have already pointed to some such; namely, the talking animals, the rod and serpent feats, the floating iron, the stirring up of the pool of Bethesda, and the marvels wrought by Elisha's bones, Paul's handkerchiefs, and Peter's shadow. I may further instance, as of a like sort, the getting tributemoney out of a fish's mouth,-the hook snapped at, and the coin nevertheless held fast; a divine being fluttering about as a dove, or descending in a shower of fiery tongues; devils entering swine; the operations on Gideon's fleece; the burning bush; and the cursing of a fig-tree. In other instances the acts are so similar in description as to amount to mere imitative repetitions, indicating poverty of conception to devise miraculous forms. Such are the talking animals; the frequent rod and serpent feats; the conversion of water at one time into blood, at another into wine; the dividing the Red Sea and the Jordan, the latter three several times; the healing persons by means of the Jordan, and the pools of Bethesda and Siloam, and three times by the spittle of Jesus; the sending fire down frequently in acceptance of sacrificial offerings; the consuming the people of Sodom, Nadab and Abihu, the Israelites in the wilderness, the followers of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, and the two companies who came after Elijah, all by fire from heaven; the perpetuating the supply from one widow's handful of meal and cruse of water, and another widow's pot of oil; the multiplying food, at one time for a hundred men, at another for five thousand, and at a third for four thousand; the stopping the course of the sun, and the sending him back on his course. Now, if the object of a miracle is to exhibit God in some special and transcendant manner, it is quite defeated when the actions attributed to him put him before us in a poor or unworthy aspect, such as even a human being, having due regard to the estimation of his fellow-men, would be loth to display himself in.

STUDENT. I cannot but allow that your strictures are generally just, and that the instances you have selected bear the characteristics you impute to them. Their proper fitness must of course depend upon their adaptation to the circumstances surrounding them.

P.—Then let us judge somewhat of these circumstances. The serWhy was a serpent made use of to converse with Eve?

pent in

Eden.

S.-With us evil is suggested to us readily by the action of our own thoughts; but it was not so with our first parents, Adam and Eve. God, after establishing the whole creation, pronounced of it, that all was good. Eve thus had not the impulse within her to go wrong which we have. God wished to put her and Adam upon probation. They were at that time so innocent as not to know good from evil. The object was to present evil to them, and to see how they would receive it. As evil could not suggest itself to them from their own thoughts, it had to be put before them from outside, and the serpent was employed for the purpose. God gave them a certain command, and the serpent induced them to break it. P. The experiment seems to me an extraordinary one, and scarcely fair. If Eve did not know good from evil, how should she be able to decide whether it was best for her to attend to what God had addressed to her, or to what the serpent had said? She was without power of discernment. S.-That I cannot explain to you.

P.-Did the serpent know that he was leading Eve to do evil?

S.-Assuredly he did. What he said is stated to have proceeded from his great subtlety. "Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field."

P.-Then there was subtlety among the beasts of the field, and this was the most subtle of them all?

S.-Apparently so.

P.-But I thought the whole creation was pronounced solidly good. How then can evil have been thus prevailing among the beasts ?

S.-I cannot tell you.

P.-If the serpent and the other beasts were thus subtle, which, I take it, means sly and artful, able to pervert good into evil, then they at all events had a knowledge of good and evil, and were, so far, more highly organised than the human beings who were the lords of the creation.

S. So it would certainly seem. The serpent, however, who overreached and misled Eve, is currently thought to have been the devil appearing to her in the form of a serpent. P. Is it so said in the Bible?

S.-It is not. The devil is however adverted to as old serpent which deceiveth the whole world."

"that

P. The use of a mere phrase of that sort does not appear to me to warrant the idea that the devil was the actual

serpent in Eden. The circumstance of there having been such a serpent as the one that tempted Eve, may, in truth, have suggested the application of the term serpent to the devil as a mere epithet. If we may say that this Eden serpent, who is described distinctly as a beast of the field, and is spoken of relatively to the other beasts of the field, even as to their common attribute of subtlety, was in truth the personation of a being from quite another sphere, called the devil, then we certainly should be making an addition to the words of the Bible, which we are cautioned against venturing to do at the peril of our salvation.

S.-I admit that we are without warrant for saying that the serpent in Eden was other than what it is described to have been, namely, a beast of the terrestrial creation.

P.-What was the result to the parties concerned ensuing from this probation?

S.-Adam and Eve were condemned to toil, suffering, and death; and the serpent was thenceforth to progress upon his belly, and to eat dust.

