them." Is he easily pacified when offended? "Yes," says the Psalmist. "His wrath endureth but the twinkling of an eye." "No," says Jeremiah. "Ye have kindled a fire in His anger that shall burn for ever." Unable to discover anything reliable about God, doubtful whether he be just or unjust, partial or impartial, true or false, loving or fierce, placable or implacable, we come to the conclusion that at all events we had better be friends with Him, and surely the book which reveals His will to us will at least tell us in what way He desires us to approach Him. Does He accept sacrifice? "Yes," says Genesis: "Noah sacrificed and God smelled a sweet savour;" and Samuel tells us how God was prevailed on to take away a famine by the sacrifice of seven men, hanged up before the Lord. In our fear we long to escape from Him altogether and ask if this be possible? "Yes," says Genesis. "Adam and his wife hid from Him in the trees, and He had to go-down from His heaven to see if some evil deeds were rightly reported to Him." "No," says Solomon. "You cannot hide from Him, for His eyes are in every place." So we throw up in despair all hope of finding out anything reliable about Him, and proceed to search for some trustworthy history. We try to find out how man was made. One account tells us that he was made male and female, even in the image of God Himself; another that God made man alone, and subsequently formed a woman for him out of one of his own ribs. Then we find in one chapter that the beasts were all made, and, lastly, that God made "His masterpiece, man." In another chapter we are told that God having made man thought it not good to leave him by himself, and proceeded to make every beast and fowl, saying that he would make Adam a help-meet for him; on bringing them to Adam, however, none was found worthy to mate with him, so woman was tried as a last experiment. As we read on we find evident marks of confusion; double, or even treble, accounts of the same incident, as, for instance, the denying a wife and its consequences. Then we see Moses fearing Pharaoh's wrath, and flying out of Egypt to avoid the king's wrath, and not venturing to return until after his death, and are therefore surprised to learn from Hebrews that he forsook Egypt by faith, _not fearing_ the wrath of the king. Then we come across numberless contradictions in Kings and Chronicles, in prophecy and history. Ezekiel prophecies that Nebuchadnezzar shall conquer Tyrus, and destroy it and _take all its riches_; and a few chapters afterwards it is recorded that he did accordingly attack Tyrus but failed, and that as he got _no wages_ for this attack he should have Egypt for his failure. In the New Testament the contradictions are endless; Joseph, the husband of Mary, had two fathers, Jacob and Heli; Salah is in the same predicament, for although the son of Canaan, Arphaxad begat him. When John was cast into prison, Jesus _began_ to preach, although He had been