to be understood literal days, that is, the times of the earth's revolution upon its own axis, or whether large periods (as o frequently indicates in the prophets), or whether these should be considered as merely the arbi trary costume by which Moses wished to make comprehensible the series of creations, may be left undecided. The objection, however, that the earth must be much more than 6000 years old, as the reckoning in Gene sis would intimate, does not concern the history of creation, but the Mosaic chronology. But inasmuch as this does not belong to religion, it may be fallible, as it is, indeed. In regard to the time when the different formations were produced, we know nothing; and they may have been 100,000 years in progress. As little do we know how long the condition of the earth described in Gen. 1: 2, and the condition of the other planets may have continued; nor with what changes it may have been accompanied. On account of this last circumstance, it will always remain difficult and superfluous to attempt to explain on physical principles the formations described by Moses*."

We have met with no writer who has gone into a more labored defence of this interpretation on philological as well as philosophical principles, than Hensler. His loose and sceptical views as to the Mosaic history, which form the basis of his whole argument, ought to be first described and we shall let him do it in his own language.

d;

"He who maintains that the essential of the relation, the knowledge of the facts themselves, and the order in which they followed each other, is a divine revelation, must not, therefore, derive the non-essential also from God. The non-essential was left to the choice and selection of the old writer (Moses). From him originated not only the expressions, but also the division of the work into periods. This division served to render the matter palpable to the senses, and presented it in such a form that it could be easily remembered. It is difficult to say why the precise number six was chosen. The choice of this number may have been entirely accidental; so that the writer might as well have chosen a smaller or a greater number. He had selected a smaller number of periods, say four, he would then have been compelled to crowd more events into each one. There may, however have been a distinct design why this number was chosen. Most recent writers assume this: Yet they do not use it to explain the essence of the relations before us, as being an invention of the writer. The events may, indeed, have been divided by him arbitrarily into six portions; and yet the events themselves may have followed one another in the order designated. In the one case he may have been an inventor, and in the other a mere narrator."

To one who takes such a view as this of the Mosaic history, it must seem a matter of small importance whether that history be reconcileable with geology or not. But those who believe in the inspiration of every part of the Bible, may like to see by what reasoning Hensler sustains his interpretation of the Mosaic days. We can give only a few samples of it. "In six periods of time (not days, observe,) the creation was completed. The earth was at a certain time empty and void: it was nothing but rough matter unarranged and in dead peace: Then darkness was upon the deep: the earth was universally covered with water, upon which deep darkness still rested. Then the power of God moved upon the face of the waters: (from the original energy proceeded a power which was gradually to arrange, form and animate all things ;) and God said, Let there be light, and there was light. Now there was a distinction between light and darkness: the former was day, the latter night. Here ends the first stadium of the great course. God now caused a firmament to be made, by means of which the waters under it, which covered the earth far * Dogmatik, Bt. 539-542

and wide, were separated from the waters above the firmament. Hitherto in the universal darkness the twofold waters were not distinguishable: all was one flood of waters: Now, as it became more light, the separation of the two waters from each other was first seen. A firmament-the heaven-which vaulted itself over the earth as a hemisphere, made the separation. The upper waters which contained the exhaustless treasures of rain, lay, according to the optical appearance, upon this vault, and rested upon it. The waters of the earth are deep under the vault. These are the things which the second period brought with it. Now a change which concerns the earth alone. The water, which had hitherto covered the earth far around, accumulates in certain places, and collects itself together, so as to produce the sea and the firm land. So when the land is free from the water, a multitude of things grow up. This was the third series of events, &c."

"It is worthy of the Godhead to suppose, that the formation of the earth here described, and of the animals that inhabited it, were produced by the same process, which being communicated to the earth from the original Power, now operate continually; that they were produced according to similar laws as those which still uphold and continue them. And this assumption is not contradicted by antiquity or the oldest records (the Bible). It is true, indeed, that in certain places they speak of God as if he had produced them by his immediate power; but this is nothing more than the use of language in those times, when they were accustomed to refer all things immediately to God. But more than this: the writer evidently indicates that he does not intend to deny to natural powers their part in the new formation and regulation of the earth. It is several times said, God willed that something should be so, and it was so: several times it is said that God found what was made good; that is, it was so made as God wished to have it. A writer could not have used this form of expression, if he had thought of every advance of the work of creation as flowing immediately from the Divine Omnipotence.

