“I am a firm believer in the Scriptures, but the attempt to offer a defence of my faith within the limits here assigned to me is a task I decline to enter on. If a personal reference may be pardoned by way of preface, I would say that my faith is not to be accounted for either by want of careful thought or by ignorance of the objections and difficulties which have been urged by scientists and sceptics. But just as the studies which charm the naturalist are an unknown world to those who are ignorant of the book of nature, so also the elements which make the Bible a fascinating volume to the believer do not exist for those who fail to possess the clew to its mysteries. ‘Truth brings out the hidden harmony, where unbelief can only with a dull dogmatism deny.’

“Neither can I attempt, under such restrictions, an apologia for the Mosaic account of creation. It is a part of the old revelation upon which Christianity is based, and one essential portion of it—the recorded origin of the woman—is enshrined in the Christian system as typical of the spiritual union between Christ and His people.

“But it will not be difficult within a few pages to show grounds for maintaining that the question here raised is still an open one, and that while among scientists generally the cosmogony of Genesis is ‘a principal subject of ridicule,’ their laughter may not, after all, be the outcome of superior wisdom.