In addition to all the living creatures, Noah took with him into the ark “of all food that is eaten” (Gen. vi., 21). As there could be no room for Noah and his family to walk about distributing the food (and it would have been scarcely safe to have left it to natural selection), we must suppose that layers of animals and layers of food were packed alternately all through, and even this arrangement must have given rise to some awkward complications if, in order to save space, a pair of caterpillars were dropped in among the cabbages packed round the noses of a pair of guinea-pigs. One might almost imagine that the going forth from the ark must have been a lively ante-type of the general resurrection of the dead.
But yet again, in my efforts to realise this beautiful and divinely inspired history, I am almost afraid that I am being beguiled into blasphemy. “Lord, I (do not) believe. Help thou mine unbelief.”
It is blasphemy to deny that 4,232 years ago a universal flood took place, covering “all the high hills that were under the whole heaven” (Gen. vii., 19); the manner in which this was done is partly explained by Peter, who tells us that at that time the earth was “standing out of the water and in the water: whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished” (2 Pet. iii., 5, 6). This world—half in, half out of the water—is not any world known to history nor to science; there is not a shadow of proof of its existence, except that of divine authority; such a world has nothing in common with our own globe, a planet circling round the sun; the solar system, as we know it, would have been disorganised by the sudden increase in mass of one of its members; our globe has most certainly not been “overflowed with water” daring the last 5,000 years, for the cones built up of scoriæ from Mount Etna have been undisturbed for at least 12,000 years. If you believe the testimony of these hills, you must believe that divine authority has blundered over the deluge; but then, if you think this you will be damned, and if you say it Justice North will send you to pick oakum.
It is of divine authority that the ark came to land upon the mountains of Ararat (Gen. viii., 4) after its long and stormy voyage. The humming-birds, the tropical butterflies, the monkeys and the animals of the equatorial zone must have found it rather chilly during their seven-months’ stay in the region of perpetual snow, especially as there can have been no facilities for hot-water pipes in the ark. All the living things, tropical or polar, must have also suffered much from the difficulty of breathing on that exalted spot, as the waters went down and the higher atmosphere regained its normal rarity. But what are little difficulties of this sort to the true believer, especially when into the scale of belief are thrown the smile of god and the approval of Mr. Justice North?