general opprobrium by pressing the obvious consequences of their
teaching home. One is therefore pained to think of the feelings
with which, if he lived so long as to become acquainted with the
"Dictionary of the Bible," he must have perused the article
"Noah," written by a dignitary of the Church for that standard
compendium and published in 1863. For the doctrine of the
universality of the Deluge is therein altogether given up; and I
permit myself to hope that a long criticism of the story from
the point of view of natural science, with which, at the request
of the learned theologian who wrote it, I supplied him, may, in
some degree, have contributed towards this happy result.

Notwithstanding diligent search, I have been unable to discover
that the universality of the Deluge has any defender left, at
least among those who have so far mastered the rudiments of
natural knowledge as to be able to appreciate the weight of
evidence against it. For example, when I turned to the
"Speaker's Bible," published under the sanction of high Anglican
authority, I found the following judicial and judicious
deliverance, the skilful wording of which may adorn, but does
not hide, the completeness of the surrender of the
old teaching:--


Without pronouncing too hastily on any fair inferences from the
words of Scripture, we may reasonably say that their most
natural interpretation is, that the whole race of man had become
grievously corrupted since the faithful had intermingled with
the ungodly; that the inhabited world was consequently filled
with violence, and that God had decreed to destroy all mankind