"Gen. 1: 5, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31. 2: 2. The writer could not have believed that the creation beginning in the evening was brought to perfection after 144 hours: We cannot speak of a creation perfected in six days. He certainly designs to ascribe to the great series of events a longer continuance. He describes all as advancing generally; he represents, as has already been remarked, the powers of nature as regularly developing their activity; (and this developement does not gradually take place by springs or leaps.) But he who does this certainly cannot design to say that all this great and wonderful creation was brought to a perfect state in six times 24 hours. He, as every one of us now does, adopted periods of an indefinite length.

"The only question now before us is, does he speak definitely and expressly of such periods, or does he merely presuppose them in his revelation?"

Many learned men have adopted the first view; and have translated D", v. 5, 8, 13, &c. directly, period. This view has much in its favor. It is very certain that or may signify time, period. The Hebrews, even in the later books, when the language was much more cultivated, had no other word to express period: (for expresses an entirely different idea.) Isa, 63: 4, and a hundred other places furnish the proof of this. According to the usage of the language, therefore, or may here signify a period of indefinite length."

May not the following conjecture correctly represent his aim? (Moses' aim.)

By the first and second a &c. if this does in all cases mean 24 hours, he understood the chief day of each one of the divisions of creation: (so

that he, therefore, assumed real periods.) In each one of the six divisions, he names not only the determination of God that a work should be effected, and the progress of this work, but also the perfecting of the same; for which purpose he uses the formula, and it was so, ; and he saw that it was good, N. The day which solemnizes the perfecting this work, is with him, and rightly too, the chief day of the whole period. From the infinite number of days of which each one of the six periods may have consisted, he notices this one only, the closing day. With the notice of the perfecting of each division, the naming of the last day may always be placed in connection. In v. 4, 5, for example, the language may very properly be thus understood: When God saw that the light which he had separated from the darkness was good: i. e. acting according to his design and in a finished state, (he named the light day and the darkness night) the evening and the morning were the first day; (that is, the last day in the sense of the first division.) So also v. 7, 8. Thus was it with the firmament, which God called heaven: now the evening and the morning were the second day. So likewise v. 21, 22, it is related of a part of the beasts, that as they were all created, God found this part good, and also communicated to them the power of propagating themselves: then the fifth day appeared. As to the 3rd, 4th, and 5th days, this is still more evident.

"After the sixth chief day, the day which closed the last period, followed immediately a seventh for the commencing day of the period now following, &c."

It will be perceived that Hensler, in the latter part of the preceding remarks, has advanced an interpretation of the Mosaic days so different from all others, that it might properly be set down as a distinct method of reconciling geology with revelation. But as it is in fact merely another mode of proving the periods of creation to have been of indefinite length, we thought it might be conveniently noticed under this head. We have met with no other philologist who has given such a meaning to except Granville Penn. This writer, in attempting to prove that the demiurgic periods are common days, undertakes to show that □ in Gen. 2: 4, means the seventh natural day from the commencement of creation, or the first day of God's cessation from the work of creation, and not the whole of the six demiurgic days, as urged by Faber and other writers. Had Mr. Penn thought of the use which Hensler has made of this method of interpretation, he would probably have been very slow to adopt it.

But it is not merely semi-infidel German commentators who have defended the extension of the Mosaic days into indefinite periods of duration. In giving the history of this interpretation we have already mentioned several names that will have more weight with Christians than those of the ablest German neologists; and we will here add a few more. We give first the opinion of Rev. Samuel Lee, the present distinguished Professor of Hebrew in the University of Cambridge, England.

"Such a sense" (an indefinite and metaphorical sense of D) says he, "is fairly to be collected from Numb. 28: 26,-the day of first fruits. We have in Buxtorf's great Lexicon" or NO dies: late sumptum est Tempus, et synecdochice Annus." This the example will bear out. The compilers of the Seven Seast state that "Rozt is used in the sense of Rozgar (time), which is an appellation intimating opportunity (i. e. Kaiρòs,) as they say, this is the time (season, &c.) of such an one. In this case, therefore, it is indefinite. It is added, that the word is used in the sense of or, which is expressed also by nihar in Arabic§.”

* Comparative Estimate, Vol. i. p. 293. Second Edition, London, 1825. + Haft Kulzum, a valuable Persian Lexicon.

§ De Luc's Letters, p. 103.

The Persian of □ or day.

Professor Wait of the same University has also given a full and able vindication of this sense of the Mosaic days. But we have room only to quote a few passages.

"I have now," says he," aimed at the main question. If in other instances has this figurative sense, and if geology and philosophy in general oppose the idea, that the process of the creation was completed in six natural days, are we, when observing the fuller sense of the word in passages not to be disputed, authorized in confirming the size of the cosmogony to six natural days?"

