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3 1924 074 445 481 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tlie Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
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primitive: NEBUL; 
 
CREATION 
 
 THE BIBLICAL COSMOGONY IN THE 
 LIGHT OF MODEKN SCIENCE 
 
 ARNOLD GUYOT, LL.D. 
 
 BLAIB PBOFESSOB OF GEOLOGY AITD FHTSICAL GEOGBAPHT IN THE 
 
 COLLEGE OF SEW JERSEY. AXJTHOB OF "EAKTH AUD 
 
 MAH." MEMBER OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY 
 
 OF SCIENCES OF AMERICA. ASSOCIATE 
 
 MEMBER OF THE ROYAL 
 
 ACADEMY OF TURIN, 
 
 ETC., ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHABLE8 SCKIBNER'S SONS 
 
 1884 
 
 ijiN r/ ■ ,r] I I Y 
 
^ s t ^\ 
 
 /0^^^ff>\ 
 
 G-H^ 
 
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 4.J ■- '■ ^ / 
 
 COPTEIGHT, 1884, ET 
 
 CHAELBS SCEIBNEE'S SONS 
 
 Q^'-U^^^t^/l.-^-tvl 
 
 .-^-^ '^-r^- 
 
 Jft 
 
 TROWB 
 
 miNTINQ AND eOOKBINOING COMFVU«V 
 
 New YORK. 
 
TO MY BELOVED WIFE, 
 
 "WHOSE EVKE KEADY EEABT JJlfD 
 
 HAHD, THSOUGH GENTLE MTNISTBT DUEING 
 
 LONG ■WEEKS OP ILLNESS, ALONE BXYE RENDBBBD 
 
 POSSIBLE THE ISSUE OF THIS LrTELB BOOK, THESE LEATES 
 
 ABE OFFERED AS A TRIBUTE OF THE PROFOUND 
 
 AFFECTION OF HER ATTACHED HUSBAND 
 
 THE AUTHOR 
 
PREFACE, 
 
 In the beginning of the winter of 1840, 
 having just finished writing a lecture on 
 the Creation which was to be a part of a 
 public course of Physical Geography that 
 I was then delivering at Neuchatel, Swit- 
 zerland, it flashed upon my mind that the 
 outlines I had been tracing, guided by the 
 results of scientific inquiry, then available, 
 were precisely those of the grand history 
 given in the First Chapter of Genesis. In 
 the same hour I explained this remarkable 
 coincidence to the intelligent audience 
 which it was my privilege to address. 
 Before that time, though acquainted -with 
 
VIU PREFACE. 
 
 the principal attempts to put that most 
 ancient writing in accordance with the 
 geology of the day, I had found them en- 
 tirely inadequate, and had suspended my 
 judgment on the question — waiting for 
 more light. 
 
 A further study of this interesting sub- 
 ject allowed me to perfect many a detail, 
 and, though the general outlines remained 
 the same, to perceive more and more the 
 deep philosophical meaning of the plan 
 and the connection of all the parts of that 
 wondeiful Record. 
 
 Since that time I have been requested 
 again and again to express these views, 
 both in private and in public, but they 
 first appeared in print in the Evening 
 JPost^ March, 1852, as a series of abstracts 
 from a public course of lectures which I 
 was delivering in New York 
 
PEEFACE. IX 
 
 The substance of these articles fur- 
 nislied the foundation of an extensive 
 critical review of the same ideas, by Rev. 
 Dr. O. Means, in the Bihliotheca-Bacra of 
 March and April, 1855, in connection with 
 other proposed explanations of the bibli- 
 cal account of creation. 
 
 Later still I was called upon to lecture 
 on this subject in the College of New 
 Jersey ; and several years in succession in 
 the Theological Seminary of Princeton. 
 At the request of the Trustees of the 
 Union Theological Seminary of New York, 
 I expounded the same views in a coui'se of 
 twelve lectures, in the year 1866, on the 
 Morse Foundation, then just established. 
 
 Prof. J. D. Dana did me the honor to 
 endorse them, almost in full, in his remark- 
 able article, on " Science and the Bible," in 
 the January number of the Bihlioiheca- 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 Sacra, in 1856. He also adopted them in 
 his manual of Geology, which first ap- 
 peared in 1863. 
 
 A complete though much condensed ex- 
 position was given, by invitation, before 
 the Evangelical Alliance assembled in New 
 York, in 1873, which is found printed in 
 the volume of its Proceedings, New Yort, 
 1874. 
 
 These dates may serve to show that 
 whatever be the value of this interpreta- 
 tion, in making clear the true meaning and 
 import of the First Chapter of Genesis, 
 it has been worked out independently of 
 later publications giving the same or simi- 
 lar opinions. 
 
 Having been repeatedly asked by intelli- 
 gent laymen, as well as clergymen, where 
 an exposition of my views could be found, 
 it became evident to me that, owing to the 
 
PREFACE. XI 
 
 limited circulation of tlie Evangelical Al- 
 liance volume, the paper did not attain the 
 full measure of its usefulness. This con- 
 viction induced me to yield to the request 
 to publish it in a more accessible and con- 
 venient form, with such additions and il- 
 lustrations as might elucidate the subject 
 more fully. 
 
 The results of the so-called modern, 
 higher criticism, whose object is to shake 
 the faith in the authenticity of the Book 
 of Genesis, have not even been alluded to. 
 These conclusions have often been fully 
 refuted by more competent men than their 
 authors. 
 
 It seemed best to retain the synoptical 
 character of the article. Experience has 
 taught me that extended critical discus- 
 sions on all the possible interpretations of 
 the text, or on the philological meaning of 
 
Xll PEEFACE. 
 
 certain words, are likely to engender con- 
 fusion and perplexity, rather than to estab- 
 lish a definite and well-grounded conviction 
 on the subject. 
 
 I have faith in the power of a simple 
 and clear presentation of the truth. Such 
 an one has been attempted here. May my 
 brother scientist, as well as the believer in 
 the Bible, find in the following pages new 
 reasons for accepting the truths contained 
 in this sacred document as the revelation 
 of a God of love to man. 
 
 A. GUTOT. 
 
 Princeton, New Jersey, December, 1883. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 L 
 
 FAOB 
 
 Intkoducdon, 1 
 
 n. 
 
 Plan op the BbbiiIcaii Account of Creation, . 9 
 
 m. 
 
 What the Eecobd Teaches, 20 
 
 IV. 
 
 What Htt.p can Modern Sciencb give us in un- 
 derstanding ABIGHT THE STATEMENTS OF THE 
 BmiiE, AND HOW DO THE TWO BeCORDS COM- 
 PARE? 24 
 
 V. 
 
 The Prologue, 29 • 
 
 VI. 
 
 The PEmrnvB State of Matter when First cre- 
 ated, . . ..... 33 
 
 vn. 
 
 The Eibst Cosmogonic Dat, 43 
 
XIV CONTENTS. 
 
 Yin. 
 
 PACE 
 
 Second Cosmogonic Day, 54 
 
 IX. 
 Third Cosmogonic Day, ... . . 72 
 
 X. 
 TnTKD Cosmogonic Day coNTisnED, . . . .83 
 
 XI. 
 Fourth Cosmogonic Day, . . . 92 
 
 xn. 
 
 EiPTH CosMOGOMO Day, 95 
 
 xm. 
 
 SrcTH Cosmogonic Day 120 
 
 XIV. 
 Sixth Cosmogonic Day continded, .... 122 
 
 XV. 
 Ihe Seventh Day. The Sabbath op Ckbation, . 131 
 
 XVI. 
 Conclusions, 137 
 
LIST OP ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 I. — PKurrnvE Nebxtla, . . . Pronti^ece. 
 
 n. — CmCniiAB NEBtTLA — Spibaii NeBTOiA, 
 
 To face p. 65 
 TTT. — ^The Photosphere of the Eabth Disap- 
 
 PBAKENG, 
 
 rV. — SHiUBiAN Age, . 
 V. — Devonian Age, 
 VI. — Oaebonifebotts Age, 
 Vn. — ^Mesozoic Age, 
 Vm. — ^Tertiabs Age (Dinotherium), 
 IX. — Teetiabt Age (Mammoth), 
 
 To face p. 72 
 95 
 103 
 HO 
 114 
 118 
 121 
 
 The geological Ulustrations are engraved from p7u>tograp?is 
 of original paintings, belonging to the series executed by B. W. 
 Hawkins, Sc.D., for the E. M. Museum of Geology and 
 ArchoBology of the College of New Jersey, Prinxxton. 
 
