this is exactly the order of Moses. Who told him what modern science has discovered, that fish and reptiles belong below birds? As Mr. Tullidge says: "With the advance of discovery, the opposition supposed to exist between Revelation and Geology has disappeared; and of the eighty theories which the French Institute counted, in 1806, as hostile to the Bible, not oue now stands."

Take an example of this scientific accuracy from astronomy. Says Jeremiah: "The host of heaven cannot be numbered, neither the sand of the sea measured."* The vast host of stars is a matter of modern discovery. Hipparchus, about a century and a half before Christ, gave the number of stars as 1,022, and Ptolemy, in the beginning of the second century of the Christian era, could find but 1,026. We may, on a clear night, with the unaided eye, see only 1,160, or in the whole celestial sphere, about 3,000. But when the telescope began to be pointed to the heavens, less than three centuries ago, by Galileo, then, for the first time, men began to know that the stars are as countless as the sand on the seashore. When Lord Rosse turned his great mirror to the sky, lo! the number of visible stars increased to nearly 400,000,000! They are like shining dust scattered on the black background of the heavens. John Herschel, at the foot of the dark continent, resolves the nebulæ into suns, and, as with the eye of a Titan, finds in the cloudy scarf about Orion, "a gorgeous bed of stars," and the very Milky Way itself, which floats its streaming banner across the vault of heaven, proves to be simply a grand procession of stars absolutely without number. And so, the exclamation of the prophet, 600 years before Christ, 2,200 years before Galileo, "the host of heaven cannot be numbered," proves to be not a wild, poetic exaggera

*Jer. xxxiii. 22.

tion, but literal truth. Who was Jeremiah's teacher in astronomy?

Let us take an example from natural philosophy. Moses accords with modern discoveries as to the nature of light, in not representing this mystery as being made, but "called forth"-commanded to shine. If light be only "a mode of motion," how appropriate such phraseology!

In Job, we read of the dayspring that it "takes hold of the ends of the earth; it is turned as clay to the seal, and they stand as a garment." The ancient cylindrical seals rolled over the clay, and left an impress of artistic beauty. What was without form, before, stood out in bold relief, like sculpture. So, as the earth revolves, and brings each portion of its surface successively under the sun's light and heat, what was before dull, dark, dead, discloses and develops beauty, and the clay stands like a garment, curiously wrought in bold relief and brilliant colors. Considered either as science or poetry, where, in any other book of antiquity, can you find anything equal to that? That phrase, "takes hold of the ends of the earth," conveys the idea of a bending of the rays of light, like the fingers of the hand when they lay hold; and this is spoken of the "ends of the earth." When the sunlight would touch the extremities of the earth, it is bent by the atmosphere so as to secure contact, and, but for this, vast portions, out of the direct line of the sun's rays, would be dark, cold, and dead. Who taught Job, 1,500 years or more before Christ, to use terms that Longfellow or Tennyson might covet to describe refrac

tion?

"When the morning stars sang together" has been always taken to be a high flight of poetry. And when in the Psalms we read: "Thou makest the outgoings of

*Job xxxviii. 13, 14.

+ Job xxxviii. 7.

lxv. 8.

the morning and evening to rejoice," the Hebrew word means to give forth a tremulous sound, or to make vibrations to sing. In these poetic expressions, what scientific truth was wrapped up! Light comes to the eye in undulations or vibrations, as tones of sound to the ear. There is a point at which these vibrations are too rapid or delicate to be detected by our sense of hearing; then a more delicate organ, the eye, must take note of them; they appeal to the optic nerve instead of the auditory nerve, and as light and not sound. Thus, light really sings. "The lowest audible tone is made by 16.5 vibrations of air per second; the highest, by 38,000; between these extremes lie eleven octaves. Vibrations do not cease at 38,000, but our organs are not fitted to hear beyond those limitations. Were our ears delicate enough, we could hear even up to the almost infinite vibrations of light." And so it is literally true that "the morning stars sang together." Here is divine phraseology that has been standing there for ages uninterpreted, waiting for an intelligence that could take it in. And now we may read it just as it stands: "Thou makest the outgoings,or light radiations,-of the morning and evening to sing," i. e., to give forth sound by vibration.

Solomon has left us a poetic description of death.* How that "silver cord" describes the spinal marrow; the "golden bowl," the basin which holds the brain; the "pitcher," the lungs; and the "wheel," the heart!

The circulation of the blood was discovered twenty-six hundred years afterward by Harvey. Is it not very remarkable that the language Solomon uses exactly suits the fact―a wheel pumping up through one pipe, to discharge through another?

9. Last of all, the unity of the Bible is organic. And

*Eccles. xii. 6.

this means it is the unity of organized being. Organic unity implies three things: first, that all parts are necessary to a complete whole; secondly, that all are necessary to complement each other; and thirdly, that all are pervaded by one life-principle.

Let us apply these laws to the Word of God

1. All the parts of the Bible are necessary to its completeness. Organic unity is dependent on the existence and co-operation of organs. An oratorio is not an organic unit. Any part of it may be separated from the rest, or displaced by a new composition.

The unity of a building is not organic: it is a unity of plan, of construction, of material; but you may take down the wall and put up another; replace the windows by memorial panes, making each a crystal monument of some departed friend; change all the woodwork in the interior; and yet the unity and completeness of the building are not affected. But if this body of mine loses an eye, a limb, or the smallest joint of the finger, it is forever maimed: its completeness is gone; its unity violated; and nothing can ever supply the lack of that lost portion however insignificant.

Not one of all the books of the Bible could be lost without maiming the body of truth here contained. Every book fills a place. A single glance may not discover its use, or its necessity to the plan of the book, but it is the fault of our ignorance.

Here is one complete whole, and twenty-five years of study of this one book satisfies me that nothing can be omitted. Genesis is the book of beginnings; Exodus of departure and redemption; Leviticus of sacrifice and service; Numbers is the marshalling of God's hosts, and Deuteronomy is the emphasizing of obedience by which only this redeemed, separated, elect people can have success and victory. And so the doctrine finds illustration

and enforcement all through the Old Testament, and every book has its own witness to add, its own purpose

to serve.

In the New Testament, the Gospels lay down the broad basis of facts of Redemption; the Acts apply those facts historically; the Epistles unfold the germs of doctrine previously presented, and the Apocalypse is the outlook of the great future.

For example, the book of Esther has long been criticised as not necessary to the completeness of the Canon, and particularly, because "it does not even once contain the name of God." But that book is the most complete exhibition of the Providence of God. It teaches a divine hand behind human affairs; ultimate and certain awards to the evil and the good; the uncertain and unsatisfactory prosperity of the wicked, and the ultimate prosperity that comes to the good even out of adversity; it shows retribution poetically exact in the very forms of punishment; unbiased freedom of resolution and action as consistent with God's overruling sovereignty; and all things working together to produce all grand results, the most minute matters furthering Providential plans. The book that thus exhibits God's Providence does not contain the name of God; perhaps because this book is meant to teach us of the Hidden Hand that, behind the scenes, unseen, moves and controls all things.

"Ruth" seems to be only a love-story, to some; but how rich this book is in foreshadowings of Gospel truth, especially illustrating the double nature of the God-man, our Redeemer.

Boaz is a type of Christ-Lord of the Harvest, Dispenser of Bread, Giver of Rest, He is GOEL-the Redeemer. Two things must unite in the redeemer of a forfeited. estate: 1. He must be a kinsman, to have the right to redeem. 2. He must be of a higher branch of the family,