Notes Critical and Practical, on the Book of Genesis. By George Bush [pp. 271-301]

Bush on Genesis.
son of this region, the improbabilities of such a theory; that
"the presence of hot-springs, sulphur, and asphaltos, furnishes
no certain proof of the anterior existence of a volcano."
"With respect to the ingulphed cities," adds this celebrated
traveller, "I adhere to the account given in Scripture, without summoning physics to my aid."
We follow the inspired narrative to verse 26, where we
are told that "the wife of Lot looked back from behind him,
and she became apillar of salt." Upon which our author
comments thus: "We may suppose with great probability
that the saline and sulphureous matter, which, in consequence
of the eruption, was showering down from the atmosphere,
gathered around the unfortunate woman, as a nucleus forming
a thick incrustation which gradually became hardened, till
at last she stood a massive pillar of this mineral matter," &c.
Though this is quite in character with what precedes, we
feel the additional surprise that Professor Bush, calling up
such a picture before the imagination, could have transferred
it to paper. We should as soon think of referring the death
of Ananias and Sapphira to apoplexy, oir of Nadab and Abihu
to the accidental firing of their garments in their official
duties, as to find here any plausible account of this visitation.
It is, we confess, heartily revolting to our feelings, to follow
such a rational description as throws in the back ground
the terrible presence of an avenging God. We ask no naturalist to tell us what ingredients could have formed such a
solid compound-from what neighbouring crater they might
have come-or how the heated naptha, nitre or bitumen,
might have dashed against the devoted object. When God
needs such ready magazines to furnish him with means of
vengeance, or when we can believe it any part of his object,
to conceal this signal judgment under the cover of natural
causes, we will attend to this embalming process. But the
sacred text suggests to us physical difficulties in the way of
such an hypothesis. We are told (verse 25) that Lot entered
into Zoar as the fiery fluid poured upon the plain; and the
phraseology of verse 26, shows us that his wife was close
behind him. This would convey the idea that she had already advanced beyond the range of the showering flames,
and could not easily have been involved in the catastrophe of
Sodom. And why suppose one miracle merely to avoid
another? Some critics, anticipating this difficulty, have inferred that.she must have returned to the city, and perished
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