of the formation of Adam and the race who now inhabit it. But it is scarcely possible that more forced interpretations of the text can be offered to our acceptance; for the narrative is consecutive, and in every part stands connected with in the beginning—the origin of things. The copula joins the two first verses, and the second and the third-in fact, every verse in the first day; and the other days follow in a successive order, which cannot critically be violated. The citation from Bishop Pearson, that the ancient Hebrews had no word that signified the world, and therefore used the Heavens and the Earth, is very odd; yet were the allegation true, the expressions of the text would destroy any inference that might be drawn from it. How the verse can stand "unconnected in point of time with the succeeding acts of creation"-how it can be conjectured, from the inspired words, that the earth "formed in God's own time may have seen a race of beings existent on its surface, nay, may be a succession of races.... before the formation of man," we are at a loss to imagine. A fearful wresting of the Scripture must take place to give it even a semblance of probability. Into an examination of this hypothesis Mr. Tucker has entered deeply, and has occasionally well refuted some of the wild parts of the theory. The fanciful separation is, however, fully overthrown by the fourth commandment, which states the creation of the Heavens and the earth to have taken place in six days.

it

The conjectures, with which geology has caused the Sacred Narrative to be insulted, have a direct tendency to infidelity. And those who have thus affected to find out the Almighty to perfection in their searches, have loaded his word with imperfections. Of what other description is the following extract ?—

"I acknowledge it appears to me that sufficient weight is not given to the fact, in illustrating his writings, that Moses was necessarily obliged to accommodate his revelations in some degree to the knowledge possessed by those to whom he wrote,.... that, therefore, he made the earth the primary planet, and wrote as if the sun, moon, and other parts of the planetary system were created on the fourth day, and subordinate to it."

The case adduced, of Joshua commanding the sun to stand still, is not to the point; for it is widely different from a history like this entering into details. Nor is it likely that Moses would have falsified the truth for the sake of accommodating himself in these particulars to Jewish opinions, as Mr. Tucker conjectures, when the greater part of this law was opposed to the opinions which they had received in Egypt, and was maintained by severity and penalty, nor relaxed in consequence of their rebellions. It is lamentable that doubt should be thrown on the Bible, if not a denial of it in part implied, for the sake of making the sun, moon, and other parts of the planetary system, created, not on the fourth day, as Moses has written, but on the first, that mere theory may be harmonized

with Scripture. To imagine that the satellites might have been furnished on the fourth, or an adjustment of the entire system might have been effected, not only detracts from the dignity of the narrative, but is obviously contrary to the mind of the writer. How "the veracity of Moses" can thus be attested, or how "the edge of the objections which might otherwise have been raised," can thus be taken off, is paradoxical. Has Mr. Tucker reflected, that, if he or any other person be privileged to take these monstrous liberties with this part of the Bible, some may be found, who, on equally strong pleas, will take liberties with those parts which are of vital importance? The principle is the same as that of the infidel theologians abroad.

Before the Creation of man, the earth is assumed to have performed its destined cycle, that a period may be found for the admission of geological reveries; that we may have Præadamites and whatever else the geologian may desire. But, here again, the regular succession of days, and the authority of the Fourth Commandment destroys the conjecture. In the following pages we discover undeniable traces of a reference to Eichhorn's hypothesis concerning the Codex Elohim, the Codex Yehovah-and Yehovah Elohim, which is found subsidiary to the interpretations offered. As Mr. Tucker admits that the Bible is written on too sure a foundation to be shaken-that it will shine out the more resplendently, the more it is fathomed-that as no benefit can arise from any wild speculations, against which God in our utter ignorance has placed before us an insuperable barrier, we must keep within those limits, in which God, for the wisest purposes, has encircled us, so we trust, that he will weigh these truths well before he again proposes inquiries, which have a tendency to destroy all belief in the Bible, which he thus professes to venerate: he may unsettle many minds, but will establish nothing against the narrative.

His Christian Scheme and the Inner Sense are widely different, and are calculated to do as much good as the first part is calculated to do mishief. The last is, however, in many places extremely fanciful. Of the two works Mr. Butler's is immeasurably the best, and should be perused by every one whom the geological crudities of the present day may have disturbed. This and Mr. Mac Culloch's luminous productions, which we some time since reviewed, should be applied to the refutation of this practical neology, and should be consulted as documents, which will ably expose the very unstable foundation on which the objections to Divine Revelation are raised. We have not had space to examine Mr. Tucker's Essay at length, or to bring it to the test of the Hebrew, in which it would be found wanting: but we have written sufficiently to show that it is in many respects dangerous,

ART. X.-Hansard's Parliamentary Debates. London. 1838.

THE close of the Session of Parliament naturally calls on the public to review its proceedings. On this subject, we shall make no further apologies; we give our opinions from a sense of duty. While politics continued to be only the fencing matches of the natural leaders of the country, the mere arena in which those intellectual champions sharpened their faculties, and struggled for the harmless prizes of popular renown, the topic might be dispensed with in such publications as the present. But when "politics" have become but another name for questions of public life and death--when the point to be decided is not between the stately aristocracy of a Pitt and the popular servility of a Fox, but between property and plunder-when they constitute, not simply a glittering theatrical display of passions and powers, exhibiting themselves in a temporary costume, on a painted stage, and the whole closing in the fall of the curtain; but violently involve every class of society; threaten the most substantial evils; compel every man above the rank of a pauper, or the mind of an idiot, to take an anxious part; and exhibit in the vista no objects but the scaffold, or the field of battle; then the public writer who shrinks from political enquiry, under the pretext of its being too much a matter of this world, betrays only his indifference, or his indolence. Those sins shall not be laid to our charge; we need make no apologies, for examining into the hopes of national existence. Even as theological writers, we feel this service doubly laid upon us. We ought, by our very remoteness from the whirl of public life, to see the progress of the torrent more clearly, than the multitude who are struggling in its stream. We ought, by the sacred sincerity which we have been taught, in loftier studies, to proclaim, with a force and a fortitude superior to other men, the truth which we know to be essential to all. The simple necessity of summoning the public vigilance to the approach of hazard, implies the guilt of neglecting the means within our power. The trumpet, in the hands of the priest of Israel, was not solely to proclaim the new moons, or give pomp to the ceremonial of the temple-it was to marshal the people. His stand upon the mountains gave him the view of earthly hazard, as well as of the changes of heaven; and when the fleets of Egypt shadowed the shore, or the cavalry of Syria swept the frontier-to have seen the invasion advance, without lifting the trumpet to his lips, would have been not reverence for his priesthood, but treason to his country.

