After marshalling his objections to the theory of a local flood, Dr. Kitto goes on to say, "We yield our judgment to what appears to us the _force of these arguments_ as to the _meaning_ of Scripture;" and we find Dr. Hamilton prefacing his objections as follows:--"Were the mere universality of some of the terms employed in the Mosaic narrative the _sole_ ground of objection to the hypothesis of a _local_ inundation only in the days of Noah, that hypothesis might perhaps be deemed admissible. But there are," he adds, "other and more serious difficulties attending it." Let us, then, briefly examine these supposed difficulties and objections; and as they have been better and more amply stated by Dr. Kitto than by any other writer with whom I am acquainted,--for Dr. Hamilton takes up rather the arguments in favor of a universal, than the objections against a merely partial flood,--let us take them as they occur in his writings, especially in the excellent work now before me,--his "Daily Bible Illustrations." It will scarce be suspected that such an accomplished writer, who did so much for Biblical Illustration, and whose admirable Pictorial Bible formed, with but four works more, what Chalmers used to term with peculiar emphasis his "Biblical Library,"[27] would do injustice to any cause, or any line of argument which he adopted, if it was in reality a good and sound one. It may be well, however, not to test too rigidly the value of the remark,--meant to be at least of the nature of argument,--when we find him saying that "a plain man sitting down to read the Scripture account of the deluge would have no doubt of its universality." Perhaps not. But it is at least equally certain, that plain men who set themselves to deduce from Scripture the figure of the planet we inhabit had as little doubt, until corrected by the geographer, that the earth was a great plane,--not a sphere; that plain men who set themselves to acquire from Scripture some notion of the planetary motions had no doubt, in the same way, until corrected by the astronomer, that it was the earth that rested, and the sun that moved round it; and that plain men who have sought to determine from Scripture the age of the earth have had no doubt, until corrected by the geologist, that it was at most not much more than six thousand years old. In fine, when plain men, who, according to Cowper, "know, and know no more, their Bible true," have in perhaps every instance learned from it what it was in reality intended to teach,--the way of salvation,--it seems scarce less certain, that in every instance in which they have sought to deduce from it what it was _not_ intended to teach,--the truths of physical science,--they have fallen into extravagant error. And as any question which, bearing, not on the punitory extent and ethical consequences of the Flood, but merely on its geographic limits and natural effects, is not a moral, but a