forms of life which depend upon them.

Thus science and

religion, so far from being hostile to each other, are seen to be in perfect accord, science laying her trophies at the feet of religion, and religion crowning science as a true interpreter of the divine workmanship.

But if this is so, it may be asked, Why do we not find the language of revelation clearly adjusted to the facts of modern science, or even some of those facts incorporated into the Scripture itself? This, for many reasons, would be unwise.

1. The word of God is not given to teach the whole circle and sum of human knowledge, but only one branch of it, which transcends in value all the rest. What we most need to know, in addition to what every man's senses teach him, is the being and nature of God, our origin and immortality, the fall, the plan of salvation, the true standard of right living, and the nature of the life which lies beyond death. These we need to know now; the joys of scientific research we may learn hereafter. One volume suffices to show us God: whole libraries are needed to explain the work of his hands.

2. If the word of God had contained statements of things, as modern science knows them, those statements would have been for centuries worse than useless. Some would long remain words utterly without meaning to them who read them, and, in the hands of dreamy interpreters, a fruitful source of wild and fantastic doctrine. Others would have been cited by opposers as proof positive that the Scriptures are false. To say that the Earth revolves around the Sun is to contradict what the Hottentot sees, or thinks he sees, with his own eyes. If the psalmist, "considering the heavens," had said, as our author does, that the stars visible to man number, perhaps, fifty millions, all the infidels for twenty-five centuries would have flatly contradicted the statement, and triumphantly pointed to the sky for proof of its falsehood. And when Galileo and his

telescope came upon the stage of action, and the existence of the starry myriads is demonstrated, how triumphantly would modern infidels show that the telescope is a recent invention, that David never saw these millions of stars, and, consequently, the Psalms of David are a modern forgery!

3. The fact that the word of God nowhere makes a definite statement which modern science contradicts, is no small proof of

its divine origin. Written, as it was, in an age when the foundations of the sciences were scarcely laid--written by men many of whom were not learned, even according to the low standard of their times if their pens had not been guided by the Author of nature their errors would have been so numerous and so palpable that their claims to inspiration would have found abundant refutation in their own pages. Every general reader knows that the cosmogonies of the heathen are mere childish fables, hardly up to the level of the nursery story of Jack and his Beanstalk. The sacred books, so called, of the Hindus contain statements so utterly absurd, so fatally at variance with modern knowledge, that every native graduate of the English college at Calcutta leaves the school an unbeliever in the religion of his fathers. They state, for example, that the earth is a circular plane one hundred and seventy millions of miles in diameter, and that there are mountains sixty miles high. The Koran tells of "the seven solid heavens," and of Mohammed's splitting the Moon. If the Bible contained one such childish conceit, how endlessly would skeptics harp upon it! John Bunyan, in one of his religious treatises, gravely informs the reader that the stars are at a prodigious distance from the earth, some of them at least thirty thousand leagues. If Job, speaking of Orion and the Pleiades, had said that, what would be the inference?

A recent instance of the same kind, immeasurably ludicrous because immeasurably pretentious, is found in the writings of the great prophet of spiritism, Andrew Jackson Davis. The introduction of his volume states that in 1845 Davis, then a wholly uneducated young man of about twenty-one years, fell into the trance state, and was inspired by "the spirits " to deliver lectures describing the Sun, Moon, and stars, and the whole system of nature; that an amanuensis wrote, as the spirits inspired, and Davis uttered this supernatural wisdom. Describing the planets in their order, and giving the facts as they were set forth in every school-book of the day, he at length comes to the Asteroids, the four Asteroids, and proceeds to assign reasons why there should be just four of them, and no more. His worthless octavo was hardly in type before Hencke, of Dresden, discovered a fifth. Since then, about one hundred and seventy have been discovered, and no one can

conjecture how many more there are. It is not to be supposed that the faith of the dupes of this shallow imposture will be at all weakened by this huge error; but what would be the effect of such a blunder if found in the books of Moses?

In fine, we regard Professor Newcomb's Popular Astronomy as an admirable work, without an equal in the field of popular scientific literature. The author's style is clear, correct, and often eloquent. The one hundred and twelve engravings are unusually good, as may be seen by the five kindly furnished by the publishers for this article, at the request of the writer. The five star maps will aid those who desire to study the heavens for themselves. A glossary of astronomical terms. and technical phrases will assist the general reader, while sundry tables of the elements of orbits, parallaxes of fixed stars, etc., will gratify experts. The mechanical execution of the book is all that could be desired, even by those who are growing somewhat critical in such matters. We commend the work to all, and especially to the younger ministerial readers of the Quarterly, who may not have previously traversed this field, as one that will give them a larger idea of God than they ever had before.

