more and more of His Truth, and that He Himself is willing, and able as He is willing, to protect His own.

Securus judicat Orbis Terrarum! It is a word of mighty meaning this, which a great writer of the present day has set before us, as the strength and solace of his mind in a time of trial. But it is a word which, as it seems to me, reaches far beyond the meaning which that writer himself has given to it. 'What all men everywhere feel to be true, must needs be truesubstantially true for all.' When God by His Spirit has quickened the hearts of men all over the world, as He has done in this our day,—has vastly increased the intellectual light which shines around us,—has made the different sciences give up their stores of treasure to a multitude of enquirers,—has led the greatest thinkers to perceive that many popular religious notions are contradicted by the facts thus disclosed, and, contemporaneously with this, has stirred deep questionings within the minds of others, which have taught them to see, and to point out to their brethren, that these popular religious notions are not truths, are not of the essence of religion, may be dismissed, as popular errors, without for a moment shaking our trust in God for this life, or our hopes for eternity,-when all this is taking place not in England only, but among earnest and devout men in almost every Christian country of the world,—we may surely say, Securus judicat Orbis Terrarum! and go on calmly and confidently in the belief that the Living God Himself is with us, that the Work and the Power are His, and we cannot gainsay, we cannot withstand it.

If, then, I am asked, 'What shall bind us together in one?' I answer, God Himself will do it in His own good time and way, by breathing into us more of the spirit of Charity, and infusing into us more of the love of Truth for the Truth's sake.

We shall then, while maintaining earnestly those views, which, on grounds which seem to us sufficient, we believe to be true, bear lovingly with those who differ from them, if only we perceive that they are living according to the light which they have, and following after GoD, as dear children. That wider views must be held in future on the subject of Scripture Inspiration and the Infallibility of the Bible, seems now to be pretty generally admitted. And, doubtless, other dogmatic statements, which have hitherto been received with a like unreasoning acquiescence, will have to be modified from time to time in accordance with advancing knowledge. It may be also that the very freedom from ecclesiastical domination, which is now assured to our colonial Bishops, coupled with the fact, which Bishop GRAY admits while he laments it, that they are not bound to teach or maintain anything, as required of necessity to eternal salvation, but what they shall be persuaded may be concluded and proved by the Holy Scriptures,' or to require their clergy to do anything more than this,—may contribute to the progress of honest research and free enquiry, at home, as well as abroad. As Bishop of Natal, I am now at full liberty to continue and complete the laborious work in which I have been engaged, and to publish the results of my enquiries, relieved from the intolerable yoke of absolute Church authority, but subject always to that of Her Majesty, the Queen, from whom I received my appointment, and from whom I may at any time, for just cause shown, receive my dismissal. But, if the Bishop is free, so also should be, and, as far as I am concerned, shall be, the clergy of Natal, to speak their honest convictions on these points, and instruct their people in such knowledge as they themselves have gained. They need not fear check or censure, because, for instance, they may

have explained to their Flocks how true religious lessons may be drawn from the Scripture accounts of the Creation, the Fall, and the Deluge, while yet they have taught them also, in private or in public, that the results of Modern Science-which ought to be familiar to the great body of their hearers-prove beyond all doubt that these accounts are not historically true.

On this subject some weighty words were spoken by Sir CHARLES LYELL, Bart., at the recent anniversary of the Geological Society of London, which I commend to the reader's attention. They were reported for me by a friend, and, having submitted them to the speaker's inspection, I am at liberty to state that they express correctly the substance of his address.

In the discussions which I have lately heard, on the propriety of certain writers having openly declared the modifications in their views, to which they had been led by new discoveries in Science, I have heard some able scholars of about my own age gravely declare that, while they highly approved of researches in Science and Biblical Criticism, and were interested in seeing the light which modern researches in physics, languages, ethnology, and antiquities, were shedding on the interpretation of Scripture, and while they were of opinion that questions arising out of these enquiries should be thought out and communicated to the learned, they yet regretted that they were not all published, as they would have been some four centuries ago, in the Latin language, so as to be confined to a circle which could be safely entrusted with such novelties, without there being any danger of unsettling the creed of the multitude.

