If, on the other hand, the doubter should say, “The intelligence of the day has outgrown our household faiths; men are no longer to be held in trammels of weakness and superstition, or to be dragooned into Religion;—the old story about the Bible, why, you know we can’t receive that, and look upon those compilations that pass by that name as divinely inspired Books; we have long since been compelled to abandon the thought that Christianity has any historic basis, or that its Books have any claim upon the reverence or faith of the nineteenth century, as of supernatural origin.” To such an one I should say, that this begging of the question, this _petitio principii_, is no argument; these are statements that require every one of them a thorough demonstration before they are admitted; you deny the Christian one single postulate: you deny him the liberty of taking _anything_ for granted; and then begin yourself with demanding his assent unquestioned to so large a postulate as your very first utterance involves, “that the intelligence of the age has outgrown our household faiths.” Before you proceed you must prove that; and we must know what is meant by those terms, before we can stand upon common ground, and hold anything like argument upon these debated points. From such general observations let us come to the precise objects before us: Geology and Scripture are supposed to be at variance specially on three points. _The age of the earth_: _the introduction of death_: and _the Noachian Deluge_. These apparent contradictions are the most prominent difficulties, and cause the most startling doubts among those who imagine Science to be antagonistic to Christian revelation. I propose to devote a little attention to each of these questions, while I endeavour honestly to show how, in my opinion, apparent contradictions may be reconciled. The questions are these, to state them in a popular form: 1. _Is the world more than 6,000 years old?_ and if it is, how are the statements of Scripture and Geology to be reconciled? 2. _Was death introduced into the world before the fall of man?_ and if it was, how are the truths of Scripture on this question to be explained? and, 3. What was the character of the _Noachian Deluge_? was it partial or universal? and what are the apparent discrepancies in this case, between science and the Bible? Perhaps before I proceed a step further I ought to add that, in my belief, the age of the earth, so far as its material fabric, _i.e._ its crust, is concerned, dates back to a period so remote, and so incalculable, that the epoch of the earth’s creation is wholly unascertained and unascertainable by our human arithmetic; whether this is contradicted in the Scripture, is another question.