Mr. Goodwin remarks with scorn, that "we are asked to believe that a vision of Creation was presented to him by Divine power, for the purpose of enabling him to inform the world of what he had seen; which vision inevitably led him to give a description which has misled the world for centuries, and in which the truth can now only with difficulty be recognized." (p. 247.) He puts "pen to paper," therefore, (he says,) in order to induce the world to a "frank recognition of the erroneous views of nature which the Bible contains." (p. 211.) The importance of the inquiry, he vindicates in the following modest terms:--"Physical Science goes on unconcernedly pursuing its own paths. Theology, (the Science whose object is the dealing of GOD with Man as a moral being,) _maintains but a shivering existence, shouldered and jostled by the sturdy growths of modern thought_, and _bemoaning itself_ for the hostility it encounters." (p. 211.)--A few remarks at once suggest themselves. I cannot help thinking that if any person of ordinary intelligence, unacquainted with the Bible, were to be left to obtain his notion of its contents from "Essays and Reviews," infidel publications generally, and (_absit invidia verbo!_) from not a few of the Sermons which have been preached and printed in either University of late years,--the notion so obtained would be singularly at variance with the known facts of the case. Would not a man infallibly carry away an impression that the Bible is a book abounding in statements concerning matters of Physical Science which are flatly contradicted by the ascertained phenomena of Nature? Would he not be led to expect that it contained every here and there a theoretical Excursus on certain Astronomical or Physiological subjects? and to anticipate, above all, an occasional chapter on Geology? Great would be his astonishment, surely, at finding that _one single chapter_ comprises nearly the whole of the statements which modern philosophy finds so very hateful; and _that_ chapter, the first chapter in the Bible[101].