wick charges upon the Penns and the Buggs and the Nolans, as to the want of knowledge respecting their favorite science, they will at least do me the justice to concede, that I have made no claims to a knowledge of the details of that science. I only venture myself into such a kind of place as the shoe-maker did, who criticised upon the inferior part of the immortal work which the great Athenian statuary had executed. If my objections are not even as well grounded as his, it may still be best to hear them with patience; inasmuch as the great mass of men among us are as yet harassed with difficulties like my own.

On the other hand, should they lay their hand heavily upon me and threaten to castigate my ignorance of geology, and my adventurous spirit in calling in question what I have not thoroughly examined, and presuming to argue with those who have studied deeply; then I have two things to say, in order to induce them to alleviate the severity of their strokes; the first is, that the logic of men who reason from certain facts real or supposed, as connected with a science, may be a fair and legitimate object of critical examination, even by some who are not versed in the detail of the science in question; the second is, that those who bear hardly upon others for meddling with their geology, should keep a good look out how they meddle with Hebrew philology. The digging of rocks and the digging of Hebrew roots are not as yet precisely the same operation, and are not likely soon to be so.

But whatever judgment they may form of my objections to their views, I must crave the liberty of presenting anew to them and to the public, some excellent remarks of a veteran in the natural sciences, who has spent his life in the animated pursuit of them, and near the close of it has given us the result of his thoughts and examinations in relation to the subject before us. I refer to Sharon Turner, and to a passage in Vol. I. of his Sacred History, p. 35 seq.

"Although it is true that many of the geological phenomena have been represented by these observers, and others, to indicate that our earth has had a much longer duration than the strictest import of the terms used by Moses can allow, and especially in the succession of its organized races; yet, after the most patient comparison and consideration of their facts and reasonings, I cannot but feel that they have not at all advanced beyond plausible conjectures, as I also perceive that they are mostly at variance with each other; and that, as fast as one theory of this sort is set up, it has been found to be wrong by a succeeding inquirer, who attempts, in his turn, to establish a different

one, of the same tendency in its stead. These are all fair exertions of ingenuity, and arise from a desire to let no fallacy stand, and from a love of exploring what has baffled anterior research: but these circumstances prove, that none of these theories are true; that the right theory has not yet been discovered; that erroneous deductions have been made from the phenomena which have been seen; and that these are not yet justly understood, nor their real bearings discerned. Hence, I continue in the belief, that whatever is true in fact and correct in inference on this subject, will be in the end found to be not inconsistent with the account of Moses, nor with the common meaning of the expressions he uses. In studying the Scriptures, it is peculiarly desirable that we should on no occasion depart any more from the usual and natural meaning of the words and phrases which there occur, than we do in reading any other author. They have been greatly disfigured by the forced construction which most men seek to put upon them; and much dissatisfaction has by this conduct been excited in the intelligent mind. The true construction of every part must be, not the possibilities of meaning which refining ingenuity may draw from the expression, but that sense and purport which the author himself, in penning them, intended that they should express. His personal meaning at the time, and not the import which our verbal criticism can now extract, should be the great object of our attention. In the present instance, I think Moses meant to express six natural days; and therefore it appears to me to be most probable, that whenever the right theory on the fabrication of our earth, and on the era and succession of its organized beings, shall be discovered, it will be found to be compatible with the Mosaic cosmogony, in its most natural signification. But until this desirable event arrives, there will be as much incongruity between this ancient account and our modern speculations, as there cannot but be between the devious excursions of an active imagination, and the simple and solid, but unattractive, reality. Our German contemporaries, in some of their reveries on ancient history, are equally alert to prove that novelty of fancy is more sought for by many than justness of thought; that it is easier to argue than to judge; and that even truth becomes weariness when it ceases to be original, and has lost the impression of its beauty by its habitual familiarity.

It is quite true that Moses did not profess to be a geologer, and had no business to be so. His object was, not to teach natural science, but to inculcate the existence, the laws, the will, and the worship of GOD; and to found the polity and social manners and institutions of his countrymen on this only true foundation of national prosperity and of individual happiness. But as he was the chosen organ of Divine truth to man, on his moral and religious duties, it is most probable that what he expresses on other subjects, in those compositions which were to be the permanent guides of the opinions and conduct of

