Provincial.

meek , lowly , loving souls—and Enoch the example quoted Enoch living near Adam was not in ignorance ; if the Bible was not written , nor writing itself invented in his day , still he was equally instructed in a revelation by the Adamic traditions of his time , which traditions , it is not hard to imagine , are incorporated now in the written words of God . But the parallel would not hold good between a believer now renouncing the word of his God and Enoch holding

steadfastly and faithfully to the holy traditions of the purest patriarchal religion . But still , granting , for the sake of argument , this postulate of the Bishop , we suppose in our hearts that he never intended to delude , but , as a piece of reasoning , it is a fair example of the absurd . The Bishop seems to say— " Believer , fling away your Bible , and you will then find comfort in the example of Enoch , who did without one . " Well , suppose it is done , and that I then go to the

Bishop of Natal to comfort my soul by the application of the example of Enoch ; his reply is , that Enoch being nowhere named in the Bible , and that as I have consented to throw away the Bible as false , it follows that there never was such a man as Enoch to derive comfort from . It is true that an educated and faithful people like our countrymen do but smile at the Bishop's conceits ; but religion wounded in the house of her friends , and sihing over the waste mission-fields of Africa might weep in

g effigy like " Rachel weeping for her children . " 0 ! the writer of that rash book hath need indeed of the prayers of the Church that he fall not away for ever like the first Bishop who fell ; that God would guide him into truth , and deliver him from the false lights of self-canonized doubts , which leave the soul stranded and a wreck upon the quicksands of infidelity and despair . Observe , again , the ladder rests upon the volume of the sacred law as an inspired word ; but the question arises

, " What are we to understand hy inspiration ? " Are we to accept the ridiculous definition which the Bishop is pleased to attribute to us as a fair representation of prevalent belief upon this point . I will read his definition , and your own heart will answer nay . The prevalent belief is that " every verse of the Bible , every word of it , every syllable of it ( where are we to stop ?) , every letter of it , is the direct utterance of the Most High . " "Such , " says the Bishop , " was the creed of the school

in which I was educated . God is my witness what hours of wretchedness I have spent in reading the Bible , devoutly from day to day . " If such were the Bishop ' s creed , we marvel not that his mind should undergo so violent , so indignant a reaction ; but we entirely deny his premises . Who ever was guilty of such an idolatry of a single letter even in the Bible , who ever approached a comma with the profound veneration described , or prostrated his whole soul before the mystery

of a semicolon ? We deny the charge . No church ever gave such an extravagant definition of inspiration , and , what is more , the Bible does not claim such a kind of inspiration for itself . Such a notion of inspiration supposes every word and letter in the book to have been written by God ' s finger , in our own modern language , and on an imperishable material , and that we gaze upon the very copy so composed . The truth is , that from the very nature of the case such a

primary inspiration is scarcely , if at all , compatible with any book written by man . And so there is no other claim in the Bible than the claim to gradational inspiration . It was primary inspiration when God spake on Sinai—spake to a prophet or spake by his son ; it was secondary inspiration which heard his word . The mind of man could not from its imperfection receive a perfect reflection of God ' s mind any more than the troubled or rippling surface of the lake could receive a perfect image of the

sun . And again , when that hearer of God's spoken word commits the same to writing , it becomes tertiary inspiration—inspiration , i . e ., in a lower degree—for a man cannot communicate to others in speech or writing the conceived word , or thought , or fact , exactly as he conceives it himself : it becomes , in fact , the reflection of a reflection . And then again , in the Bible history we come down to quartary inspiration . That history may speak of the Lord ' s battles , or the Lord ' s deliverances

of His people , or the Lord ' s doings—God may be said in this case to speak by action rather than by word , and the recorder of the action , inspired with a full love of truth iu seeking to learn the fact and express it correctly , lias to express it according to his own words , and his own peculiar method of thought and judgment . And , lastly , I think you must go on even to quinary inspiration if you take into your account the records of past events anterior to the writer—nay , evenanterior to writing —and which the writer has received as the most boly , the most

