The word which is looked at as significant of present day advance is " Science;" and the great principle of science, so far as it is really that, is induction, or, to state it more fully, induction before deduction; which merely means that you must have your facts before you can argue upon them. Nobody, surely, would be likely to dispute that, and yet all error in reasoning comes from the disregard of it. Induction, or the gathering of facts, must be as full as possible in order that the result may be in any way a success. This, in what is commonly called " Science," creates indeed the Uncertainty of much that is counted so. The field is so vast, the facts are so many, who can be sure that he has gathered all that are necessary to be taken into account ? Theory will not do here. All theories are tentative merely. You must start with what cannot be questioned, or questions will grow upon you as you proceed.

What an immense advantage the study of Scripture has here when, in the mercy of God, we have His complete revelation, with all its immensity, nevertheless put for us in so small a compass ! But here also the trouble has been,-is constantly everywhere- in the incomplete gathering of the facts of Scripture. It is almost incredible, until you begin to search for yourself, how loosely Scripture has been read, how little it can be fairly said to have been studied. If it be the word of God, then it is a mere insult to Him to credit Him with any idle word. "All Scripture, given by inspiration of God, is profitable for doctrine." If that be true, then whatever be before us in it, it may be a date, it may be a list of names, it has to be accepted as in this way "profitable ; " not to enable men merely to write history, but "for doctrine"-for truth which is to be blessing to the soul. But who proceeds upon this principle altogether ? How much really has Scripture been studied after this fashion, every part of it given its place and its proportionate place ? Yet apart from this, any commentary upon it must of necessity be vitiated in result just as much as the conclusions of science from an imperfect induction.

It has long been my desire to take up once more the book of Genesis throughout, seeking to apply everywhere this principle, to leave no fact of Scripture unexamined, to treat nothing in it as of no importance (or even of little), but to seek, as God may enable, to get everywhere to the bottom of things, where assuredly we shall find the perfection of Scripture fully established in its blessing everywhere for the soul. Such an attempt as this will of necessity make one very conscious of utter feebleness, and that God alone, after all, can give us in any wise that which we seek. But the attempt, nevertheless, is that which alone can give Him fully the honor that is His due, and is therefore that in which one can count upon the fullest blessing.

It is proposed in this way to take up a book which is the introduction to all Scripture, the divine account of everything from its beginning, and which faith can surely receive as an account complete and even exhaustive for the purpose for which it is given. It is, however little as people may accredit it as that, the primary book of science itself, giving all the fundamental principles which are outside the reach of human investigation. What science can teach us of creation ? The beginning of everything is just that which is least of all accessible to man. The germs 'of all living things are perhaps as such undistinguishable from one another, yet in development the diversity of their nature soon becomes apparent. But think of an account of all this by the Author of it ! How can we talk of any science whatever that can be compared to this ? And people say Scripture is not intended to teach science ! Who told them so ? It was intended to teach just what it does teach. God's work is none of it without significance. Nature itself will be universally allowed to have much to teach us. Why should not God then teach us about nature ? How poor and unworthy must be that knowledge of things which it is unworthy of Himself to give us ! It is not so. The whole beautiful perfection of nature itself rebukes the supposition. Is there no message from God to us in all this ? Christians, alas, in their decision to think only of what they call spiritual, and let all material things drop almost out of account spiritually, have thus given the infidel the surest possible ground for his attack upon Scripture. If there are laws in nature, whose laws are they ? And will they reveal nothing of the Lawgiver ? If Christ is He in whom all things subsist, will not the whole frame of nature, His handiwork, declare Himself ? How false and dishonoring to Christ is any other thought ! It will be the endeavor, then, in this contemplated study of the book of Genesis, to follow every statement that we find in it, as far as possible, to its legitimate results; to seek to explore every track that leads into the known or into the unknown; not theorizing beforehand as to what we shall find there, nor seeking to do anything, but to allow Scripture to speak for itself, and to reveal its own perfection without any supplement of mere human thought or theory, yet not fearing to examine, by what will thus be divine light, whatever in human thought may seem to be in opposition to it. Are there not many to whom a voyage of discovery such as this may prove, will have not merely attraction for the mind, but be of deepest spiritual interest and importance ? Yet it is hoped in all this to preserve all practicable simplicity, that none of the Lord's people may be shut out from whatever is of Himself. If they are His, they have already within them that Spirit that "searcheth the deep things of God," and who is given to guide us into all truth. We must be subject to Him, to learn of Him, and there is no hope as to Scripture that any but the man of God will be "furnished" by it "thoroughly to every good work." For such, however, all truth will be found practical, and in all Scripture, from cover to cover, not a part of it that is not stored with divine riches, and accessible to us just so far as there is faith to lay hold of that which God has given. F. W. Grant. Nov. 1901

The above is inserted as being of touching interest as one of the last articles written by our beloved brother, who hoped to be permitted to take up more exhaustively than he had hitherto done, the study of the book of Genesis. But our God willed otherwise, and our brother has gone to his rest. But besides this, which we may call personal interest attaching to the article, it contains that which we believe will be for edification, and we trust a fresh stimulus to study the word of God. ed.