CREATION; 
 
 OH, 
 
 THE BIBLICAL COSMOGONY IN THE LIGHT 
 OF MODEEN SCIENCE. 
 
 I. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The Biblical Narrative and the Ancient Cosmogonies 
 contrasted — The two Becords : Bible and Nature — 
 The true Method of the Interpretation of Both — Our 
 Point of View. 
 
 The saered volume, containing the revela- 
 tions that God, in his wisdom, chose to 
 give to man, fitly opens with a short ac- 
 count of the creation of the material 
 world, animated nature, and of man him- 
 self. On this great question of Creation, 
 
CKEATION. 
 
 which implies the relation of God to his 
 creatures, of the finite to the infinite — a 
 question insoluble for human philosophy 
 — man had to be taught from on high. 
 
 In all ages of history men have ac- 
 knowledged the necessity of such a reve- 
 lation. In the organized, primitive, as 
 well as in the later communities, we al- 
 ways find as, a part of the religious code of 
 laws on which the social order is founded, 
 a similar history of the creation of the 
 universe — a cosmogony — for which their 
 authors claim a divine origin. 
 
 The Bible narrative, however, by its 
 simplicity, its chaste, positive, historical 
 character, is in perfect contrast with the 
 fanciful, allegorical, intricate cosmogonies 
 of all heathen religions, whether born in 
 the highly civilized communities of Egypt, 
 the Orient, Greece, or Rome, or among the 
 savage tribes which still occupy a large 
 portion of our planet. By its sublime 
 grandeur, by its symmetrical plan, by the 
 
INTKODUCTION. 3 
 
 profoundly philosopHcal disposition of its 
 parts, and, perhaps, quite as much by its 
 wonderful caution in the statenaent of 
 facts, which leaves room for all scientific 
 discoveries, it betrays the supreme guid- 
 ance which directed the pen of the writer 
 and kept it throughout within the limits 
 of truth. 
 
 In all these respects this most ancient of 
 written documents deserves special atten- 
 tion on the part of all enlightened minds, 
 while the sacredness of its character 
 doubles for us the duty of studying it in 
 a reverent, but candid, impartial, and truth- 
 loving spirit. 
 
 Side by side, another manifestation of 
 the same divine mind, the book of Nature, 
 itself the work of God, is open to our 
 curious gaze. To man alone, among all 
 created beings, has been granted the privi- 
 lege of reading in it, by patient and intel- 
 ligent researches, the innumerable proofs 
 of the almighty power and wisdom of its 
 
CREATION. 
 
 author ; for man's mind alone, in the world 
 known to us, is akin to the mind which de- 
 vised the wonderful plan unfolded in that 
 great Cosmos which we call Nature. 
 
 Both these books, the Bible and Na- 
 ture, are legitimate sources of knowledge ; 
 but to read them aright we must remember 
 the object and true character of their re- 
 spective teachings, which are by no means 
 the same. 
 
 The chief design of the Bible, throughout 
 the saci'ed volume, is to give us light upon 
 the great truths needed for our spiritual 
 life ; all the rest serves only as a means to 
 that end, and is merely incidental. 
 
 In the first chapter of Genesis, when 
 describing in simple outlines the great 
 phases of existence through which • the 
 universe and the earth have passed, the Bi- 
 ble does not intend to reveal to us the pro- 
 cesses by which they have been brought 
 about, and which it is the province of as- 
 tronomy, chemistry, and geology to dis- 
 
INTRODUCTION. O 
 
 cover; but, by a few authoritative state- 
 ments, to put in a strong light the rela- 
 tions of this finite, visible world to the 
 spiritual, invisible world above, to God 
 himself. Its teachings are essentially of 
 a spiritual, religious cliaracter. 
 
 Destined for men of all times and of all 
 degrees of culture, its instructions are 
 clothed in simple, popular language, which 
 I'enders them accessible alike to the un- 
 learned, to the cultivated man, and to the 
 devotee of science. 
 
 The knowledge we derive from Nature 
 reaches us only by our senses. A faithful 
 study of God's visible works, and sound 
 deductions from the facts carefully ascer- 
 tained are the foundations on which the 
 science of nature rests. But from these 
 finite premises no logical process can de- 
 rive the great truths of the infinite, super- 
 natui'al world which are given in the 
 Biblical narrative. Nature's teachings, 
 grand as they are, belong to the finite 
 
CREATION. 
 
 world, they are of a material and intel- 
 lectual order, and cannot transcend their 
 sphere. If the immensity of the boundless 
 universe, in the midst of which we live, 
 awakens in us the idea of the infinite, it 
 cannot prove it, nor, governed as it is, by 
 the necessary operation of invariable laws, 
 can this visible world throw any light upon 
 the mysteries of that invisible domain in 
 which love and fi'eedom reign supreme. 
 
 Let us not, therefore, hope, much less 
 ask, from science the knowledge which it 
 can never give ; nor seek fi'om the Bible the 
 science which it does not intend to teach. 
 Let us receive from the Bible, on trust, the 
 fundamental truths to which human science 
 cannot attain, and let the results of scientific 
 inquiry serve as a running commentary to 
 help us rightly to understand the compre- 
 hensive statements of the Biblical account 
 which refer to God's work during the 
 grand week of creation. Thus we shall be 
 convinced, if I do not greatly err, that the 
 
INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 two books, coraing from the same Author, 
 do not oppose, but complete one another, 
 forming together the whole revelation of 
 God to man. 
 
 In reading the Biblical narrative, to 
 cling to an interpretation obviously dis- 
 proved by the testimony of God's works, 
 as many well-meaning, but unwise believ- 
 ers have done, is to refuse the light placed 
 before us by God himself. On the other 
 side, to decline, as many still do, a ^HoW, 
 to believe in the possibility of this antique 
 document agreeing in its statements with 
 modern science, because its author could not 
 have had, it is supposed, such knowledge, 
 before the discoveries of our day, is to be 
 governed by a preconceived opinion. This 
 question should be submitted to an impartial 
 examination, as a question of fact. To do 
 otherwise is as unscientific as it is unjust. 
 
 If we do neither, but, without prejudice, 
 faithfully use all the means of interpreta- 
 tion at our disposal, we may hope to see 
 
» CREATION. 
 
 this question of fact decided in the affirm- 
 ative, and the clouds which have ob- 
 scured the majestic simplicity of that no- 
 ble record dispelled forever. 
 
 In ofEering a simple and clear exposi- 
 tion of his own matured views, the writer 
 is not without strong hope that the rea- 
 sons which have determined his conviction 
 may equally satisfy the minds of his fel- 
 low-seekers after truth, whether in the 
 domain of Nature, or in that of Holy Writ. 
 
 Taking this view of the Biblical account 
 of creation, and of the method of its inter- 
 pretation, let us consider : 
 
 The plan of the narrative. 
 
 What it teaches. 
 
 What help modern science, by its best 
 results, can give us in understanding arjght 
 the concise statements of the Bible which 
 relate to the method of creation. 
 
 This last investigation will tell us 
 whether or no, and in what measure, the 
 two records difEer or asrree. 
 
IL 
 
 PLAN OF THE BIBLICAL ACCOtTNT OF CREATION. 
 
 The document before us for examination 
 begins with tlie first chapter of the Book 
 of Genesis and ends with the third verse 
 of the second chapter. It is complete in 
 itself, forming an organic whole which un- 
 folds the history of the creation of the 
 material universe and of living beings, in- 
 cluding man as a part of nature. 
 
 By the symmetrical regularity of its ar- 
 rangement, by the tone of its language, 
 and the specific use of certain words, it is 
 stamped with an individuality not to be 
 mistaken. In this the name of Grod is in 
 the plural foi-m, Eloh'im, the triune God 
 of the universe, the Father, the Word, and 
 the Spirit, who all appear in the work of 
 creation. 
 
10 CREATION. 
 
 In the secoud narrative, beginning with 
 the fourth verse of the second chapter, 
 which takes up, under another aspect, the 
 creation of man as the head of the family 
 of humanity, and specifically of the Jew- 
 ish people, chosen by God as its spiritual 
 representative, guardian of the true knowl- 
 edge of God and of His oracles concerning 
 the promised Kedeemer, God's name is 
 Jehovah. 
 
