which beset humanity, and it may be presumed that, with the intent of accounting for their existence, they are put on record in the word of God. On the broad principle that the Author of a world like this will have vouchsafed reasons for its being such as it is, I accept the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the word of God written for this very purpose, and instead of cavilling, as some do, at difficulties which probably have no other foundation than their own ignorance, it will be my {7} endeavour to make use of Scripture for explaining the perplexities and difficulties which actually surround the facts of human experience. The discussion of the particular question I have taken in hand will give occasion for employing the Scriptures in this manner, and in doing so I shall quote from all parts indiscriminately, regarding the whole as sufficiently authoritative and trustworthy for the purposes of the argument. The above-mentioned general purpose the Scriptures may be supposed to be adequate to fulfil, whether as expressed in the Hebrew tongue, or in that of the Septuagint, or as translated in the English version, notwithstanding that, as must be admitted, faults of transcription, or translation, or interpretation have given rise to many verbal errors. But the difficulties produced by these imperfections are of slight importance in comparison with the great difficulty of discovering how and on what principles to interpret the Scriptures so as to derive from them the particular doctrines they are designed to teach. Amid the great diversity of views that exists relative to modes of interpretation, it may safely be maintained that the foremost and chief requisite for making true deductions from the Scriptures is to have _confidence_ in them as being depositions of Divine wisdom. Men of science, in their endeavours to discover the secrets of Nature, are baffled again and again, and yet by little and {8} little they obtain accessions to knowledge just because they never doubt but that Nature, if rightly interrogated, will give them true answers. It seems, therefore, reasonable to expect that the words of God, handled on principles analogous to those which have been successfully applied in acquiring knowledge of His works, might be found capable of answering the hard questions which are now, more, perhaps, than in past times, agitating men's minds. This philosophy, having a surer basis than that of any mere human intellectual system, might be expected to succeed where these have failed. The bearing of these remarks on the main subject of the essay will be seen as we go on.