Page:Biblical Biology.pdf/7

 creature, and yet there is not a trace of its existence outside this book of God.

Ezekiel is a book of priceless value from our present point of view. Who can read without his heart thrilling of the living creatures that "had the likeness of man," and such a man—a man with four faces, with four wings, with a calf's feet, and a man's hands, sparkling like burnished brass, looking like burning coals of fire and like the appearance of lamps (Ezek. i., 5—13). The likeness is clearly not to any man of the past, so it must be to a man of the future, and under these circumstances well might John the Apostle say that "it doth not yet appear what we shall be" (1 John iii., 2). In the tenth chapter of Ezekiel the same creatures appear again and are named cherubims, and we learn the additional fact that "their whole body, and their backs, and their hands, and their wings, and the wheels were full of eyes round about" verse(verse [sic] 12), a superfluity of visual organs that must have been almost confusing to the possessors. First cousins to these extraordinary creatures must be the four beasts of Revelation, who are "full of eyes within" (Rev. iv., 8), an arrangement admirable for introspection, but otherwise slightly unsatisfactory. I am almost inclined to think that these four beasts are made out of one of Ezekiel's, for a careful comparison shows that, barring the multiplication of wings, one beast is exactly a quarter of a cherub.

Jonah's experiences are full of valuable biological information. The whale (compare Matt. xii., 40), which was a "great fish" (Jonah i., 17) living in the Mediterranean Sea, and the internal arrangements of which were suitable for swallowing a prophet and affording him lodging for three days; the gourd which grew up in a night, and the worm which "smote" the gourd (Ibid iv., 6, 7)—are not these known to and admired by every student of holy writ?

Space fails to draw attention to all the biological revelations made in this blessed book, but I cannot pass over the withered fig-tree without a word. As against the story so beautifully told (Matt. xxi., 18, 19; Mark xi., 12—14, 20, 21) of this unhappy tree, on which Jesus "found nothing but leaves, for the time of figs was not yet," it is alleged by infidel critics that if the season for figs had not arrived it was absurd for Jesus to expect to find any, and