The Sun.
London, England, 1860-10-12 00:00:00

DR CUMZEUNG ON PROPHECY.

(Franz the Manchester Examiner.)
The friends of Dr. Cumming will probably thank
us for hating afforded that learned gentleman an
opportunity of explaining all about the 21 years'
lease. It was ho who introduced the subject, and
the facts, as stated by himself, certainly seemed to
us susceptible of an awkward inference, affecting
not merely his inconsistency—the point which had
been already the theme of an amusing disquisition
in Punch—but his honesty. At the same time we
suggested it only as a matter which required to be
explained. • We were quite certain that a gentle-
man of such perfect unexceptionability of conduct
would be guilty of nothing which he deemed dis-
honest, or even unhandsome, but this only increased
our obligation to indicate an apparently weak
point, at which, if left unelucidated, some " scoffer"
might carp. Our commercial readers will best ap-
preciate the conclusiveness of the defence. The
payment of a certain rent for 21 years seems to
have been on the landlord's side the very essence
of the bargain, though his ignorance of prophecy
cannot be laid to the charge of Dr. Cumming. Each
acted according to the light that was in him ; and if
the balance would have been in the doctor's favour

it is an advantage to which he is not unfairly entitled
as a set-off against the time and labour which he has
devoted to prophetic studies. As a means of solving any
future difficulties of the same kind, there is one
arrangement which we incline to think entirely
fair. Should Dr. Cumming have occasion to take
up another 21 years' lease, let him first send to the
landlord a copy of his " Great Tribulation." If the
latter, with the facts properly explained, and, so to
speak, with his eyes open, chooses to close the bar-
gain, no outsider will have the slightest cause for
cavil. Dr. Cumming has taken our remarks on
this part of the subject a trifle too seriously. He
could not have shown more earnestness in rebutting
them even if he had felt their force.

Dr. Cumminc, charges us with having treated
the subject of his lecture with "levity, with iidi-
cule, and almost sceptic contempt." If he had said
that we had treated him in this manner, we would
have pleaded guilty at once. His pretensions cer-
tainly excite within us a scepticism the most pro-
found ; and as for levity and ridicule his own ex-
position of an inspired prophet was so grotesque
that.he had to caution his audience not to laugh—
an admonition which it was impossible not to dis-
regard. In fact, the hall rang with merriment.
In attempting to unveil the mysteries of Holy
-Writ, a severe taste might have led him to refrain
from interlarding them with the criticisms of
Punch. Think of the Prophet Isaiah being solemnly
( onfronted with the dog Toby ! Since the doctor
has taken up this style of rebuke, we will frankly
tell him the whole truth. We will avow, then,
that our reverence for the prophetical writings is
strong: enough to make us instinctively shudder
when ho subjects them to his horrible scalping
knife. He robs them to our mind of all their
mystery and beauty. He smears their drapery
with sordid mire, and fills their gorgeous visions
with smoke and soot and steam. When we see him,
spectacled and buttoned, with extracts from the
Times and Punch within the leaves of his Bible,
stalking up to the veil of the temple, and essay to
rend it from top to bottom, we remember how
sublimely the miracle was once achieved, and
begin to think that the latter times of the

scoffers" have arrived indeed. We feel shocked

at the ingrained coarseness of mind which
such treatment reveals. To feel its offensive-
ness it is not at all requisite to have a very pro-
fane taste—it is only requisite to have a moderately
religious one.

Irr. Cumming's treatment of the inspired writings
is chargeable with another result, against which it
would be only decent for a man in his position
_to
guard. We shall not presume to dispute with him
the use of th• Hebrew tenses, nor even to affirm
whether or not he wholly ignores the wide distinc-
tion which must be drawn between the laws of
grammar and those of rhetoric. When he tells us a
pist tense must be understood with a future signi-
fication, th "Woe" must be read " Ho," that
"shadowinwith wings" means " defending withula
naval force," that " ships of bulrushes" are sceiraes,
vessels, and " swift beasts" are railway locomotives,
we meekly incline our secular selves before
of divinity. But what will his hearers
upon
What practical conclusions will be forced
in the first
their minds ? They will conclude, a
think?
place, that they have been villanoeuas
i of Scrip-
the last 300 years out of the real uyncgheated for
1 ture. Nor is this all. Hone vewrulleycan
not another ?
be made to
undergo such a metamorphosis,
last the persuasion
In this way a haze of unc.elrltaatnty creeps over the
whole of the sacred test, till
version_ is useless and
is invincible that the commonun_ess
Dr. Cumming Zan be
positively mischieyo.cius,
But the scepticism thus
bound up along I
engendered goeswiftar idesper. It attaches to the
till the bewildered inquirer is
things themselves,
disposed to regard:n infallible interpreter as a
g.
nt of the inspired writings.
Thus, by str le ni
necessary campinfrom common sense, Dr. cum_
on the high road to Rome, a
place which Y
ming leads his flock
in
degree of horror he holds only
second to another which shall be nameless. As for
ordinary attempts to explain Scripture, Dr. Cum-
mings mode of procedure tends to bring them into
utter contempt. By his loose canons of interpreta-
tion you may prove positively anything. There is
no theory, however grotesque and absurd, which
could not be defended by the weapons he uses. If
it suited him to treat St. Peter with as much
freedom as he bestows upon the prophet Isaiah,
imagination can but faintly figure what his yester-
day's lecture might have been. In the name of
decency and sobriety, we protest against Dr. Cum-
ming 's sacrilegious nonsense. On merely literary
grounds and as a matter of taste, apart altogether
from the vital interests of religion, we stand up for
the august shades of these mighty men of old
against a modern theological thimblerigger.
In pursuit of this eminent divine we have wan-
dered a long way beyond our usual domain,though
as journalists we claim a right to speak on any:sub-
ject that interests mankind. We do this by virtue
of the all inclusive honzo sum. Besides, the sub-
jects treated on both occasions are intensely secu-
lar. The destiny of Great Britain—why, this is
what we are talking about and humbly trying to.
influence every day. The destiny of the Earth Is a

wider theme, which we will modestly leave in th
doctor's hands. We are delighted to learn that
and his children love their Tunbridge cottage be-.
cause a sprig of heather grows near it. This smacks
genuinely of human nature, which shows its,
toughness by thriving so vigorously on the extreme
verge of the present secular economy. Such senti-
mentality ought,however, to be held in firm check,
and our reverend friend must have a remarkably
happy temperament to be able to indulge it when.
such vast forebodings are rumbling in the distance.
Considering the spiritual condition of the world,.
considering the plight in which, to speak soberly,
the Dies Ira would find most men, Dr. Cumming
shows remarkable equanimity in beirtg able to ne-
gotiate a lease in order to spend the last seven years
of the present economy near a bit of heather. A bit
of heather ! Why, man, here are millions of immortal
souls whose longest torm of probation will not sur-
pass those seven years. In such circumstances, can
you, an honest Christian man, be sentimentalising
with your landlord over a bit of heather ? Such
inconsistency betrays the shallowness and un-
conscious insincerity of the theoriser, but does
not disclose one-half his mischievousness..
Suppose the year 1867 should pass with-
out a catastrophe, what will Dr. Cumming
have enabled the " scoffer" t°
Suroly it is say in 1868 ?
more
'discreet, more consonant
with the narrow powers and narrower province of
man, to confine ourselves to the plain path of duty ;
and instead of rushing in where angels fear to trend,
and setting before hand the times and seasons which
it is not given to man to know, to leave prophetic
mysteries in their proper gloom, and humbly wait
till Heaven becomes its own interpreter.