"Now, as Glausius and others have shown, that where human properties and periods of time are predicated of the Divine Being, the language is necessarily anthropopathetical: connecting the Jewish opinion cited by Schoettgen, (that each or occupied 1000 years,) with St. Peter's assertion in Epist. 2, chap. 3: 8, we may without violence suppose, that or was simply a term expressive of each period of the creation, without actually defining the period of its continuance." "If so, the six D'D' were indefinite epochs. In corroboration of this, the first chapter of Genesis details the six D', during which the process advanced to its perfection; but in the second, at verse 4, we read of the creation of the heavens and of the earth in the day, or at the period (v) when the Lord God made them: therefore these six must be comprised in the individual □, and the term must imply an indefinite period*." "When we consider the stupendous work of the creation, it is consentaneous to sound criticism to presume, that if instances occur, in which y is invested with a wider signification than that of the ordinary day, in which it expresses periods of time not defined by the passage, it must a fortiori, have possessed this more ample and enlarged sense in the first chapter of Genesis." "From which collective reasons I have no hesitation in believing, that in the first chapter of Genesis referred to a period consisting of a length not to be determinedt."

This interpretation was also defended with much acuteness a few years ago by J. C. Prichard, Esq., well known as an able philologist and naturalist. Professor Jameson likewise has maintained this ground with no small ability§, and in our own country it has been ably defended by Professor Silliman]].

[To be concluded in our next.]

VII. Further Advantages of the Romanizing System.

To the Editors of the Calcutta Christian Observer.

DEAR GENTLEMEN,

I am happy to notice, that the Roman Character, as applied to the Indian languages, is yet making steady progress; and that the publication of volume after volume, from different presses, satisfactorily evidences the gradual extension of its circle of influence and usefulness.

I have lately read with much pleasure a letter from the Rev. B. Schmid, of the Nilgiri Hills, addressed to one who fully admitted the importance of using one character only, but had

De Luc's Letters, p. 109.

De Luc's Letters, p. 111.

Philosophical Magazine, Vol. xlvi. p. 285. Vol. xlvii. pp. 110, 258 and 431. Vol. xlviii. p. 111.

§ Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, 1832.

Bakewell's Geology, 2nd American Edition, p. 439.

advocated the introduction of the Nágarí character, as preferable to the Roman, for general adoption in India. It appears to me to contain some very satisfactory reasons for the union of all friends of education, literature, and religion in a determined effort for the rapid introduction of the Romanized system into India, and all other parts of the world; and, as the writer properly states, that these arguments may be considered in some degree supplementary to those which have been urged by Mr. (now Dr.) Duff and his associates, and which you originally published in your pages, I doubt not you will readily insert them. They are as follows:

1. It cannot be denied that it would prove highly important for the diffusion of knowledge, and for the spread of the gospel, if, not only amongst the Hindus, but also amongst all nations of the earth, one suitable set of characters were introduced; particularly for literary compositions, such as historical, philological, biblical, critical, geogra phical, &c.

As little will it be denied that if (e. g.) the Germans agreed to discontinue their Gothic (or, as they themselves call them, their monks') characters, and adopted an alphabet, the pronunciation of which was easily and perfectly understood by the English, many more individuals of that nation would feel encouraged to study this language. Under this impression, and for other similar reasons, a treatise in German is now actu ally preparing, to represent to that nation the advantages which would arise from their adopting (much more generally than it is done now,) the Roman characters, and to add the diacritical marks fixed upon by our Calcutta friends, with a few necessary modifications, so that the English and other nations may not only be able to read their works without difficulty, but also to pronounce each word correctly at first sight. It is hoped that such an appeal may not prove quite in vain. Some of your readers will perhaps smile at these "castles in the air;" but he who attempts nothing, will perform nothing! Fucilities for learning this Roman alphabet exist more or less throughout the habitable globe; and, even in India, if the schools where the English alphabet, and where the Devaná garí letters, are taught with energy and success, could be numbered up, I should think the English schools would be found to preponderate, both in quantity and quality, even now and what may be expected a few years hence, as British charity and British influence increase with every year? Whether all other alphabets shall disappear from the earth before the Roman, is a very different question, with which I have nothing to do. It will be decided by the lapse of 50 or 100 years, much more satisfactorily than by any discussion.

2. None denies that a more general spread of a more competent knowledge of the English language than hitherto, would be a great blessing for India; neither is it denied, that the printing of useful books in Hindu languages with Roman characters, would greatly encourage and facilitate a more general and successful study of this language. Why, then, should we not throw all our influence and exertion into the scale of the romanizing system?

3. The four Hindu dialects of Southern India are so nearly related to each other, that, if one knows one of them well, he can soon understand the other dialects too, and read the good books which may have been printed in any one of them. I know a Canarese man, who was so pleased