informed to the Pope to be better informed; and the Pope is now convinced, that those who find such contradictions between the Bible and Copernicus, are foolish praters, and it is on this account that he now allows of the Copernican system.

We may add, that those who are desirous to learn how science or the laws of nature may probably be reconciled with Joshua, will find some striking facts and reasoning on the subject in Dr. Adam Clarke's Bible, a commentator that will not be accused as being flighty or ill-informed.

"Anthropology and the Bible." According to Dr. Bretschneider, the Natural History of the human race, founded upon the more recent discoveries made respecting the different people of the carth, is the third enemy which Scripture has to encounter: "Natural philosophers and writers of travels," he says, "communicated unsuspectingly the results of their inquiries respecting the human family, and the nations in all parts and corners of the earth. They described the difference of the races in form, colour, and intellectual powers, and the varieties arising from the mixture of the races. They pointed out the great and permanent distinctions between them, showing that these differences cannot be laid to the account of climate or mode of support, but depend upon an original difference of parentage. Blumenbach collected skulls from all parts of the world, and brought the results of his observations into a system. Into what perplexity was the theologian now thrown! If it is made to appear that instead of one Adam for the whole human race, there is an Adam for the Caucasians, another for the Negroes, a third for the American tribes, a fourth for the Malays, a fifth for the Mongoli, &c.; what can theology do with the one Adam of the Bible, with the doctrine of the Fall, and the guilt imputed to all men through Adam, with the whole doctrine of original sin as a consequence of the Fall, and an infirmity derived to all men, by ordinary generation from Adam? And if these doctrines were set aside, where was the necessity of the vicarious satisfaction of Christ, the second Adam, in order to remove the guilt of the first? Where was now the ground of the condemnation of the heathen, if they did. not descend from Adam?" And since we are put on so good a course of questions by Bretschneider, may it not be asked, where, if it is true that the theologian cannot refute the sciences which depend on experience,-where could he find any ground left, on which to construct a system of Christian doctrine? This must be as difficult an undertaking, as for a cutler to make a knife, in which nothing but the handle and blade were wanting.

That the human race is divided into many species, is not derived from Adam, but from as many Adams as there are species, was said long ago by another man, with whom more lately some German and French writers have agreed. That man was Voltaire, of whose

contempt for religion Bretschneider elsewhere speaks. But how can he dare to cast a stone at Voltaire? Indeed, where is there so great difference between them? Has not Bretschneider, as well as the other, assailed the vitals and the foundations of Christian doctrine, the truth of the divine word, our only consolation in life and in death? The only difference that one can discern between the two, is that Voltaire attacks religion with wit, and Bretschneider without wit.

But Voltaire has been corrected in this matter by the great Haller, who thus writes: "Voltaire attempted to throw suspicion. upon the narrative of Moses, and to make the derivation of all nations from a single man ridiculous. The pretext for his notion is derived from the fundamental error, that the different people,the whites and the negroes,-are distinguished from each other by as essential characteristics in their organization, as a palm-tree is from a pear-tree. This principle is plainly false. All men with whom we are acquainted, in the South and in the North, or who are every day discovered in the great sea which extends from Patagonia to the Cape of Good Hope, and so around to Patagonia, encircling the known world, have countenances, teeth, fingers, toes, breasts, their whole inward structure, and all the entrails, invariably alike without the least distinction. We are acquainted with many sorts of animals between which there are vastly greater differences than are ever found between two men, which are yet unquestionably of the same origin." Thus the great physiologist Haller.

In this respect Cuvier, the celebrated zoologist of more recent times, agrees with Haller. "Man," he says, "consists but of one genus. In another place he says, "Although there is only one genus of men, since all nations of the earth can fruitfully intermingle, yet we observe that different nations of the earth can have a peculiar organization, which is propagated in a hereditary way, and that these differences of organization constitute the different races."

Dr. Bretschneider refers us, however, on this subject, to Blumenbach. After saying, as quoted above, that the differences among men must not be laid to the account of climate or of food, but must be traced to a fundamental difference in their origin, he proceeds to state: "Blumenbach collected skulls from all parts of the world, and brought the results of his observations into a system. Into what perplexity was the theologian now thrown, if it was made to appear, that instead of one Adam, &c." Now would not any unprejudiced reader, not familiarly acquainted with this subject, after perusing this passage, certainly suppose that Blumenbach affirmed in his system, that there is a difference among men, which cannot be laid to the account of climate, &c., but which depends upon a difference in their origin,-in short, that there were many Adams? What then will the reader think, when he is assured, that he may

find the very opposite of all this in Blumenbach's work, De Generis Humani Varietate. This work concludes with the following words: "It cannot be doubted that each and all the varieties of men, as far as they are now known, belong in all probability to one and the same species." To prove this is the object of the whole book,—to prove that the varieties among men do not result from a difference of origin, but from climate, food, &c. And not only in the work already named, but also in his contributions to natural history, has Blumenbach carried through this his characteristic doctrine.

In one place he thus expresses himself: "There have been persons who have protested vehemently against seeing their own noble selves placed by the side of Negroes and Hottentots in one common genus in the system of nature. An idle dreamer, the celebrated philosophus per ignem Theophrastus Paracelsus Bombastus, could not understand how all the children of men should belong to one and the same genus, and therefore to solve his doubts, made on paper his two Adams. It may conduce to quiet the minds of many in this matter, which is a universal family concern, for me to name three philosophers of quite a different sort, who, however they may have differed on other points, still perfectly agreed in this; doubtless because it is an object in natural history, and they all were the greatest natural philosophers which the world has recently lost, viz., Haller, Linnæus, and Buffon. These three held, that all true men, Europeans, negroes, &c. are mere varieties of the same genus."