 That difference in the name of the Crea- 
 tor in the two documents, the Elohistic and 
 the Jehovistic, as they have been termed, 
 has caused many to believe that both were 
 not due to the pen of the same author, or 
 that Moses had before him two ancient 
 documents which he simply admitted in 
 his Book of Genesis. This may, or • may 
 not be so. It is not the place to discuss 
 this question, since we only propose to ex- 
 amine the first narrative in itself, without 
 regard to the sources of information at the 
 disposal of its author. We may say, how- 
 
BIBLICAL ACCOUNT OF CREATION. 11 
 
 ever, that the obvious difEerence in the aim 
 of each narrative seems sufficient to justify 
 the difEerence in the expressions used in 
 describing the creation of man and woman 
 and in the name of the Creator, without 
 recurring to a double authorship which is 
 in itself improbable. 
 
 The Biblical account of creation is not 
 an ordinary narrative. The majesty of 
 its simple and almost rhythmic language 
 gives it the charm of a grand poem, with a 
 prologue, a developing drama, and a tri- 
 umphant conclusion. Moreover, a closer 
 analysis reveals a plan profoundly philo- 
 sophical, which has been too much over- 
 looked by its expositors, but will be noted 
 here, though its full signification will be 
 shown hereafter. 
 
 The history of Creation is given in the 
 form of a grand cosmogonic week, with six 
 creative or working days, preceded by an 
 introduction, and closing with a day of 
 rest — the Sabbath of God as a Creator. 
 
12 CREATION. 
 
 Each day is marked by a special work, and 
 begins with an evening followed by a 
 morning. These six days are subdivided 
 into two symmetrical series of three days 
 each. Both series begin with Light — the 
 diffused, cosmic light in the first, the con- 
 centrated solar light in the second. In 
 both series the third day has two works, 
 while the others contain but one. The 
 first series describes the arrangement of 
 the material world — it is the Era of mat- 
 ter ; the second, the creation of organized 
 beings, animals and m^n — it is the Era of 
 life : two trilogies in this great drama of 
 creation, corresponding to the two great 
 spheres of existence which precede the 
 historical age of man. Such symmetry of 
 plan cannot be accidental : it is full of 
 meaning, as we soon shall see. 
 
 The following tableau will put in a clear 
 light the symmetrical arrangement of the 
 parts and the special work of each cos- 
 mogonic day. 
 
BIBLICAL ACCOUNT OF CREATION. 13 
 
 The translation of the text, here given, 
 which adheres closely to the original, was 
 made at my request by Prof. Henry C. 
 Cameron, to whom I offer my sincere ac- 
 kno wledgment. 
 
 THE PEOLOGUE. 
 
 a. The Pkimokdial Cjeceation. 
 
 In the beginning God created the Heavens and the 
 Earth. 
 
 6. The PRiMiTrvE State or Matter. 
 
 And the Earth was desolateness and emptiness. 
 And darkness was upon the face of the deep, 
 And the Spirit of God brooded upon the face of 
 the waters. 
 
 EBA OF MATTER. 
 
 FIRST COSMOGONIC DAT. 
 
 WoEK. — First Activity of Matter — Cosmic Light. 
 
 And God said, " Let light be," and Light was. 
 
 And God saw the Light that it was good. 
 
 And God separated the Light from the darkness. 
 
14 CREATION. 
 
 And God called the Light Day, and the darkness 
 
 he called Night. 
 And evening was, and morning was, day one. 
 
 SECOND COSMOGONIC DAT. 
 WoKK. — Organization of the Heavens. 
 
 And God said, " Let there be an Expanse in the 
 
 midst of the waters. 
 And let it separate the waters from the waters." 
 And God made the Expanse, 
 And separated the waters under the Expanse from 
 
 the waters above the Expanse. 
 And it was so. 
 
 And God called the Expanse Heavens. 
 And evening was, and morning was, day second. 
 
 THIRD COSMOGONIC DAY. 
 FiEST Work. — a. Formation of the Earth. 
 
 And God said, "Let the waters under the Heavens 
 be gathered to one place. 
 
 And let the dry land appear." 
 
 And it was so. 
 
 And God called the dry land Earth, and the gather- 
 ing of the waters called he Seas. 
 
 And God saw that it was good. 
 
BIBLICAL ACCOUNT OF CREATION. 15 
 
 Second Work. — b. The Plants. 
 
 And God said, "Let the earth bring forth vegeta- 
 tion, herb bearing seed, fruit tree yielding fruit 
 after its kind whose seed is in it, upon the 
 earth." 
 
 And it was so. 
 
 And the Earth brought forth vegetation, herb bear- 
 ing seed after its kind, and tree yielding fruit 
 whose seed is in it after its kind. 
 
 And God saw that it was good. 
 
 And evening was, and morning was, day third. 
 
 ERA OF LIFE. 
 
 FOURTH COSMOGONIO DAY. 
 
 The Work. — 2Tie Solar Light. 
 
 And God said, " Let luminaries be in the Expanse of 
 
 the Heavens to separate the day from the night ; 
 
 And let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for 
 
 days and for years. 
 And let them be for luminaries in the Expanse of 
 
 the Heavens to give light upon the Earth." 
 And it was so. 
 
 And God made the two great luminaries, 
 . The great luminary for the dominion of the day. 
 The small luminary for the dominion of the night ; 
 The stars also. 
 
16 CREATION". 
 
 And God placed them in the Expanse of the Heavens 
 
 To give light upon the Earth, 
 
 And to rule over the day and over the night 
 
 And to separate the light from the darkness. 
 
 And God saw that it was good. 
 
 And evening was, and morning was, day fourth. 
 
 FIFTH COSMOGOmC DAT. 
 
 The Work. — Creation of the Lower Animals, in 
 Water and Air. 
 
 And God said, " Let the waters teem with creeping 
 creatures (swarm with s warmers), hving beings. 
 
 And let birds fly over the earth, across the face of 
 the expanse of the heavens." 
 
 And God created the great stretched-out sea mon- 
 sters (tanninim). 
 
 And all living creatures that creep, which the waters 
 breed abundantly after their kind. 
 
 And every winged bird after its kind. 
 
 And God saw that it was good. 
 
 And God blessed them, saying, 
 
 " Be fruitful and multiply. 
 
 And fill the waters in the seas. 
 
 And let the birds multiply on the earth." 
 
 And evening was, and morning was, day fifth. 
 
BIBLICAL ACCOUNT OF CREATION. 17 
 
 SIXTH COSMOGONIC DAY. 
 
 The First Work. — a. Creation of Higher Animals 
 on Land. 
 
 And God said, " Let the Earth bring forth the living 
 
 creature after its kind, cattle and creeping 
 
 things, 
 And beasts of the earth after their kind." 
 And it was so. 
 And God made the beasts of the earth after their 
 
 kind, 
 And the cattle after their kind. 
 And every creeping thing of the ground after its 
 
 kind. 
 And God saw that it was good. 
 
 The Second Work. — 6. Creation of Man. 
 
 And God said, "Let us make man in our image, 
 
 after our likeness. 
 And let them have dominion over the fish of the 
 
 sea. 
 
 And over the birds of the heavens. 
 
 And over the cattle, 
 
 And over all the Earth, 
 
 And over every creeping thing that creepeth upon 
 
 the Earth." 
 2 
 
1 8 CREATION. 
 
 And God created man in his image, 
 
 In the image of God created he him ; 
 
 Male and female created he them. 
 
 And God blessed them. 
 
 And God said to them, 
 
 " Be fruitful and multiply 
 
 And fill the earth and subdue it. 
 
 And have dominion over the fish of the sea 
 
 And over the birds of the heavens. 
 
 And over every living creature that creepeth upon 
 the earth." 
 
 And Grod said, " Behold, I have given to you every 
 herb beaxing seed, ■which is upon the face of all 
 the earth. 
 
 And every tree in vrhich is the fruit of the tree yield- 
 ing seed ; 
 
 To you they shall be for food. 
 
 And to every living creature of the earth. 
 
 And to every bird of the heavens. 
 
 And to every thing that creepeth upon the earth in 
 which there is life, 
 
 I have given every green herb for food." 
 
 And it was so. 
 
 And God saw aU that he had made, and behold it 
 was very good. 
 