his nation, will be also what is true and proper. It is most consistent with all that we know of intelligent agency, to suppose that he who was instructed or guided to be the lawgiver and sacred preceptor of his people, would be likewise so informed, or influenced, as to avoid falsehood on every collateral subject which it would be in the course of his narration to notice. If we were directing or assisting any pupil to write on any topic, we should certainly not suffer him to insert any thing that we knew to be a fiction or a fallacy. It is, therefore, most rational to suppose that the same precaution was used by the Deity towards his selected messenger. Hence, I am induced to believe that what Moses expresses incidentally on other points besides those of his divine legislation, is substantially true, and will be found to be so, as soon as his judges or readers have acquired competent knowledge. It is our deficiency in this which hurries us to discredit, or to doubt, or oppose him. But on no collateral point, additional to his main subject, was he more likely to have been correct, either from true human traditions of preceding knowledge, or communications, or from new supplementary aid, so far as that was needed, than in his notices of the divine creation. This was indeed the true basis of his mission and tuition; and it is brought prominently forward at once to our view, as if it were meant to be so. His brief intimations are, therefore, most probably the just outlines of all true geology; and thus far we may affirm, that the more our materials of judgment are increased by the multiplying labours of our geological students, the less founded any opposing speculations appear to become. It is now thirty-five years since my attention was first directed to these considerations. It was then the fashion for science, and for a large part of the educated and inquisitive world, to rush into a disbelief of all written revelation; and several geological speculations were directed against it. But I have lived to see the most hostile of these destroyed by their as hostile successors; and to observe that nothing which was of this character, however plausible at the moment of its appearance, has had any duration in human estimation, not even among the skeptical.

Augmented knowledge has from time to time overthrown the erroneous reasonings with which the Mosaic account has been repeatedly assailed; and has actually brought to light more facts in its favour than at this late period of the earth could have been expected to occur. Those which are of this description are enlarging in number every year; and therefore my belief is, that the veracity of the chief Hebrew historian will be ultimately found to be as exact in what he has recorded in the cosmogony with which he commences his work, as it is in the account of his own legislation. There is certainly no appearance, as yet, that any contradictory theory will long survive its public enunciation. Magna est VERITAS, et prevalebit, is the everlasting axiom. Truth, and truth only, will obtain any immorVOL. VI. No. 21.

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tality in the intellectual, and therefore in our literary and social world." Sharon Turner's Sacred History, Vol. I. pp. 35—38.

Whether my feeble voice is to be heard or not, on this great subject, here is one to which men of real science will be disposed to listen with some degree of deference and respect. I would not designedly suggest a word or thought, which would have a tendency to discourage the ardour of geological study. "The works of the Lord are great," and they should be "sought out by all that fear him." An extension of true knowledge must always be for the public good; and this cannot be without an enthusiastic pursuit of it. Let geology claim her full share of this. For one, with all my heart I bid her God speed! All I ask or wish is, that she would not lay down positions before she is ready to demonstrate them; that she would not call on us to believe, this year, deductions from certain supposed facts, which next year's examination will entirely overthrow; that she would be more moderate in her course, and not go so far at a leap; that she would be more patient in making out her final conclusions, and wait until the strata of all the continents are examined, at least as low as the alleged thickness of them in Europe; and finally, that she would not force upon Moses, nolens volens the Hebrew text, the conclusions which she thinks herself entitled to draw from her own speculations. When she takes these new positions, I shall be one of the number who will most heartily applaud her efforts and rejoice in her

success.

* This is supposed to be about ten miles.

ARTICLE V.

EXEGESIS OF ISAIAH XV. XVI.

Translated from the German of Dr. W. Gesenius, by W. S. Tyler, of the Senior Class in the Theol. Seminary, Andover; with prefatory remarks and occasional notes by M. Stuart.

[THE following exegesis has been selected, and is now presented in an English dress to the religious public, for several reasons which it may be proper here to state. Although the name and labours of Gesenius are well known in some respects to American and English theological students, yet, so far as I have information, little if any of his Commentary has yet been translated into English. As a lexicographer and grammarian, we have become acquainted with his talents and efforts, through the medium of several works to which his own have originally given rise. What he can achieve as an expositor of the Scriptures, deserves also to be known. What is worthy of approbation or deserves disapprobation in him as a writer of this class, cannot be fairly judged of by the public, until they have formed some actual acquaintance with his exegetical labours.

The following portion of his commentary on Isaiah has not been selected because its merits are superior to those of many other portions of that work. The particular reason for choosing it at the present time is, that recent travellers have been over a part of the country which is described in a portion of the chapters that are here explained, and have made a very interesting report of the same; which has been printed in the original French at Paris, with splendid plates, and is now reprinted in London in the like superb manner. I refer to the travels of Messieurs Léon de Laborde and Linant, and their work entitled Voyage de l'Arabie Pétrée; which has excited great interest in Europe, and will speedily be known here.

Before the recent and extensive examinations of Petra or Sela (mentioned in Is. 16: 1), which the French travellers have made, it will be seen, in the prefatory matter of Gesenius, that the same ground had been visited by Burckhardt, and by several English travellers since. Ana ccount of these, with copious extracts from Burckhardt and Legh, the whole being prefaced with a learned and excellent dissertation on ancient Idumea, by