cherished , the most venerated traditions of his fathers ; and which , although apparently guarded with the sweet rhythm of sacred song , are yet liable to be coloured , however slightly , with the impressions belonging of necessity to the different minds by which they were reverently transmitted : like the slightly discrepant and yet harmonizing version of the traditions of our own wide-spread craft . You may agree with me , or you may differ from me , in this opinion of

gradational inspiration offered to you as humbly as it is reverently entertained ; but , nevertheless , we think that theminutely literal inspiration with which we are charged by the Bishop of Natal is certainly not the kind of inspiration which God's word challenges to itself . Its spirit , its essence , its very life , is its Divine inspiration . The prophet and the priest , the fisherman and the shepherd , trieking and the Lawgiverare the varied persons whowith varied

, , , tongues , and varied habits of thought , speak therein of God ; but amidst this variety we recognise one voice of God whicli . permeates the whole like one sweet strain of harmony from many instruments of diverse forms and construction . Can welearn more of God from records and traditions that from unaided nature ? I unhesitatingly reply—We can ! as the geographer or the traveller learns from his predecessors in research-Besides we can put no other book in competition with God ' s

word . The Bishop seems to propose as substitutes a passagefrom the Koran , a quotation from Cicero , and a hymn in honour of the Hindoo idol Ram . No , we reply , the Koran is nothing but a clumsy imitation of the Bible ; the Bible was the very standard of sublime sentiment long before Cicero wrote ; and as to the Idol Ram , the . word of God shall stand firm long after-Ram and other idols shall have been ' ¦ ' given to the moles and . to the bats . " We go to the Biblenot to ascertain the

precise-, ratio of increase in Israel , contented , as we are , to know that they did increase in accordance with the promise ; not to leant : how many people could stand at once in the court of the-Tabernacle ; not to learn the extent of the multitude which Joshua could address at one time ; not to know the kind of tents in which the migrating shepherds dwelt in the wilde ' rness ; not to know how their cattle could he fed in the wilderness whilst themselves were being fed by miracle ,- not to enquire

whether the High Priest carried the sacrifices beyond the camp in waggons like those used ages before in Egypt , or whetherhe employed the whole tribe of Levites , his appointed assistants , in the inferior ministrations of his office . We do not study God's Word to enquire whether the Israelites departingfrom Egypt were armed with swords or only with staves and other ready weapons;— -we go not to that word , iu short , to study any of those small niceties of criticism , as captious

asunprofitable , which the Bishop brings before us ; but we go to the Bible to meditate upon God , if , peradvenfcure , our character ,, like a flower of the field , may take- tint and freshness from gazing upon the sun . We cannot follow out the preacher any further , but after much more argument and illustration he concluded by an appeal to the Brethren in behalf of the funds of the County Infirmary . A collection was mode , and the amount realized— £ 10 18 s . 6 d .- —was at once handed over to

increasethe funds of that valuable institution . The brethren then re-formed in reverse order , and headed by one band , and brought up by a second , the whole party proceeded along King-street , Kenwyn-street , Calenick-street , up tothe Infirmary , thence down Lemon-street , and to the Town Hall , where the Lodge was again opened , and proceeded totransact the annual business . " The Prov . G . Treas ., Bro . E . TCarlyon , brought up his report for the past year , which showed

a balance , after paying the current expenses , of £ 168 Os . 2 d . Bro . REGINALD ROGERS , Prov . G . Sec , stated that the progress of Freemasonry in the province was very satisfactory . There were 468 members , being an increase of 54 oirthe former year . Two new lodges had been formed , and a third was about to be opened at Fowey . Several amendments to the rules wereconsidered , after which the following appointments of officers for the ensuing year were made : —

Bro . Aug . Smith , 3 I . P . Prov . G . Master . „ Reginald Rogers J ) . Prov . G . Master . „ W . H . Jenkins Prov . G . S . Warden . . „ Capt . Colville Prov . G .. T . Warden . „ Thos . Mills Prov . G . Treasurer . „ E . T . Carlyon Prov . G . Secretary . „ J . 0 . Mayne Prov . G . Assist . Secretary . „ Rev . W . J . Cooper ) „ r < ™ i „ Rev . W . H . Wright j Prov - G ' ^ plains .