 And evening was, and morning was, day the sixth. 
 
BIBLICAL ACCOUNT OF CREATION. 19 
 
 SEVENTH C0SM060NIC DAY. 
 
 No Work. — Conclusion— The Sabbath. 
 
 Thus the Heavens and the Earth were finished. 
 
 And all the host of them. 
 
 And on the seventh day God ended his work which 
 
 he had made ; 
 And he rested on the seventh day from all his work 
 
 which he had made. 
 And God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, 
 For in it he rested from all his work which God had 
 
 created and made. 
 
 Such is the regular plan of that opening 
 chapter of the Holy Scriptures. Before 
 we enter, however, into the consideration 
 of its details, which to be well understood 
 may require some explanation, let us see 
 what are the great spiritual teachings 
 which are obvious to all. 
 
III. 
 
 WHAT THE EECOKD TEACHES. 
 
 The great spiritual truths emphatically- 
 taught by the narrative are : a personal 
 God, calling into existence by his free, 
 almighty will, manifested by his word, 
 executed by his spirit, things which had no 
 being ; a Creator distinct from his creation ; 
 a universe, not eternal, but which had a be- 
 ginning in time ; a creation successive — 
 the six days ; and progressive — beginning 
 with the lowest element, matter, continu- 
 ing by the plant and animal life, terminat- 
 ing "\vith man, made in God's image ; thus 
 marking the great steps through which 
 God, in the course of ages, gradually real- 
 ized the vast organic plan of the Cosmos we 
 now behold in its completeness and unity, 
 and which he declared to be very good. 
 
WHAT THE KEOORD TEACHES. 21 
 
 These are the fundamental spiritual 
 truths which have enlightened men of all 
 ages on the true relations of God to his 
 creation and to man. To understand them 
 fully, to be comforted by them, requires 
 no astronomy nor geology. To depart 
 from them is to relapse into the cold, unin- 
 telligent fatalism of the old pantheistic re- 
 ligions and modern philosophies, or to fall 
 from the upper regions of light and love 
 infinite into the dark abysses of an unavoid- 
 able skepticism. 
 
 Accepted by man, these simple truths 
 already form a code of religious doctrines 
 which free him forever from the dread of 
 the blind, irresistible forces of nature, 
 whose worship is the foundation of all the 
 polytheistic religions of antiquity ; for he 
 knows Nature to be not a huge, all-power- 
 ful, unconscious, unfeeling despot, but a 
 creature of God, governed by His laws and 
 subject to His supreme will. 
 
 Adding to these teachings those in the 
 
i>2 CREATION. 
 
 second chapter, the great fact of the fall 
 of man and the promise of a Redeemer, we 
 have the Primitive Gospel the Prot-evan- 
 gelium of the antediluvian Patriarchs, the 
 preservation of which was the object of 
 the election of Noah as the head of the 
 new spiritual humanity, after the destruc- 
 tion, by the Deluge, of the unfaithful, and 
 of the call of Abraham, another believer 
 in that Primitive Gospel, whose descend- 
 ants were to keep that blessed knowledge 
 until the coming of Christ. 
 
 But thinking men, as well as men of sci- 
 ence, crave still another view of this narra- 
 tive ; an intellectual view we may call it. 
 They wish fully to understand the meaning 
 of the text when it describes the physical 
 phenomena of creation. 
 
 Are the statements relating to them a 
 sort of parable to convey the spiritual 
 
WHAT THE RECORD TEACHES. 23 
 
 truths just mentioned, or are they facts 
 which correspond to those furnished by 
 the results of scientific inquiry ? 
 
 The answer to this question brings us 
 to our third point, the treatment of which 
 will occupy the remainder of these pages. 
 
IV. 
 
 WHAT HELP CAN MODERN SCIENCE GIVE ITS IN 
 ■DNDERSTANDING ARIGHT THE STATEMENTS 
 OF THE BIBLE, AND HOW DO THE TWO REC- 
 ORDS COMPARE? 
 
 At first sight, the difficulties are not few. 
 The holy record speaks of the light before 
 the sun ; of days with an evening and 
 morning, before our great luminary could 
 give a measure of time for them; of a 
 firmament which separates the waters from 
 the waters ; of the earth with its continents 
 and seas, preceding the sun and moon ; of 
 plants growing without the sunlight neces- 
 sary to their existence. These are prob- 
 lems which reqture a solution. 
 
 Many, attempting to make the great pe- 
 riods of geology to correspond to the six 
 creative days, failing to see that Moses 
 
3I0DERN SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE. 25 
 
 confiaes the whole of palseontological geol- 
 ogy, from the beginning of life in the Cam- 
 brian and Silurian, up to the Tertiary and 
 Quaternary ages within the fifth and the 
 sixth Cosmogonic days, could not, of course, 
 find any correspondence and gave up the 
 narrative in despair. Some have tried to 
 obviate these difficulties by supposing a 
 gap between the act of primordial creation 
 and the work of the first day — a vast gnlf 
 into which they sink all the astronomy and 
 geology of the past ages. 
 
 Others believe the narrative to be an 
 accommodation to cosmogonic ideas cur- 
 rent at the time it was written. Others 
 again make it an ideal history having no 
 connection with real facts in nature. 
 Some have even gone so far as to conceive , 
 it to be a series of local phenomena which 
 occui'red during six days of twenty-four 
 hours, representing phases analogous to 
 those through which the earth has passed, 
 thus disavowing its cosmogonic character as 
 
26 CREATION. 
 
 a history of the universe and the earth, and 
 making of the account a pretended history 
 of six solar days, founded upon imaginary 
 facts of Avhich geology has no knowledge. 
 
 As neither this pretended history nor 
 the true one could have been witnessed by 
 any human being, man having been created 
 last, it is not conceivable that God should 
 have chosen that mode of revelation rather 
 than the true history of the creation. 
 
 Two fundamental errors, both refuted 
 by Moses himself, as we shall hereafter 
 see, have caused these misinterpretations. 
 First, that the history of the earth begins 
 at the second verse, discarding therefore 
 the organization of the heavens and mis- 
 applying the work of the first and second 
 day to the earth alone. 
 
 Second, making the six cosmogonic days 
 solar days of twenty-four hours, whereas, 
 according to the text, such days could only 
 exist after the appearance of the sun on 
 the fourth cosmogonic day. 
 
MODERBT SCIENCE AND TBTE BIBLE. 27 
 
 We have no riglit to treat such a docu- 
 ment lightly, when the holy writer de- 
 clares that, " Thus the heavens and the 
 earth were finished, and all the host of 
 them " (Gen. ii. 1) ; and again, " These 
 are the generations of the heavens and of 
 the earth'''' (Gen. ii. 4), we must accept 
 this solemn declaration, and believe that 
 he intends to give us a veritable history of 
 both. 
 
 Guided by this view, we shall consider 
 the cosmogonic days as the organic phases, 
 or the great periods of the history of the 
 universe, and not of the earth alone, and 
 look for the special work done in each, in 
 the order indicated by Moses, viz., the 
 primordial creation and primitive state of 
 matter, first ; Light as the beginning of the 
 activity of matter and the organization of 
 the heavens, next; the formation of the 
 terrestrial globe of the earth, after, and the 
 appearance of the sun and of organic life, 
 with man, last. 
 
28 CREATION. 
 
 After using faithfully all the light 
 which the present science can shed upon 
 each of these great topics, we may hope to 
 be able to say with Moses : "These are the 
 generations of the heavens and of the 
 earth." 
 
 Let us now examine each portion of 
 the narrative by itself, beginning with the 
 prologue. 
 
V. 
 
 THE PROLO&UB. 
 
 The Introduction to the work of the six 
 days is comprised in the first and second 
 verses, in which are recorded : 
 
 a. The primordial creation of the matter 
 of the universe. 
 
 h. A description of the original state of 
 matter when first created. 
 
 a. In the first verse we are taught that 
 this universe had a beginning ; that it was 
 created — that is, called into existence — and 
 that Grod was its creator. The central idea 
 is creation. The Hebrew word is hard^ 
 translated by create. It has been doubted 
 whether the word meant a creation, in the 
 sense that the world was not derived from 
 any pre-existing material, nor from the 
 
30 CREATION. 
 
 substance of God himself ; but the manner 
 in which it is here used does not seem to 
 justify such a doubt. For whatever be the 
 use of the word bard in other parts of the 
 Bible, it is employed in this chapter in a 
 discriminating way, which is very remark- 
 able, and cannot but be intentional. It oc- 
 curs on only three occasions, ihef/rst crea- 
 tion of matter in the first verse, the first 
 introduction of life in the fifth day ; and 
 the creation oi man in the sixth day. 
 
