"She is hardened against her young ones, for those not hers; being careless, her labour is in vain." In the same Book, chap. xxx., is another passage wherein this bird is mentioned. "I went mourning without the sun: I stood up, and I cried in the congregation. "I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls," or Ostriches, in the marginal and correct reading. The Jewish Bible also translates the word as Ostriches, but the word which the Authorized Version renders as "dragons" it translates as "jackals." Of this point we shall have something to say on a future page. A somewhat similar passage occurs in Isa. xliii. 20: "The beast of the field shall honour me, the dragons and the owls" (Ostriches in marginal reading), "because I give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to My people, My chosen." The Jewish Bible retains the same reading, except that the word "dragons" is given with the mark of doubt. Accepting, therefore, the rendering of the Hebrew as Ostriches, let us see how far the passages of Scripture agree with the appearance and habits of the bird. Here I may observe that, although in the Scriptures frequent allusions are made to the habits of animals, we are not to look for scientific exactness to the Scriptures. Among much that is strictly and completely true, there are occasional errors, to which a most needless attention has been drawn by a certain school of critics, who point to them as invalidating the truth of Scripture in general. The real fact is, that they have no bearing whatever on the truth or falsehood of the Scriptural teachings. The Scriptures were written at various times, for instruction in spiritual and not in temporal matters, and were never intended for scientific treatises on astronomy, mathematics, zoology, or any such branch of knowledge. The references which are made to the last-mentioned subject are in no case of a scientific nature, but are always employed by way of metaphor or simile, as the reader must have seen in the previous pages. No point of doctrine is taught by them, and none depends on them. The Spirit which conveyed religious instruction to the people could only use the means that existed, and could no more employ the scientific knowledge of the present time than use as metaphors the dress, arms, and inventions of the present day. The Scriptures were written in Eastern lands for Orientals by Orientals, and were consequently adapted to Oriental ideas; and it would be as absurd to look for scientific zoology in the writings of an ancient Oriental, as for descriptions of the printing-press, the steam-engine, the photographic camera, or the electric telegraph. So, when we remember that only a few years ago the real history of the Ostrich was unknown to those who had made zoology the study of their lives, we cannot wonder that it was also unknown to those who lived many centuries ago, and who had not the least idea of zoology, or any kindred science.