thus giving an older Patrick, whom he calls the preceptor of the Patron Saint of Ireland. The death of the latter, we have seen, Dr. Todd fixes, and rightly fixes, at 493, in accordance with the old stanza quoted by the chronicler Tighernac, who compiled his annals in 1088, which may be thus translated :— "From the birth of CHRIST, a pleasant period, Four hundred above fair ninety; Three noble years after that, To the death of Patrick, chief Apostle." The older Patrick is said to have died before 463, and to this agree the Annals of Ulster, which under 457 (recte 458) have:"The rest of old Patrick, as some books state." And with this the dates in the older annalist Tighernac nearly agree, as when he says, under the year 664, "A morte Patricii, anno cciii., which would place his death in the year 461, two years before the death of Laogaire. We are of opinion that this older Patrick was the first missionary to Ireland; that he was a different person from the Patrick who died in 493, whose glory seems to have eclipsed him, and who became the patron saint of Ireland; that he was also different from Palladius, who was also called Patricius, and whose acts have likewise contributed to make up the later legend; that to him belongs the Confessio, with that part of the legend which is built upon the facts he there narrates of himself; and that it is to him S. Fiacc alludes in his hymn, supposed to be written in the seventh century: "When Patrick died, he went to the other Patrick ; And both ascended together to JESUS, the Son of Mary." It is not impossible that the mission of the elder Patrick may have preceded that of Palladius, as we might infer from the "Confessio," which seems to imply that he was the first to carry the Gospel message to Ireland, and in which there is no allusion to Palladius; while in that part of the text of Nennius, which is to be attributed to the compilation in 823, his advent in Ireland is placed in the year 405 after the nativity of CHRIST.2 A pre-l -Palladian mission would account for the Scoti to whom Palladius was sent having been "in Christum credentes." Dr. Todd mentions this Sen Patraic, or Patricius senior, at 1 Petrie, Antiquities of Tara, pp. 95, 113. 2 A nativitate Domini nostri Jesu Christi usque ad adventum S. Patricii ad Hiberniam cccc.v. anni numerantur. page 307 of his work in the following terms, "And there was also an older Patrick called Sen Patrick, or Senior Patrick, of whom we shall say more presently," but he does not say any more of him presently, nor is there any other allusion to him throughout his volume, or the slightest hint that notices of him exist presenting a problem in the analysis of the acts of S. Patrick, a difficulty in the process of reducing his legenda to the consistent acts of an historic personage, equally worthy of solution with those of Palladius. We have no hesitation in recognizing Dr. Todd's book as a work of great learning and acuteness, as well as one calculated to throw great light upon a very obscure subject; but, till he grapples with these perplexing notices of the older Patrick, as he has done with those of Palladius, its conclusions cannot command our entire assent, nor can we consider the problem of the true history and position of S. Patrick, the Apostle of Ireland, as fully solved. THE MOSAIC RECORDS. 1. The Divine Week; or, Outlines of a Harmony of the Geologic Periods with the Mosaic "Days" of Creation. By the Rev. JOHN HARTLAND WORGAN, M.A., of Pembroke College, Oxford, late Rector of Willersey, Gloucestershire. London: Rivingtons. 1863. 2. The Mosaic Cosmogony. A literal translation of the first Chapter of Genesis, with Annotations and Rationalia. By ROBERT GEORGE SUCKLING Browne, B.D., formerly of Caius' and of S. John's Colleges, Cambridge; Fellow, twice elected, of Dulwich College; and Vicar of Atwick, Yorkshire. London: Masters. 1864. 3. History of Moses, viewed in connection with Egyptian Antiquities, and the customs of the Times in which he lived. By the Rev. THORNLEY SMITH, Author of the "History of Joseph," &c. Edinburgh Oliphant and Co.; London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co. 1862. WHEN Galileo propounded to the world the proof of the earth's revolution, the discrepancy between his discovery and the received interpretation of some passages of Scripture involved the philosopher in considerable inconvenience. In the centuries which have elapsed since then, these difficulties have been cleared away, and the danger which was anticipated has never arisen. Men who were predisposed to deny the authority of Scripture may have made the apparent discrepancies an excuse for their unbelief, but the faith of no religious man has ever been shaken by the fact, that Joshua spoke of the sun as revolving round the earth, whilst science acknowledged the revolution of the earth round the sun; for every one now admits that, if Joshua had spoken otherwise than he did, his words would have been unintelligible to the people for whom he wrote. If Dr. Buckland had lived in the days of Galileo he would probably have shared a similar fate, but as it is, grave doubts were entertained, five-and-twenty years ago, lest the discoveries of Geologists respecting the earth's crust, and the long duration of the periods necessary for the formation of the superincumbent materials, might not lead to an extensive unbelief in the records of the Bible. There were some who refused to believe in the facts which geology demonstrated because they were contradicted, not by the words of Scripture, but by the interpretations which they had been accustomed to assign them; while others were driven to discredit the authority of Scripture, on the supposition, thus forced upon them, that the revelations of the Bible were contradicted by the discoveries of science. The truth, we believe, has nothing to fear from the criticisms of science. The apparent discrepancies are only the result of our ignorance, and the advance of knowledge is continually clearing them up, and tending to the establishment of a perfect harmony between GOD's revelations and the discoveries of man. If GOD has permitted us in these last days to examine more minutely the book of nature, He doubtless has a purpose in so doing, and that purpose is, we believe, that the agreement between revelation and science may serve as an antidote to infidelity. All criticism conducted in a reverent spirit, and on sound principles, must be of service to the truth, and to disregard it must arise either from cowardice or indolence. The books which we have placed at the head of this article are therefore welcome, the