 Elsewhere, when only transformations 
 are meant, as in the second and fourth 
 days, or a continuation of the same kind 
 of creation, as in the land animals of the 
 fifth day, the word asdh (make) is used. 
 JBard is thus reserved for marking the first 
 introduction of each of the three great 
 spheres of existence — the world of matter, 
 the world of life, and the spiritztal world, 
 represented by man in this visible economy 
 — all three of which, though intimately 
 associated, are profoundly distinct in es- 
 
THE PROLOGUE. 31 
 
 sence, and together constitute all the uni- 
 verse known to us. 
 
 Again, it is a significant fact that in 
 the whole Bible where the simple form of 
 bard is used it is always with reference to 
 a work made by God, but never by man. 
 
 What have science and philosophy to 
 say about it ? Absolutely nothing. Crea- 
 tion out of nothing is a fact beyond their 
 pale ; it is the miracle of miracles. Both 
 science and philosophy must start from ex- 
 isting premises, and nothing is no premise. 
 Their universal, logical, conclusion, there- 
 fore, is that what is always was, in some 
 form ; and what is here called creation is 
 but transformation, and, if so, that the 
 Universe is God, or of God's substance. 
 
 Whether we conceive, vdth the Brah- 
 min, that the material universe is an ema- 
 nation from the Deity ; or, with the old 
 Egyptians, that it is itself a developing 
 God; or, with modern materialism, that 
 it is the sole existing substance, and the 
 
33 CREATION. 
 
 source of all the phenomena ever observed 
 iu nature and in man, pantheism and ma- 
 terialism are at the door, with all their in- 
 ternal impossibilities, and with all the con- 
 tradictions they engender in the bosom of 
 the free, moral, spiritual being, in the heart 
 of humanity. 
 
 We have, therefore, to accept, on trusty 
 the truth of creation as an ultimate fact, 
 not to be reached by any reasoning pro- 
 cess, but which, being accepted, makes 
 clear to the mind and heart the relations 
 of the universe, and of man to God. Thus 
 Paul's declaration remains forever true : 
 " Through faith we understand that the 
 worlds were framed by the word of God." 
 
 Hence the necessity of a direct revela- 
 tion of these fundamental truths, to which 
 human wisdom could not attain in any 
 other way, and which without the sanction 
 of God's word were doomed to remain sim- 
 ple hypotheses, incapable of proof. 
 
VI. 
 
 THE PRIMITIVE STATE OF MATTER WHEN FIRST 
 CREATED. 
 
 b. This is described in the second verse : 
 "And the earth was desolateness and 
 emptiness; and darkness was upon the 
 face of the deep; and the Spirit of God 
 brooded upon the face of the waters." 
 
 Two words here — the eartJi and the wa- 
 ters — must be rightly interpreted before we 
 can proceed with safety. After the majes- 
 tic exordium in the first verse, embracing 
 the whole creation, it is not without some 
 surprise that in the second verse we find 
 the narrative apparently confined to our 
 little planet. But does (erets) the earth 
 mean here our terrestrial globe, with its 
 landa and seas, already individualized, sep- 
 arated from the rest of the universe, and 
 
 3 
 
34 CREATION. 
 
 the organization of which is mentioned 
 later as the special work of the third day ? 
 I think not. The reasons for this con- 
 clusion are many. 
 
 1st. If erets were here the earth, we 
 should have to consider the works of the 
 first and second creative days as referring 
 to the earth alone, and should be com- 
 pelled to renounce the idea that the Bibli- 
 cal record intends to give us, as Moses de- 
 clares, the generations of the heavens and 
 of the earth — that is, a real cosmogony. 
 
 2d. In this case all that is found in it is 
 but a geological history of our globe. 
 
 3d. Thus leaving out the heavens is at 
 variance, not only with the declaration 
 of Moses, but with the tenor of all the an- 
 cient cosmogonies of which that of the first 
 chapter of Genesis may be regarded as a 
 prototype. 
 
 4th. This would render, as we shall see, 
 the reconciliation with the scientific facts, 
 determined by physics and astronomy, for 
 
THE PRIMITIVE STATE OF MATTER. 35 
 
 explaining the first and second day, very 
 difficult, if not impossible. 
 
 5tli. If the description of matter given 
 in the second verse is meant to apply to a 
 terraqueous globe, as some imagine, this 
 state of things was no real beginning^ but 
 the result either of the destruction of a 
 previous earth, or a medley of elements 
 only partially combined. 
 
 All these difficulties disappear as soon 
 as we admit that in the second verse erets 
 is an equivalent for matter in general. 
 The use of the concrete word earth, in- 
 stead of the generic, or abstract, word 
 matter, is common in most languages and 
 was here a necessity, as such a word as 
 matter does not exist in the Hebrew 
 tongue. For all these reasons, we feel, 
 therefore, justified in understanding erets 
 in this early stage of the history of the 
 universe, as meaning the primordial cos- 
 mic material out of which God's Spirit, 
 brooding upon the waters, was going to 
 
36 CREATION. 
 
 organize, at the bidding of His Almighty 
 "Word, the universe and the earth. 
 
 The same may be said of the waters of 
 the second verse. The Hebrew word 
 maim does not necessarily mean waters, 
 but applies as well to the gaseous atmos- 
 phere ; it is simply descriptive of the state 
 of cosmic matter comprised in the word 
 earth. These waters are the subtle, ethe- 
 real, fluid which, in the cosmogony of the 
 ancient Egyptians, was supposed to extend 
 beyond the boundaries of the visible uni- 
 verse, whose material had been drawn 
 from that vast reservoir of all existence. 
 The Bible itself gives us, in the Book of 
 Job, in the Prophets, and in the Psalms, 
 ample proofs of the familiarity of their 
 authors with that grand conception which, 
 being accepted by them, teaches us the 
 true interpretation of the Genesiac ac- 
 count. 
 
 No more convincing example of the na- 
 ture of the cosmogonic ideas which were 
 
THE PRIMITIVE STATE OF MATTEK. 87 
 
 cuiTetit among the biblical writers, who no 
 doubt derived them from Genesis, can be 
 cited than the words of David in the 
 148th Psalm. 
 
 The Psalmist invites all creatures of 
 God to praise Him ; dividing them into 
 two classes, " those of the heavens and 
 those of the earth," and naming them in 
 the order of their rank from the earth 
 upwai-d. " Praise ye the Lord from the 
 heavens : praise ye Him, sun and moon : 
 praise ye Him, all ye stars of light ; " 
 and, going still higher, "Praise Him, ye 
 heavens of heavens ; " and, last and high- 
 est, "ye waters that be above the heav- 
 ens." These evidently are the " waters " 
 of Genesis which precede the light, the 
 firmament of heaven, and the earth and 
 the seas. Reading a few lines farther, 
 we have the proof that the Psalmist does 
 not confoimd these waters above the heav- 
 ens with the terrestrial waters of the seas 
 and the atmosphere, for, calling upon the 
 
38 OKEATION. 
 
 things of earth to praise the Lord, he 
 names the dragons, and all deeps — the 
 seas — fire, hail, vapors, and winds. 
 
 The sense of these two words being thus 
 settled, every word of the second verse be- 
 comes clear and natural. The matter just 
 created Avas gaseous ; it was without form, 
 for the property of gas is to expand in- 
 definitely. It was void, or empty, because 
 apparently homogeneous and invisible. It 
 was dark, because as yet inactive, light be- 
 ing the result of the action of physical and 
 chemical forces not yet awakened. It was 
 a deep, for its expansion in space, though 
 indefinite, was not infinite, and it had di- 
 mensions. And the Spirit of God moved 
 upon the face (outside, and not inside, as the 
 pantheist would have it) of that vast, inert, 
 gaseous mass, ready to impart to it motion, 
 and to direct all its subsequent activity, 
 according to a plan gradually revealed by 
 the works of the great cosmic days, the true 
 nature of which we shall try to explain. 
 
