Produced by Bryan Ness, Stephen Blundell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from scans of public domain works at the University of Michigan's Making of America collection.) THE DELUGE IN THE LIGHT OF MODERN SCIENCE. A Discourse. BY WILLIAM DENTON. WELLESLEY, MASS.: DENTON PUBLISHING COMPANY. 1882. THE DELUGE IN THE LIGHT OF MODERN SCIENCE. If the Bible is God's book, we ought to know it. If the Creator of the universe has spoken to man, how important that we should listen to his voice and obey his instructions! On the other hand, if the Bible is not God's book, we ought to know it. Why should we go through the world with a lie in our right hand, dupes of the ignorant men who preceded us? It can never be for our soul's benefit to cherish a falsehood. Science is, perhaps, the best test that we can apply to decide the question. Science is really a knowledge of what Nature has done, and is doing; and since the upholders of the divinity of the Bible believe that it proceeded from the Author of nature, if their faith is true, it cannot possibly disagree with what science teaches. Science is a fiery furnace, that has consumed a thousand delusions, and must consume all that remain. We cast into it astrology and alchemy, and their ashes barely remain to tell of their existence. Old notions of the earth and heavens went in, and vanished as their dupes gazed upon them. Old religions, old gods, have become as the incense that was burned before their altars. I purpose to try the Bible in its searching fire. Fear not, my brother: it can but burn the straw and stubble; if gold, it will shine as bright after the fiery ordeal as before, and reflect as perfectly the image of truth. The Bible abounds with marvellous stories,--stories that we should at once reject from their intrinsic improbability, not to say impossibility, if we should find them in any other book. But, among all the stories, there is none that equals the account of the deluge, as given in the sixth, seventh, and eighth chapters of Genesis. It towers above the rest as Mount Washington does above the New-England hills; and, as travellers delight to climb the loftiest peaks, I suppose that many would be pleased to examine this lofty story, and see how the world of truth and actuality looks from its summit.