P.—It seems to me that the heaviest punishment fell on those upon whom no human judge could have charged guilt. In what way was the sentence carried out against the serpent?

S. He certainly moves on his belly, but I cannot say that he feeds on dust. He eats small animals, birds, frogs, and insects.

P.-Apparently, from his form, he never could have moved otherwise than on his belly. Had he, before this event, a different form ?

S.-No; not according to the observation we can make. Ages before the event in Eden, serpent forms, such as we now see, are found to have been deposited in strata of the earth. They have been discovered, for example, in the London clay, which is the lowest of what are called the tertiary deposits.1

P.—And, without speaking of eels and water snakes, there 1 The "Testimony of the Rocks," by Hugh Miller, 82.

are the worms of the earth, which are equally reduced to going upon their bellies, and yet cannot be associated with the event in Eden.

S.-That is true. There is a whole class of this description which are called Annelides. Remains of some of gigantic size, having the thickness of a man's arm, have been found in the Old Red Sandstone, a deposit of vast antiquity, belonging to what is termed the Devonian era.1

P.-Earthworms certainly move in a painful manner, but then they are formed for burrowing in the earth rather than going over its surface. The serpent's movements, on the contrary, are quick and graceful, and not at all such as one would think to have been imposed upon him by way of punishment.

S.-Yes, he certainly is quite unimpeded in his movements. We have but few of the species in my part of the world, but I will read you some extracts I have made which describe his powers of locomotion. Serpents," says Professor Owen, are too commonly looked down upon as animals degraded from a higher type; but their whole organisation, and especially their bony structure, demonstrate that their parts are as exquisitely adjusted to the form of their whole, and to their habits and sphere of life, as is the organisation of any animal which we call inferior to them. It is true that the serpent has no limbs, yet it can outclimb the monkey, outswim the fish, outleap the jerboa, and, suddenly losing the close coils of its crouching spiral, it can spring into the air, and seize the bird upon the wing: all these creatures have been observed to fall its prey. The serpent has neither hands nor talons, yet it can outwrestle the athlete, and crush the tiger in the embrace of its ponderous overlapping folds. Instead of licking up its food as it glides along, the serpent uplifts its crushed prey, and presents it, grasped in the death-coil as in a hand, to its slimy gaping mouth. It is truly wonderful to see the work of hands, feet, and fins, performed by a modification of the vertebrate column," 2 Another observer describes the movements of a large black snake he saw "sliding stealthily through the branches" in pursuit of birds. "That a legless, wingless

1 "Past and Present Life of the Globe," by Dr Page, 94.

On the Vertebrates.

creature, should move with such ease and rapidity where only birds and squirrels are considered at home, lifting himself up, letting himself down, running out on the yielding boughs, and traversing with marvellous celerity the whole length and breadth of the thicket, was truly surprising. I could but admire his terrible beauty, his black, shining folds, his easy, gliding movement, head erect, eyes glistening, tongue playing like subtle flame, and the invisible means of his almost winged locomotion."1

P.-Well, it is evident that the serpent's form is one of the many wonderful structures by which God adapts means to ends, and is not a malformation, designed to incapacitate the animal by way of punishment for transgression. It is apparent also that the present has always been his proper form, and that his method of progressing on his belly did not originate in Eden. The account of the use made of the serpent in Eden is wanting therefore, as far as I can see, in accuracy as well as fitness.

Let us pass to the talking donkey. Please to tell me the Balaam's circumstances under which this phenomenon was exhibited.

S.-The Israelites, on their way to the land promised them, had encamped in the plains of Moab. The Moabites were alarmed and distressed at the presence of such a host. Their king then sent for Balaam, a prophet, to come and curse them, hoping thereby to have power to drive them out. The messengers were princes of the land, and took with them for Balaam "the rewards of divination." Balaam, however, said he could not go without first learning what was the will of God. On this God is said to have come to him, and to have told him not to go, for the people were to be blessed, not cursed. Balaam consequently refused to accompany the king's messengers. On this the king sent him persons of still greater consequence, with high offers of honour and wealth. Balaam replied that no amount of gold and silver would tempt him to disobey God, whom, however, he said he would again consult. On this God told him to go, but to say only what he might dictate to him. Balaam accordingly went, but God's anger was kindled against him for going, and an angel was sent with a drawn sword to meet him on the way. Balaam did not at

"With the Birds," in the Atlantic Monthly.

ass.