THE PRIJIITIA'E STATE OP MATTER, 39 
 
 The central idea of the second verse is 
 the state of matter when first created. 
 The description applies, therefore, to the 
 matter of the universe and not to that 
 of the earth alone. The distorted and 
 forced interpretations which have ob- 
 scured the first part of the Mosaic account 
 nearly all arise from the fundamental 
 error which is here corrected. There is 
 no gap between the first and second 
 verses ; no more than in any other part of 
 the narrative. And we shall try to show 
 that the Genesiac account is throughout, a 
 consistent history of constant, regular, and 
 uninterrupted progress, fi-om this chaotic 
 beginning to the creation of man. 
 
 Such is the statement of Moses as to the 
 original condition of matter, and science 
 does not tell a different story. Minerals, 
 plants, animals — all bodies of nature — are 
 compound results of processes which speak 
 of a previous condition. By decomposing 
 them, and undoing what has been done be- 
 
40 CREATION. 
 
 fore, we finally arrive at the simple chemi- 
 cal elements which are the substratum of 
 all bodies. The same again may be said of 
 the three forms of matter — solid, liquid, 
 and gaseous. The least defined — the one in 
 which the atoms are the most free — is the 
 gaseous. All bodies in nature can be re- 
 duced to this, the simplest of the forms of 
 matter. Herschel, La Place, Arago, and 
 Alexander, therefore, among astronomers; 
 Ampere, among physicists ; Becquerel and 
 Thenard, among chemists ; Cuvier and 
 Humboldt, among geologists, all have ar- 
 rived at the same conclusion, that this un- 
 compounded, homogeneous, gaseous condi- 
 tion of matter must have been the begin- 
 ning of the universe. 
 
 But by a second statement, Moses adds 
 to these material elements another, entirely 
 distinct from them, viz., the presence of 
 God's Spirit as the source of movement in 
 that limitless mass of matter. In no part 
 of the narrative does God appear inactive. 
 
THU; PRIMITIVE STATE OF MATTER. 41 
 
 Distiact in essence from Ms works, lie calls 
 tliem into existence by his will, manifested 
 by his word, sustaining and organizing 
 them by his supreme intelligence, and sanc- 
 tioning them by his approval. The idea 
 of God creating the universe as a perfect 
 machine, acting automatically throughout 
 the ages, according to laws established by 
 himself, whose government he gives up, is 
 entirely absent. 
 
 What does science say in regard to 
 it? 
 
 The answer to this grave question must 
 be postponed, for we shall be better able 
 to discuss it when life is introduced into 
 the world. 
 
 Meanwhile we will only remark that this 
 view is not in the least inconsistent with 
 the stability and the permanency of nature's 
 physical laws ; no more than when man 
 uses gravitation, electricity, heat, etc., to 
 obtain efEects which the combination of 
 these forces, acting according to their im- 
 
42 CKEATION. 
 
 mutable laws, but left to themselves, would 
 never produce. 
 
 Man cannot create the least particle ol 
 material force, or change its nature; this 
 is God's province. But if these forces were 
 not acting uniformly, and if we could not 
 count upon their perfect stability, the 
 world of human art and science would be- 
 come impossible. 
 
 The complicated engine which produces 
 such mai'vellous effects is not the result of 
 the material elements of which it is com- 
 posed, and the physical forces used in it, 
 but it is the Avork of the mind of the en- 
 gineer adapting them to his purpose. 
 
VII. 
 
 THE FIRST COSMOaOIflC DAY. 
 
 Light Appbabs. 
 " And God said, Let there be Light and Light was.'' 
 
 We now have a starting-point, but yet no 
 activity, no progress. All beginnings are 
 in darkness and silence. The era of prog- 
 ress opens with the first day's work. At 
 God's command, movement begins and the 
 first result is the production of light. This 
 Avas no creation, but a simple manifestation 
 of the activity of matter ; for, according to 
 modern physics, heat and light are but dif- 
 ferent intensities of the vibratory motions 
 of matter. 
 
 To understand the process, let us also 
 note that the present theory of light re- 
 quires the presence of a general ethereal 
 
44 CREATION. 
 
 medium, in which matter is plunged, by 
 which, it is penetrated, and which, by its 
 vibration, is capable of transmitting move- 
 ment to all parts of the universe. 
 
 Are matter and force one and the same, 
 or is matter a sub-stratum and an instru- 
 ment for force, as the body is for the 
 mind? 
 
 This vexed metaphysical question is not 
 likely ever to be solved. If we incline to 
 the last view we may conceive that God. 
 then endowed inert matter with the forces 
 which we find always associated with it — 
 gravitation, the general quantitative force, 
 and the specific qualitative forces and their 
 correlatives. Under the uniform action of 
 gi-avitation, which tends to unity, and. from 
 which no molecule can be screened by an 
 interposing body, that immeasurable mass 
 of gaseous matter contracts. In this pro- 
 cess, latent heat is given out, atoms con- 
 glomerate into molecules ; nearer approach 
 begets continual chemical combinations on 
 
THE FIRST COSMOGONIC DAT. 45 
 
 a multitude of points. In the more con- 
 centrated parts, heat is intensified and light 
 is produced ; and the result is the appear- 
 ance in the dark space of heaven of a large 
 luminous mass — the primitive, grand nebula 
 — ^the prototype of those thousands of lu- 
 minous clouds observed by the astronomer 
 floating in the empty wastes within and 
 beyond our starry heavens. 
 
 Though most of the nebulas, viewed 
 thi'ough the powerful telescopes of this 
 scientific age, have been found to be clus- 
 ters of distant or small stars, because far 
 advanced in their development, the lumi- 
 nous gas forming the transparent body of 
 many comets — the Zodiacal light, perhaps 
 — and other gaseous heavenly bodies may 
 serve to illustrate the condition of that 
 primitive nebula. 
 
 The efEect would be the same if, as some 
 surmise, the nebula was composed of in- 
 numerable solid particles in a state of in- 
 candescence. 
 
46 CREATION. 
 
 The words of the text would equally 
 apply to the formation of several similar 
 nebulfe in various parts of the heavens. 
 
 Thus " God separated the light from the 
 darhneas " — that is, the light of the neb- 
 ula from the dark outside matter, as yet 
 inactive, and from the empty space around. 
 "And God called the light day, and the 
 darkness he called night.'''' Both words are 
 here specific names used without reference 
 to any period or succession of time. 
 
 The evening and the morning mark the 
 beginning and the end of a day. At first 
 sight, it seems that the order ought to be 
 reversed, but it must be remembered that 
 the beginning of that first great phase of 
 development was the time of chaotic dark- 
 ness, Avhile the glorious morning ^yhich 
 follows indicates the time during which 
 the gradual illumination of that vast neb- 
 ula is performed, and the change from 
 darkness to light is efEected. It was thus, 
 in the nature of the process, that the even- 
 
THE FIRST COSMOGONIC DAT. 47 
 
 ing actually preceded the morning, and so 
 Moses expresses it. It is not, therefore, as 
 some think, because of the custom of the 
 Jews to reckon the beginning of the day 
 from the eve preceding, but more prob- 
 ably the Jews dei'ived that usage from the 
 Genesiac account. 
 
 Each subsequent cosmogonic day has 
 also its evening and morning, for each 
 transformation of a phase of development 
 into another implies a partial destruction 
 of the preceding one, inaugurating a period 
 of relative darkness followed by one of 
 greater perfection. 
 
 Such was the first day, opening the se- 
 ries of works of that grand cosmogonic 
 week; the first great period of develop- 
 ment, under God's guidance, of that world 
 of matter just created. A day, the dura- 
 tion of which was not measured by the 
 course of the sun, which did not exist, nor 
 by any definite length of time, but by the 
 work accomplished in it. 
 
48 CREATION. 
 
 "And God saw the light thai it loas 
 good.'''' 
 
 The Creator thus approves his own work 
 as suited to his further purposes. 
 
 Strange as it may seem to any one ac- 
 quainted with God's work and his method 
 in creation, one of the most serious obsta- 
 cles, for the greatest number, in perceiv- 
 ing the harmony of the Biblical account 
 with the observed facts deduced from sci- 
 ence was, until lately, and even to this day, 
 the question of the length of the six crea- 
 tive days. Are these days solar days of 
 twenty -four hours, so called natural days, 
 and has the whole creation been finished 
 in an ordinary week, or are they periods 
 of indefinite length of time? 
 
