he has a right to claim being a fair and candid statement of his positions and arguments.

Our plan includes a grammatical exposition of the narrative, and an inquiry concerning its relations to science. The grammatical exposition comes first in order, and constitutes. the foundation of the scientific inquiry; for unless we know the true meaning of the record, interpreted according to the laws of language, we cannot intelligently affirm anything respecting its relations to science. In the performance of this first part of our work, it is necessary carefully to guard against the introduction of modern ideas; for we propose to ascertain, not what are our views of creation, but what the sacred writer has said concerning it. Violently to warp a Hebrew verb or phrase into an agreement with some one of our scientific formulas, will not be interpreting the Divine record, but "walking in craftiness," and "handling the word of God deceitfully." We must, as far as we are able, put

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