ART. IV.-ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS.

Life of Alexander H. Stephens. By RICHARD MALCOM JOHNSTON and WILLIAM HAND BROWNE. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1878.

TEN or twelve years ago the speeches and political letters of Mr. Stephens were gathered into a volume and published, with a brief biographical sketch of his life; but the only elaborate biography is the book which stands at the head of this article. It is neatly printed, the paper is good, and the mechanical execution in all its parts such as to give it a very attractive appearance. The literary work has, also, been well done. The authors were sufficiently familiar with the stirring events connected with the long public career of Mr. Stephens to enable them to give a clear and comprehensive narrative, holding the interest of the reader to the end.

It could hardly be expected that the biography of such a man, written during his life-time and with his concurrence and

aid, should be free from sectional colorings; and it is not extraordinary that these personal friends should look at the public life of Mr. Stephens from a Southern stand-point, and construe all public measures according to the accepted standards of Southern opinion. The future historian will not be embarrassed by these prejudiced views, and they will not seriously detract from the interest or value of that great mass of information contained in Mr. Stephens' abounding private correspondence-so rich in biographical material, and on which the authors have drawn with a liberal hand. They have given us a volume full of interest, and which, without perpetual attempts at eulogy, sets their subject before the public in a very favorable light.

Mr. Stephens came into public life just as the craze about slavery had seized on the ruling class of his section, and at once became an earnest champion of the slave interest, which he defended and exalted with great ability, till it grew into such strength as to venture on rebellion. But he tells us in one of his recent speeches that he does not now desire a restoration of the old régime, and is rather seeking the best interests of his people on the new social programme made inevitable by the Without conceding that his former position was erroneous, he recognizes the fact that there are changed social conditions, which lay on his people new duties, and call for new courses of action. Like the apostle, he exhorts to a forgetfulness of the things that are behind, and a pressing forward to those that are before.

war.

His early years present a very instructive example to young men struggling with adversity, and his personal history is as full of interest as his public life. Born in 1812, at the place which he now occupies, near the little town of Crawfordville, in Georgia, he became motherless after a few days, and at the age of fourteen lost his father and his second mother, who died within a few days of each other, making it necessary to break up the family and sell the place. He found a temporary home with an uncle, who occupied a farm some miles away. His father was a straightforward, industrious, Christian man of integrity and solid worth, whose death he felt as a terrible calamity, and who left only a small property, the portion falling to Alexander being about $450.

During his residence at home he had attended school a little,

but the occupations of the farm were very exacting, and left him but little time for even such schooling as the neighborhood afforded. But he was diligent and "apt to learn." On his removal to his uncle's home he found a Sabbath-school, where he was at first an eager scholar, and soon a punctual teacher, attracting attention by the interest which he showed in his work, and his steady attendance on all the religious services. His uncle had arranged with his elder brother to work on the farin, giving him a satisfactory compensation, and had generously proposed to make a similar arrangement for him. But his desire for knowledge had been awakened, and he was so slight of form and so frail in health that he thought he should never be able to endure farm work, and asked if he could not be sent to school. After a little consultation the suggestion was approved, and he was sent for a quarter to the Locust Grove Academy, where he made astonishing progress. On his return to his uncle's, and while looking for a place as clerk, he resumed his work in the Sunday-school, thinking that his school days were over. But one day Mr. Mills, the manager of the school, and a man of property, astonished him by asking if he would not like to study Latin. In short, Mr. Mills proposed to send him to school at his own expense; and when, in due time, the matter was arranged, that gentleman came with his own carriage, and took the boy and his "bundle" away, and went with him and provided for his board and tuition. But when Alexander came home on the occasion of his first vacation Mr. Mills allowed it to be known that he had his eye on the young man for the ministry, and that, if he continued at school, it wonld be at the charge of the Georgia Education Society. This changed the aspect of the case materially, and gave young Stephens a good deal of uneasiness; but he returned, completed his preparatory studies, and entered college on that arrangement. Before completing his course, however, he became satisfied that his life-work did not lie in the direction of the pulpit, and his implied obligations troubled him so much that he recalled from his uncle his little patrimony, and devoted it to repaying the money that had been expended on his education by the Society; and, with a little further help, he struggled through college, and was graduated in August, 1832, when he was twenty years old.