I cannot help being amused when I try to imagine what would have been the sensations of these friends of mine, if they had happened casually to drop into the theatre in Jermyn Street, when Professor HUXLEY was lecturing on the origin of species and of the various races of mankind, or when Professor RAMSAY was giving the course of lectures, which he has just concluded, on geological time, and observed that these discourses, delivered gratis, or for a mere nominal fee, in a Government establishment, were addressed to the working classes, to a large, intelligent, and enthusiastic audience composed of the artisans of London,--that they were given not to a select few and in a dead language, but in the vulgar tongue, in good, impressive, clear, often eloquent, English,-what, I say, would have been the reflections of my friends upon the want of judgment shown by the teachers of the present generation, in freely communicating such knowledge to such a class of students.

But, if it were possible to limit the communication of new truths to a privileged class, you will, I am sure, agree with me that it is not desirable or right to do so, and that no state of society can be conceived more dangerous than one, in which the distance between the opinions of the educated few and the less educated millions is continually becoming wider and wider, in matters in which all must take the deepest interest.

There is, however, another step in advance, which it is high time for scientific laymen to take, if they would be true to themselves and to Science. It is not enough that they should themselves communicate freely to all the new truths at which they have arrived. They should lend their encouragement, sympathy, and support to those members of the Clergy, a body to whom the education of the millions is mainly entrusted, who boldly come forward to make known such truths as Science has established, even when they necessitate the modification of some of those theological and traditional opinions, in which we have all been brought up. They should admire and honour them for the sacrifices they are ready to make in their efforts to reform the popular views of Scripture, and to bring them into harmony with the conclusions deduced from scientific enquiry. Above all, they should protest against the doctrine of those who hold that, the moment any one of these teachers, appointed by the Nation, has acquired a clear knowledge of some of these new truths, he should resign his post, and give place to some other, who, being ignorant, could conscientiously go on teaching the old doctrines, or, not being ignorant, could reconcile it with his sense of duty to teach others what he does not believe himself.

I thus send forth my Fifth Part into the world, content with knowing that this volume contains the most important portion of my Work, so that if, in God's Providence, I should be prevented from completing it, I shall have at least carried it so far as to secure the main object of my labours, and shall have placed the composite character of Genesis, and of the Pentateuch generally-as well as the unhistorical nature of its narratives -fairly and fully before the eyes of English readers.

Most heartily and sincerely do I thank those many friends in England, of the Clergy and Laity, who have aided me in these trying times, publicly and privately, with counsel and comfort, who have stood by me in the hour of conflict,-who have sustained me with kind words, and defended me by

generous deeds, the remembrance of which will never depart from me.

I now return to the duties which have been so long interrupted-of late, by circumstances not under my own control. In the midst of those duties, I shall find frequent opportunity for acting on the principles which I have here enunciated, and shall rejoice in breathing myself, and helping others to breathe, the fresh, free air, which the recent decisions have made it now possible to breathe within the bounds of the National Church. I shall also, as I hope and fully purpose, find time to pursue these enquiries, and, perhaps, hereafter return to publish them. But all these things are in the bands of God. Should I never return, I bid my friends in England farewell, to meet them again, I trust, on another shore. But, if I should return, a few years bence, it is my firm belief that, as we are now all thoroughly ashamed of those trials and executions for witchcraft and sorcery, (so strikingly and painfully depicted in Mr. LECKY's noble work, The Rise and Influence of Rationalism in Europe,) which disgraced the Christianity of our forefathers in the Middle Ages, nay, even down to much later days,-in which even good men and true, the pious and the learned, took their part, reviling, persecuting, drowning, burning, for the love of Christ and of the souls of men, the innocent victims of religious fanaticism,*-so I shall find in that day my fellow

*Happily, in England much greater moderation seems to have been exercised in the actual treatment of cases of witchcraft, than in most other countries. Mr, LECKY says, I.p.134:-'In reviewing the history of witchcraft in England, it is impossible to avoid observing the singularly favourable contrast which the Anglican Church presents, both to continental Catholicism and to Puritanism. It is, indeed, true that her Bishops contributed much to the enactments of the laws against witchcraft,-that the immense majority of the Clergy firmly believed in the reality of the crime,-and that they continued to assert and to defend it, when the great bulk of educated laymen had abandoned it. It is also true that the scepticism on