The Antediluvian History. By the Rev. E. D. Bendel]. Second
edition... (F. Pitman.)—The author, who is not apparently a clergyman of the Establishment, holds the first seven chapters of Genesis to be allegorical. Adam is a religious community. The Garden of Eden is the mind of man in its original celestial condition. The serpent is the sensual principle in Adam's character, and so forth. This kind of specu- lation seems to us quite monstrous if put forth as a representation of what the writer of Genesis meant. It may have been, of course, but the Scripture narrative might be interpreted into fifty other things with quite as much probability. If, however, the book be looked at as an exposition of morality suggested to Mr. Rendell by the text of Scripture there is much in it original, and even instructive. The tone and temper of the work are unexceptionable.
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