Parliament assembled on the 15th of November, 1837. We are entitled to ask, what has it done during the long interval till August, when it closed? In point of attendance, it was the most toilsome on record. In point of product, it was the most fruitless.

Nothing was done. But was any thing intended to be done? The House of Commons was occupied in generating Irish questions. The House of Lords was occupied in nursing them into shape. When taught to run, they were sent down to the House of Commons, and there put to death. Still, the great end of the Cabinet, procrastination, was accomplished, for the great principle-place. England might be neglected and Ireland betrayed; the legislative throes, for the one, might produce nothing but abortions, and for the other, nothing but monsters; still the protege Cabinet congregated in Whitehall, pampered themselves with the remnants of the patronage left to them by Mr. O'Connell's delicacy, received their wages for one half-year more-and all was well.

But we have an additional object in view, in denouncing the Cabinet. We are ashamed of them; and we desire to exonerate our country of the shame. Little as we may regard the prejudiced opinions of foreigners, we have too much respect for their just estimate, to suffer their judgment of the British nation to be formed on the imbecility of the Cabinet. If we are proud that "Chatham's language is our mother tongue," we are equally desirous that we should not be confounded in any alliance with the language of the sots and fribbles who now fill the place of Chatham: as well might the dolls in Westminster Abbey be taken for the Edwards and Elizabeths. The Cabinet are not English-they are scarcely

men.

The business of Parliament had begun on the 20th, by the Speech from the Throne.-The Speech recommended an Irish Poor Law, -a Bill for the Municipal Government of Ireland--a Bill for the Regulation of Irish Tithes-and the introduction of measures for the more effectual administration of justice in general. Of those four leading features of the Speech, it will be seen that three were directly devoted to Ireland; the fourth, if the mention of Irish justice did not naturally raise a smile, we presume to have had also a reference to that unhappy country; with a cautions reserve, however, of the prison-opening rights of the flippant Viceroy, and of the prison-filling capacities of the General Agitator.

The Irish "patriots" exclaim that their country has not her due share of "justice;" it cannot be denied that she has at least a handsome share of legislation. During the whole of this period, the English business in the House was limited to a few routine bills -the Duchess of Kent's Annuity-the Slavery Abolition Amend

ment, &c.

The Canada Government Bill, however, was one which cannot be regarded as routine. It was a cruel necessity, forced upon the determination of the Cabinet to do nothing. We have to thank M. Papineau, and not the Colonial Secretary, for this starting of the Cabinet to their feet; the rifles of the Canadians, not the

vigilance of Downing-street, were the parentage of the bill; and the astounding sight of Lord Glenelg, with his eyes wide open, was clearly due, not to any impulse of nature in that noble and narcotic personage, but to the bitter exigency of abandoning his pillow, or losing his "situation.”

Yet this extraordinary employment of the legislature in Irish questions was not without its craft. The Premier, though a coarse and vulgar voluptuary, loves place; the Secretary, though a trivial and shallow personage, loves place. Both alike incapable of the manly objects of public life, both are equally keen to the comfort of living at the public expence; at this moment, are known to be amassing money, both living with a meanness of establishment which throws rank into ridicule: and both realising every available shilling of their wages. We can scarcely stoop to the other components of the cabal. They are absolutely on the lowest possible level of notice. They are mere post-horses, ready to drag any pair of Cabinet wheels on any road, to be ridden by any postillion who wears the royal livery, to go from stable to stable just as they are turned loose, and to be bitted by any hand that will feed them. A suit of clothes hung up in Monmouth-street, for the benefit of the first purchaser who will be content with their faded frippery and patched crevices, would be almost too respectable an emblem for their easiness of purchase. They have all the independence of a hackney coach, waiting on the stand for the first foot that will step into it, and then rolling away with its fare-its shattered pannels and ragged harness, the very model of shabbiness, squalidness, and decay. But, to such men the Irish questions are of singular importance. They give the appearance of doing something, with the certainty of never coming to an end; they involve furious speculations, which keep English sobriety in alarm; and they give weight to a desperate faction, who act as the perpetual bravoes of the Ministry; Count Spadacino, in his office of Italian Captain of Banditti, would as soon entertain a proposition for cutting down the Neapolitan thickets; or Fra Diavolo, for lighting the Calabrese highroads with gas-as the Cabinet consent to postpone the Irish questions.

In all those points of view, Ireland is invaluable to the papist Ministry. It is a patient which, perpetually calling out for the doctor, resolves not to be cured. It is, like its Agitator, a professional mendicant, which always has a new calamity and a new cry, which keeps all its ulcers in a state of exasperation, for the single purpose of pursuing its trade, and continually exhibits a call on our purse in the shape of a preposterously crippled limb, or a nondescript disease.

It has another advantage: while it thus gives the pretence of employment to the Ministry, it gives the same excuse for neglect