Blumenbach says further, "I see not the least reason why, considering this subject physiologically, and as a subject in natural history, I should have the least doubt that all the people, in all the known parts of the world, belong to one and the same common family. Since all the differences in the human race, however striking they may at first appear, on nearer examination run into each other by the most unobservable transitions and shades, no other than very arbitrary lines can be drawn between these varieties."

These quotations may suffice. But what will the reader say, what can he think, when he finds a Protestant divine proceed as Bretschneider has now been shown to do: in the first place setting aside the creeds of the Church to which he pretends to belong, and maintaining that "the divine doctrine of the Holy Scriptures" ought to take precedence with every one over the Augsburg Confession, which is merely the word of man; and then turning himself about, and representing this same word of God as full of falsehoods; and, for proof of this representation, resorting frivolously to futile and baseless arguments, from sciences to which he has never seriously attended; nay, acting so unfaithfully as to misrepresent his alleged authorities?

The Berlin Reviewer proceeds next to consider the province and lights of Natural Religion, which the Rationalists regard as all

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sufficient for the direction and interests of immortal man. commences with this invocation, "May the Lord be with us, for it will soon be midnight around us." This, he says, we must be ready to say, when we consider the various efforts which are made to disturb the faith of Christians in the Bible, and point them only to the revelation of God in nature. Pascal, he continues, who was a man equally great as a natural philosopher and a theologian, clearly shows, with thorough knowledge of himself and of nature, where this would end. When I see," he says, "the blindness and misery of men, and the striking contradictions which we observe in our own nature-when I see the whole creation silent, and man without light, left to himself, and, as it were, lost in a corner of the universe, without knowing who placed him there, for what object he is there, or what will become of him at death, I am seized with horror, like a man who had been carried while asleep to a waste and desolate island. And then I can only wonder why we do not fall into despair at so miserable a condition. I look around me on every side, and see everywhere only darkness. Nature affords me nothing that does not fill me with doubt and disquiet. Did I see absolutely nothing to point me to God, I would determine on entire infidelity. Could I find everywhere the traces of the Creator, I would rest in the peace of faith; but since I see too much to deny, and too little to be certain, I am in a most deplorable state."

In another passage he says, "It is in vain to attempt to convert the wicked by pointing to the works of God, to the course of the moon, of the planets, &c. The creation preaches the Creator to those only who already have a lively faith in their hearts." Compare with this the accordant sentiment of the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans; how, according to Paul, the foolish, darkened heart of the heathen turned from the worship of God to the worship of the creature, and how the most shameful vices went hand in hand with this idolatry. How is it possible that so many divines, in the very face of historical facts, should undertake to preach God and virtue to men, without any reference to Christ!

Among those who thus dream is Dr. Bretschneider, when he speaks of Astronomy as follows: "This sublime science, which enlarges our conceptions of immortality by views so inspiring, and which, by opening a view of innumerable worlds, offers the surest pledges of our spiritual life beyond the grave." Pledges! what if we had no other pledges of immortality! "In view of the stars, could I, poor man, bound to the earth, and struck with horror at mouldering corpses, build hopes or rather claims for immortality? This would be enthusiasm indeed!"

Instead of this astronomical phantasy about immortality, which resembles some sentimental sermons for which Germany is noted, let the reader refer to the language of that horrible feeling, to

which every contemplation of nature, so far as it is just, must lead the man who turns away from the Redeemer. "There has," writes Werther, "as it were, a curtain drawn itself round my soul. And the theatre of a boundless life has changed before me into the abyss of an ever open grave. Canst thou say that any thing is, since every thing passes away;-since every thing rolls along with the speed of a tempest, and seldom outlasts the whole power of its being-hurried along by the stream, 'whelmed beneath the waves, or dashed against the rocks!-since there is no moment which does not waste thee and thine around thee! *** My heart is undermined by that consuming power, which lies concealed in universal nature, which has formed nothing that does not destroy what is nearest to it, and itself. Thus disquieted, I reel along, the heavens and earth, and their moving powers around me: I see nothing but a monster ever devouring, and ever again reproducing!"

Thus does death sport with all these heathen phantasies of immortality, and shows his fearful power, which destroys the tender grass of the spring and the new-born infant alike, it may be sooner or later, but yet inevitably.

Before the Reviewer closes his spirited, and, at times, his impressive castigation of Bretschneider, he takes a rapid view of Natural Science in Alliance with Theology, and as certain great spirits have regarded them in connexion, the one with the other department, but each preserving its own proper limits. He says, "I have had so much to do with the abuse of natural science, that the reader may at length begin to think that I see in science only an enemy of Christian theology. But no one can be more thoroughly opposed to such a view than I am,-a view which would stand in direct contradiction to the Bible itself. The Psalmist says, 'O Lord, how great are thy works, thy thoughts are very deep. A brutish man knoweth not, neither doth a fool understand this!'" The writer then goes on to remark that the abuse of which he speaks, the overturning of the boundary-stone between its province and that of Christian theology,-makes it necessary to mark their respective departments very accurately. This has already been done by Bacon, who says, "We must not presume by the contemplation of nature to attain to the mysteries of God." "If any man shall think, by view and inquiry into these sensible and material things, to attain that light, whereby he may reveal unto himself the nature or will of God, then indeed is he spoiled by vain philosophy. * * And it is true, that it hath proceeded that divers great, learned men have been heretical, whilst they have sought to fly up to the secrets of the Deity, by the waxen wings of the senses. "Let men endeavour an endless progress or proficience both in divinity and philosophy, ** only let them beware, that they do not unwisely