former two as showing the agreement of geological discoveries with the Mosaic record of creation; and the other as answering, more powerfully, because without design, the objections of Bishop Colenso to the historical accuracy of the Book of Exodus. The first points out that what astronomy has done for space, geology has done for time, and that the extension of both, instead of diminishing our reverence for the Creator, only tends to augment the proofs of His Almighty power, His wisdom, and His love. The first question of course to be settled is the signification of the "days" of creation. If GOD had so willed, it needed not that six natural days of twenty-four hours each should be occupied in the formation of the earth. His Almighty fiat could have called into existence in a moment of time the heavens and the earth with all things that are in them; but when we find that God usually works by progressive means, we are naturally led to expect that He would create the universe in the same manner. The promise of the SAVIOUR was given four thousand years before His birth, and during all this time GOD was preparing men for His Advent. He might have become incarnate in the hour when our first parent fell, but such was not God's purpose. The earth again was gradually peopled with inhabitants descended from a single pair, whereas they might all have been created in one day; and therefore we might reasonably expect that the world should have been framed in the same gradual manner. And does Scripture contradict our expectation? We think not. The days and months of Daniel are not natural days and months, but periods of time. The day of the LORD is the coming on of Eternity; and why should we limit the days in which the work of creation was performed? A thousand years in GoD's sight are but as one day; and why may not the days of creation have been a thousand or ten thousand centuries? It neither removes the Creator further from us, nor sets a bound to His power. The difficulties lie altogether on the other side. Could those have been natural days, which passed before the sun and moon, which regulate them, were created? Could man have co-existed on the earth side by side with the Saurians and the monsters of a former period; or need we believe that these were created to perish in the first day of their existence? We find in the earth the fossil remains of creatures adapted to other circumstances than those under which man has existed, amongst which human remains are never found, and myriads of these reposing in strata upon strata. Need we believe that GOD created them in a fossil state, or that they came into being all at once, and as suddenly were exterminated, instead of being produced in that gradual order in which the earth was replenished? If again, "the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that in them is" includes, as is natural to suppose, the angelic hosts; it is not easy to believe that the creation of angels took place but a few days before man was placed upon the earth. There were great events which took place in the interval. There was the rebellion of the angels, the war in heaven, and the eternal banishment of the rebels. Milton assigned nine days to the fall of the devils from heaven to hell, and although this of course is only a poetic fiction, yet it is a proof that the poet did not limit the actual creation of all things to six natural days. If, however, we regard the days of creation as periods of indefinite length, not only are the records of Scripture harmonized with the discoveries of science, but great light is thrown on the saying of the SAVIOUR, "The Sabbath was made for man." testifies that whilst the former days saw the creation and extinction of the creatures which were formed in them; the seventh day was the last of the series. GOD rested from the works of creation, and man, destined for a higher sphere, shall not pass away like the former inhabitants of the earth. Man is still the last in the order It of time, and of his day there shall be no end. Mr. Worgan has well drawn out this in the last chapter of his book. In the previous day there had been evening and morning; the evening representing the darker portion of each day, in which the works of creation were obscure and imperfect, compared with the fuller development they had reached at its close. Thus our present mortal state is as the evening compared with the morning of immortality which shall succeed. "Thus," says Mr. Worgan, "in calling an Age a 'Day' with its divisions as familiar to man, Divine Wisdom has condescended to endeavour by the use of a term adjusted to our littleness, to enable us to conceive of a magnitude which utterly transcends our powers; and has graciously set before us truths, of which otherwise we could know nothing, in terms such as will convey to us the fact, though it may not elucidate the details. If each then of the six days' had its night and its day, the seventh or divine Sabbath has the same. The present portion thereof is the night; the day we conclude will dawn at the morning of the resurrection. "It is not then, we conceive, a mere poetic imagination, but is in perfect harmony at once with the deductions of science and the conclusions of theology, that the condition of man, as he is in this his period of probation with faculties dimmed, and powers, physical and intellectual alike, undeveloped, especially when that condition is contrasted with what it will be, when he shall be gathered to the assembly of the saints in light, with every endowment fully blown, and expanded under the bright enlivening rays of the Divine glory, is practically a state of darkness, a timid groping, with faltering steps, in the bewildering gloom and withering cheerlessness of night.”—The Divine Week, p. 164. The institution of the Sabbath need not be an objection to this view. It was but on a little scale that man could comprehend the works of GOD, and therefore the natural week, with the Sabbath at its close, might serve to indicate, by a weekly commemoration, the works of GOD to the minds of men. Do we not follow the same course in our annual celebration of Easter? CHRIST was once raised to die no more, but yet we annually celebrate His death and resurrection. Nor is this all; every week we commemorate the same events. Each Sunday reflects a borrowed light from Easter day, so well expressed by the poet of the Christian Year. "Thou art the light of other days, "Enthroned in thy sovereign sphere, It is not our purpose to follow Mr. Worgan's argument throughout, for this would include the entire range of geological research. |