 That the general reader, not looking 
 deep into the subject;, should have been 
 satisfied to regard the ci'eative days as so- 
 
THE FIRST COSMOGONIC DAY. 49 
 
 called natural days, is easily conceivable. 
 It is less e&sj to understand that distin- 
 guished divines, and learned commentators, 
 should have employed the greatest ingenu- 
 ity in trying, often by the most extraordi- 
 nary arguments, to defend the prima facie 
 meaning of the text. Some have even im- 
 agined, for the purpose, a fanciful history 
 of the earth, of which geology knows noth- 
 ing. One of the most gifted and popular 
 authors of this class goes so far as to give, 
 as the true history, taught by the Bible, 
 an aimless reiteration of the astronomical 
 and geological phenomena which might 
 have occurred, during six times twenty- 
 four hours, in the little corner of the 
 earth, where man was created, at the end 
 of these six days. 
 
 It should be said, however, in justice to 
 that class of expositors of the first chapter 
 of Genesis, that the geological history of 
 the earth had not then acquired the solid 
 foundation of facts on which it now rests. 
 
 4 
 
50 CREATION. 
 
 The tenacity with which the idea was 
 held, that the six creative da)'^s could pos- 
 sibly be solar days, only shows the force of 
 first impressions and transmitted habits, 
 for its correctness is disproved in the most 
 absolute manner by the text and the whole 
 tenor of the Biblical record, as well as by 
 the study of nature. 
 
 The reference in the Decalogue, to the 
 seventh cosmogonic day as a foundation 
 for the Sabbath of man, was another stum- 
 bling-block, as, at first sight, it suggests a 
 complete similarity of the two Sabbaths. 
 
 This difficulty will be considered here- 
 after. 
 
 The Hebrew word yom (day) is used in 
 this chapter in five different senses, just as 
 Ave use the word day in common language : 
 
 1. The day, meaning light, cosmic light, 
 without reference to time or succession. 
 
 2. The cosmogonic day, the nature of 
 which is now to be determined. 
 
 3. The day of twenty-four hours which 
 
TUE FIRST COSMOGONIC DAT. 51 
 
 begins in the fourth cosmogonic day, 
 where it is said of the sun and moon, 
 " Let them be for days and for seasons 
 and for years." 
 
 4. The light part of the same day of 
 twenty-four hours, as opposed to the 
 night. 
 
 5. In Genesis ii., 4, in the day that the 
 Lord God made the heavens and the 
 earth, embracing the M'^eek of creation, or 
 an indefinite period of time. 
 
 The days of twenty-four and twelve 
 hours, which require the presence of the 
 sun, are excluded from the first three 
 cosmogonic days, since the sun made its 
 appearance only on the fourth day. No 
 reason is apparent in the text why the last 
 two days should be of a different nature 
 from the others, while the geological his- 
 tory of the creation of animals and man 
 demonstrates that they are long, indefinite 
 periods of time. The word day, as light 
 opposed to darkness, in the first day, and 
 
52 CREATION. 
 
 again as used in tlie fiftli sense, as embrac- 
 ing the whole creative week, has no appli- 
 cation here. The cosmogonic day, there- 
 fore, only remains, and its special sense is 
 to be determined by its nature. 
 
 We have seen already that each of these 
 days is marked by a work, and each Avork 
 is one of the great steps in the realization 
 of God's plan — one of the great changes 
 which constitute the organic phases of 
 that history. Time is here without im- 
 portance. It is given long or short as 
 needed. As God's works are done by 
 means and processes which we can study, 
 that study tells us that for each of those 
 great works of the creative days, their 
 Author, before whom a thousand years are 
 as one day, — has chosen to. employ ages to 
 bring them to perfection. 
 
 As in the growth of the plant we dis- 
 tinguish the germinating, the leafing, the 
 floAvering, and the seeding processes, as 
 so many organic phases which might be 
 
THE FIRST COSMOGONIC DAY. 53 
 
 called the days of the plant's history, 
 without reference to the length of time 
 allotted to each, so we have here the day 
 of the cosmic light, the day of the heavens, 
 the day of the earth, the day of the solar 
 light, the day of the lower animals, and 
 the day of the mammals and man ; which 
 are really the great phases of God's creation. 
 
VIII. 
 
 SECOND COSMOGONIC DAY. 
 
 The Obganizatiox of the Heavens. 
 
 " And God said, Let there be an expanse (firmament) in 
 the midst of the waters, and let it separate the 
 •waters from the waters ; and God called the expanse 
 Heavens. And the evening and tho morning were 
 the second day." 
 
 It is to be regretted that the English ver- 
 sion has translated the Hebrew word. 
 rahiah (expanse) by the word firmament. 
 This is due to the influence of the Latin 
 Vulgate, which has firmam^mtum as the 
 equivalent of the inexact CTEpc'co^a of the 
 Septuagint. This last word refers to the 
 current Egyptian conception of a solid 
 vault of heaven, separating the lower visi- 
 ble world from the upper world of subtle, 
 invisible matter beyond. This view was 
 
SECOND COSMOGONIC DAT. 01) 
 
 held by the Greek translators, but is not 
 warranted by the Hebrew text, and ren- 
 ders it unintelligible. If it were correct, 
 how could it be said that God called that 
 solid vault " heavens " ? ; and further, verse 
 20, that God created the birds to fly in the 
 open "firmament" of heaven? In both 
 cases expanse is evidently the fitting word. 
 The second cosmogonic day has been 
 another stumbling-block to commentators. 
 The difiiculties they have created for them- 
 selves arose, as I have explained above, 
 from depriving it of its cosmogonic char- 
 acter and belittling it by reducing the 
 great phenomena there described to simple 
 modifications of the terrestrial atmosphere. 
 In doing so, they find no other explanation 
 for the waters above and the waters below 
 the heavens, than to consider the first as 
 the clouds, the second as the seas, separated 
 by an expanse of transparent air which 
 is called the heavens. They forget how 
 small a part of the earth is the total atmos- 
 
56 CREATION. 
 
 phere wliicli surrounds it as a thin pellicle. 
 They forget that this thin covering of 
 clouds is but a temj^orary and ever-chang- 
 ino- one : and that the clouds are in that 
 heaven rather than above it. They do not 
 comprehend how small a heaven it is in 
 which it is said, a few lines farther on, 
 that the birds are flying. They forget 
 that this is not the true heavens in which 
 are spread the sun and moon and stars. 
 They refuse to be taught by the Psalmist, 
 whose clear and positive description gives, 
 in the 148th Psalm, just quoted, the very 
 order in which these various envelopes 
 of our earth succeed each other, and in 
 which the terrestrial phenomena, clouds, 
 rains, hail, and mnds, are so sharply defined 
 as being below the heavens whence shines 
 the sun and moon and stai-s; and where 
 these last are said to be surmounted by the 
 heavens of heavens and the waters above 
 the heavens. All these are the successive, 
 concentric heavens, each one sui-passing 
 
SECOKD COSMOGONIC DAY. 57 
 
 the other in immensity, the idea of which 
 was so familiar to the Egyptian and other 
 ancient cosmogonies, and whose echoes we 
 find so often throughout the Bible. 
 
 The organization of these heavens, to- 
 gether with the innumerable shining bodies 
 which animate them, and not the narrow 
 space between the clouds and the earth, 
 is the worthy object of the work of the 
 second cosmogonic day. 
 
 This grand day, so dwarfed and misun- 
 derstood, is the one in which are described 
 the generations of the heavens, announced 
 by Moses, which otherwise find no place 
 in the narrative of the creative week. 
 For on the fourth day, when the sun and 
 moon are made to appear for the use of 
 the life-system, viz.: the days and the years 
 and the seasons, the word heavens is men- 
 tioned simply as the already existing space 
 in which these bodies are placed. 
 
 We find a confirmation of this view of 
 the second day in the nature of nearly all 
 
58 CREATION. 
 
 the ancient, oriental cosmogonies. In com- 
 pai'ing tbe most important of them, we 
 find traits of resemblance which seem to 
 indicate that they had a common origin in 
 earlier traditions, of which Moses' narra- 
 tive is the true prototype, while the others 
 give us only featui-es distorted by the 
 imagination of their authors. But all are 
 intended to give the development of the 
 universe of which the earth is mentioned 
 as only a part. 
 
