scientists of the age.

During the hurricane season his
It has been a general

opinion is anxiously sought after..
custom for years for the Padre to inform the agents of the various
lines of the condition of the weather just prior to the departure of
the vessels. During the many years that this excellent work has
been performed it has on many occasions resulted in saving lives
and a great deal of valuable property." In another number the same
paper says: " Padre Viñes, for all that long period, without a
thought, or a hope, or even a possibility of a reward, but simply for
love of humanity, has continued his labors and given the result of
them gratuitously to masters of the vessels and others whose busi-
ness is affected by meteorological variations. . . . A man who
has done so much for the interest of American shipping and ship
owners, as has been done, for sheer love, by Padre Viñes, deserves
at least recognition by our government.”

Father Gangoiti is as accurate in his forecasts as was Father Viñes. We shall cite but one example-an example that comes home to us Americans. We refer to the sad destruction of Galveston.

On September 1, 1900, a cyclone of little force appeared in the eastern part of the Caribbean Sea, crossed the centre of the Island of Cuba, moved on W.N.W., passed south of Florida, acquired full force and terrific intensity in the Gulf, and on September 8th swept down on the helpless city of Galveston.

The United States Weather Bureau observer, on September 5th, announced that the hurricane was E.4N.E. of Havana, with a course N.N.E. and would spend itself on the Atlantic.

That very day Father Gangoiti published the announcement that the cyclone was south of Florida. On September 6th, at noon, he stated, through the press, that the storm was in the Gulf, and W.S.W. of Tampa. On September 8th, at 4 P.M., while Galveston was being torn to very pieces, he published his report that the currents of the right of the storm had been felt in Georgia and Alabama during the morning of September 7th, and in Louisiana during the evening of the same day; and that the very centre of the hurricane had reached Texas the morning of September 8th. By September 10th no word of the Galveston catastrophe had yet reached either the United States Weather Bureau or Belén. At 8 A.M. that morning appeared Father Gangoiti's press notices of clear signs that the tempest had grown very much fiercer and had prob

ably struck Texas. These notices the Father ends by saying that the Washington Weather Maps will settle whether his forecast or the Weather Bureau's was right. In grim array with Father Gangoiti's report stands this fatal forecast of the United States Weather Bureau observer: "This morning at the Weather Bureau we have noted slight indications that in the W.N.W. is forming an atmospheric disturbance scarcely worth mentioning." The Galveston storm went on and our Weather Bureau observer thought it an "atmospheric disturbance scarcely worth mentioning!"

A few hours after these characteristic reports appeared, the sad news of Galveston's fate began to arrive by cable. Later on both the Pilot Chart (October, 1900,) and the Weather Maps traced the trajectory of the Galveston storm exactly as it had been followed by Father Gangoiti in the press of Havana. The Cuban papers turned such a stream of ridicule on our Weather Bureau observer as to force him to send them no more forecasts. For a whole month the Havana press kept up its affectionate praise of Father Gangoiti.

The Belén Observatory may well be proud of its glorious halfcentury of scientific achievement. The hope is cherished in every nation of the world that its work in the future may be still more splendid; and from the United States, especially, whose great commercial interests in the Antilles depend to an incalculable extent on the scientific ability and the unflagging labor of the Observatory comes the recognition of the vast debt that has been incurred. The really scientific men of the country have never underestimated the immense value of the discoveries and the labors which have made Belén Observatory what it is to-day.

WALTER M. DRUM, S.J.

BIBLICAL INERRANCY.

THE doctine of Biblical Inerrancy has been defended by the Fathers of the Church from the earliest stages of Christianity. St. Irenæus upholds it against the Gnostics, St. Epiphanius against the Anomœans, St. Augustine against the Manichæans. Origen indeed distinguished between what the apostles and prophets said in their own name and what they said in the name of God; but even Abelard had his doubts as to the legitimacy of this distinction. Erasmus has been charged with admitting slips of memory on the part of the apostles. Holden required inspiration only for what is purely doctrinal in the Bible, or intimately and necessarily connected with doctrine; in other matters he granted to the inspired writers only the special assistance which God gives to all truly pious authors. Guizot and de Pressensé, too, restricted inspiration to matters of faith and morals, and the Abbé Le Noir found in the Bible geographical, chronological, scientific, and such like errors. But these stray voices are fairly drowned in the pronounced chorus of theological writers proclaiming the doctrine of Biblical Inerrancy.

Coming down to more recent times, we meet with the view of certain English writers, who doubted the inspiration of the so-called obiter dicta, and consequently also their inerrancy. Mivart extended this view so as to leave in the Bible only a few and far between passages that must be inspired. Among French writers, Lenormant denied the historical character of the first eleven chapters of Genesis; Didiot did not extend Biblical Inerrancy beyond matters of faith and morals; Monseigneur d'Hulst found certain inspiration only in matters of faith and morals, while in other matters he found either no inspiration or inspiration of a lower degree, which does not necessarily imply Inerrancy. Modified forms of these views were held in Germany by Langen and Rohling, in Italy by Semeria and Canon di Bartolo.

