At the same time, the further conviction is strong in my mind, not merely of the obvious truth that the Facts and the Writing (if both genuine) cannot really differ, but further, that there must be, after all, a true way of explaining the Writing, if only it is looked for carefully--a way that will surmount not only the difficulty of the subject, but also the impatience with which some will regard the attempt. Like so many other questions connected with religion, the question of reconciliation produces its double effect. People will ridicule attempts to solve it, but all the same they will return again and again to the task of its actual solution. That the latter part of the proposition is true, has recently received illustration in the fact that a review like the _Nineteenth Century_, which has so little space to spare, has found room in four successive numbers[1] for articles by Gladstone, Huxley, and H. Drummond, on the subject of "Creation and its Records." May I make one remark on this interesting science tournament? I can understand the scientific conclusions Professor Huxley has given us. I can also understand Mr. Gladstone, because he values the Writing as the professor values the Facts. But one thing I can _not_ understand. Why is Professor Huxley so angry or so contemptuous with people who value the Bible, whole and as it stands, and want to see its accuracy vindicated? Why are they fanatics, Sisyphus-labourers, and what not? That they are a very large group numerically, and hardly contemptible intellectually, is, I think, obvious; that a further large group (who would not identify themselves wholly with the out-and-out Bible defenders) feel a certain amount of sympathy, is proved by the interest taken in the controversy. Yet all "reconcilers" are ridiculed or denounced--at any rate are contemptuously dismissed. Can it be that the professor has for the moment overlooked one very simple fact? [Footnote 1: November, December, 1885; and January, February, 1886.] The great bulk of those interested in the question place their whole hope for their higher moral and spiritual life in this world and the next on one central Person--the LORD JESUS CHRIST. If He is wrong, then no one can be right--there is no such thing as right: that is what they feel. It will be conceded that it is hardly "fanatical" to feel this. But if so, surely it is not fanatical, but agreeable to the soberest reason, further to hold that this (to them sacred) PERSON did (and His apostles with Him) treat the Book of Genesis as a whole (and not merely parts of it) as a genuine revelation--or, to use the popular expression, as the _Word of_ GOD. That being so, can it be matter for surprise or contemptuous pity, that they should be anxious to vindicate the Book, to be satisfied that the MASTER was not wrong? That is the ultimate and very real issue involved in the question of Genesis.