The most chameleon-like expression of this view is found in the November-December issue of the Abbé Loisy's publication entitled Enseignement biblique: "The Inerrancy of the Bible cannot imply the absolute truth of all its contents and all its propositions, whatever be their object. A book absolutely true for all times, in every sphere of truth, is no more possible than a square triangle. A book,

even if divine, ever remains a book; destined for men, it necessarily is also a human book. If a book absolutely true for all times, could exist, it would be unintelligible for all times. . . . The idea that the Bible is in positive and permanent agreement with all the results of all sciences, natural and historical, is too plainly contradicted by facts to be admitted by a critic who begins the study of the Bible without theological bias." This passage first appeared in November-December, 1893, but it was repeated in the Abbé's Études bibliques published in 1901, and part of it has found its way into our contemporary literature. But we must not anticipate.

When Catholic scholars in their earnest efforts to rebuff the attacks of anti-Biblical critics more than ever needed the clear guidance of the Church, our late Sovereign Pontiff, Leo XIII., complied with this need in his celebrated Encyclical Providentissimus Deus, which he issued on November 18, 1893, in the same year and the same month in which the Abbé Loisy first published the above-cited passage concerning Biblical Inerrancy or rather Errancy. "So far is it," says the venerable Pontiff, "from being possible that any error can co-exist with inspiration, that inspiration is not only essentially incompatible with error, but excludes and rejects it as absolutely and necessarily as it is impossible that God Himself, the Supreme Truth, can utter that which is not true. This is the ancient and unchanging faith of the Church. . Hence because the Holy Ghost employed men as His instruments, we cannot therefore say that it was these inspired instruments who, perchance, have fallen into error, and not the primary author. For by supernatural power He so moved and impelled them to write, He was so present to them, that the things which He ordered, and those only, they first rightly understood, then willed faithfully to write down, and finally expressed in apt words, and with infallible truth. Otherwise it could not be said that He was the author of the entire Scripture. Such has always been the persuasion of the Fathers. It follows that those who maintain that error is possible in any genuine passage of the sacred writings, either pervert the Catholic notion of inspiration or make God the author of such error."

No sooner had the voice of Leo been heard than it was re-echoed throughout the Catholic world. The Bishops of England, Scotland and Switzerland, most of the Catholic Faculties of Theology, and many men of note sent their letters of thanks and congratulation to the Sovereign Pontiff. Catholic students had found a new beacon

light in the darkness of investigation. The vivisection theories of Biblical critics must be discarded. There can be no more thought of a limited inspiration, no more question of partial Inerrancy. Every sentence of the Bible is inspired, every statement of the Bible is inerrant. All this is very simple and very clear; but the application of the formula every statement of the Bible is inerrant is manifold and farreaching. It is narrow enough to satisfy the theologian, and it must prove wide enough to satisfy the critic. It would amount to a miracle in the moral order, if in their explanation of the formula theologians should not endeavor to render its meaning too narrow, and critics should not try to widen it beyond its limits. We invite the reader, therefore, to follow us in an independent analysis of the formula, seeing that its true explanation is the true Catholic doctrine of Biblical Inerrancy.

Before entering upon our work of analysis, it may be well to satisfy the exceptions of some Catholic critics. 1° The nature of Biblical Inspiration and Inerrancy may not depend on the whims of philosophers as to the meaning of divine authorship; but neither does the meaning of Inerrancy depend on the whims of the critics. It will not do to close the Bible and philosophize in the abstract on the terms found in conciliar decrees; but neither will it do to open the Bible and close the catechism. In an investigation like the present, criticism and the Bible must have their say; but the councils and common sense must not be gagged. 2° There is need of prudence indeed on the part of the Catholic Bible student, but prudence is a two-edged sword. True science must not be opposed, but neither must true Catholic doctrine be abandoned. The experienced sea captain will lighten his ship sufficiently to weather the storm; but the storm will not make him cut the bottom out of his boat and throw it overboard. 3° Individuality of thought must be encouraged; but let the best part of individual thought be applied to a study of our Catholic doctrine. Good eyesight is not enjoyed solely by the explorer who penetrates into the wilds of Africa, and sees what no other human eye has ever beheld. Similarly, the fact that a truth was grasped yesterday by a human mind does not detract from the individuality of the mind which grasps it to-day. The reason is plain: a truth does not become more elementary simply because it has been understood by a hundred minds. Men who find individual thought only in the mind's perception of novel truths remind one of the