 The Egyptian cosmogony, the outlines 
 of which bear the most resemblance to the 
 Mosaic, may serve as an example. 
 
 The Egyptians conceived the whole uni- 
 verse as a gradually developing deity, com- 
 posed of four great elements; the primi- 
 tive spirit, or Kneph; the primitive matter, 
 Neith; the primitive time, Sevedi' and the 
 primitive space, Pasclit; none of which 
 could be derived from the other, and which 
 together constitute the one primitive god 
 — a sort of quaternity, all the elements of 
 
SECONB COSMOGONIC DAY. 59 
 
 ■which are material. In this conception 
 the spirit was not distinguished from mat- 
 ter, as it is in the modern sense of these 
 words. 
 
 The universe to be developed was fig- 
 ured under the form of a great ball — the 
 primitive egg — ^suri'ounded by the most 
 subtle substance, the Kneph, brooding over 
 it and preparing it for the further trans- 
 formations. 
 
 In the bosom of this invisible deity, 
 separate themselves, in the course of long 
 ages, the coarser, material elements, out of 
 which the visible universe is to be shaped 
 by gradual development. The first prod- 
 uct of the alliance of Kneph and Neiik, 
 spirit and matter, was Plitdh^ the primi- 
 tive fire, under the action of which all the 
 activity and life in that inner world were 
 developed. 
 
 The next step was the separation of that 
 vast material into two divinities — ^the vault 
 of heaven, the firmament, Pe; the mass 
 
60 CREATION. 
 
 of the earth, Anuhe, as yet unformed. 
 Above the vault of heaven were the subtle, 
 dark, ethereal substances of the primitive 
 invisible deity. These vpere the waters 
 above the heavens spoken of by most of 
 the ancient cosmogonies. The masses of 
 matter below, especially Anuke, were the 
 waters under the heavens, out of which 
 the sun and moon were next developed. 
 
 All these transformations consumed long 
 periods of time. The duration of the first 
 period, that of Phtali, or the universal 
 light, could not be determined, say the 
 Egyptians, because there was no sun to 
 measure it. With the formation of the 
 sun two new deities appear, Sate, or the 
 illuminated half of the ball, and Hator, 
 the dark half, deprived of the rays of the 
 sun. After these, the gradual organization 
 of the earth took place, the earth occupy- 
 ing the centre of the universe. 
 
 It is evident that all these so-called 
 deities are no persons, but personified cos- 
 
SECOND COSMOGONIC DAT. 61 
 
 mical ideas, or individualizations of parts 
 of nature, the relations of whicli are figured 
 b)'- genetic connections, and forming to- 
 getlier a vast and complicated material 
 polytheism, which finally embraces also 
 the life-system and the animal worship so 
 characteristic of Egypt. 
 
 Let us note here the external points of 
 resemblance between this degenerate cos- 
 mogony and that of the Bible, its proto- 
 type. 
 
 In the Egyptian : 
 
 1. The original gaseous form, and the 
 darkness of matter. 
 
 2. The successive transformations. 
 
 3. Phtah, the light, as the first step in. 
 this development. 
 
 4. The separation of the visible from 
 the invisible universe, or, the waters below 
 and the waters above the expanse. 
 
 5. The periods of development of indefi- 
 nite length. 
 
62 CEEATION. 
 
 6. The sun, moon, and earth organized 
 last. 
 
 But imoardly what profound contrasts I 
 
 The Bible knows : 
 
 1. God, the living God, the personal 
 Creator, calling the universe into existence, 
 instead of a mass of matter, eternal, un- 
 conscious, self-developing into a material 
 world. 
 
 2. God distinct and above His creatures, 
 preceding them in time and governing 
 them by His supreme will, instead of one 
 confounded with them and developing with 
 them. 
 
 3. God ordering by His word and exe- 
 cuting by His will every transformation. 
 
 4. God working according to a precon- 
 ceived plan toward an aim which, when 
 realized, is declared by Him ver^j good, 
 instead of a world growing by an auto- 
 matic development- 
 
SECOND COSMOGONIC DAT. 63 
 
 In the heatten cosmogonies Nature's 
 law governs; it is the law of necessity. 
 In the Biblical cosmogony God reigns su- 
 preme. Nature is under the law of His 
 free will and liberty. 
 
 Let us now see what science can tell us 
 about the organization of the heavens. 
 
 The central idea of this day's work is 
 division or separation. The vast primitive 
 nebula of the first day breaks up into a 
 multitude of gaseous masses, and these are 
 concentrated into stars. Motion is every- 
 where. Gravitation and the chemical 
 forces tend to concentrate matter around 
 various centres, and thus to isolate them 
 from each other ; centrifugal force tends to 
 disperse them. Under the laws of the 
 forces of matter and motion — established 
 by God himself, and acting under Hi'* 
 guidance — these numberless bodies, of al 
 forms and sizes, which fill the space and 
 adorn our heavens, combine into those 
 worlds and groups of worlds whose won- 
 
64 CREATION. 
 
 derful organization it is tlie province of 
 astronomy to discover and describe. 
 
 It is premature to say tliat this noble 
 science has as yet furnished us a satis- 
 factory history of the generations of the 
 starry heavens, and of their real structure. 
 
 But much has been done toward it. 
 The grand conception of the structure of 
 the heavens, proposed by Herschel, seems 
 to adapt itself to the text. Gauging the 
 heavens in all directions v^ith his telescope 
 he found regions crowded with stars, while 
 in other parts they are few and far distant 
 from each other. These appearances, says 
 Herschel, can be accounted for by conceiv- 
 ing that all our visible heavens are but an 
 immense cluster of self-luminous stars, of 
 which our sun, with its retinue of planets, 
 is but one, situated not far from the centre. 
 The form of this vast cluster is that of a 
 disk, whose outer boundary is the Milky 
 Way. In this the stars seem ready to 
 break up and assume the shape of the 
 
SPIRAL NEBULA. 
 CIRCULA 
 
 .ORD ROSot 
 JiLiJ A 
 
SECOND COSMOGONIC DAY. 65 
 
 branches of a spiral nebula. Beyond ex- 
 tends, in immeasurable distance, tlie dark 
 abyss of space. In this, again, are thou- 
 sands of nebulous masses, each of which 
 may be a starry heaven like ours. Here 
 we may fancy we recognize — in the cluster 
 of visible stars, to which our sun, moon, and 
 earth itself belong — the waters below the 
 heavens, followed by the vast expanse be- 
 yond, containing the world of the nebulas 
 — the heavens of heavens, and the waters 
 above the heavens, of which the Psalmist 
 speaks. 
 
 According to Maedler all the heavenly 
 bodies revolve around a common centre 
 of gravity, situated in the region of the 
 Pleiades. 
 
 Alexander, on the contrary, recognized 
 in the great spiral nebulae of Lord Kosse, 
 whose composing stars are launched by 
 centrifugal force into space, in parabolic 
 lines, never to return by the same paths 
 again, the very process by which the Crea- 
 
66 CEEATION. 
 
 tor dispersed these stars throughout the 
 heavens, and thus peopled their empty 
 spaces with these luminous bodies. 
 
 But whether we accept the views of 
 Herschel, of Maedler, or of Alexander, 
 concerning the structure and formation of 
 the heavens, one fact admitted by all is 
 the work of separation, of individualiza- 
 tion, which must have preceded the present 
 combination of the heavenly bodies, and is 
 indicated as the special work of the second 
 cosmogonic day. 
 
 But while that process of separation 
 and dispersion is going on, the gradual 
 concentration of each special sun leads to 
 another kind of individualization of which 
 our solar system ofEers the only example 
 accessible to our observation, viz. : the 
 formation of dark planets and satellites. 
 While in the twin stars revolving round a 
 common centre of gravity, we perceive the 
 efEect produced when the masses are neaj-ly 
 equal, in the nebulous stars of all grades 
 
SECOND COSMOGONIC DAY. 67 
 
 we follow the gradual concentration from 
 a gaseous state to a compact and well- 
 defined body. In the genesis of our solar 
 system, as explained by the genius of La 
 Place and submitted by Stephen Alexan- 
 der to exhaustive calculations, the result 
 of which amounts almost to a demonstra- 
 tion of its truth, we see how a family of 
 planets has been detached from a vast 
 central body which holds them in bondage 
 in their orbits by the power of its mass. 
 
 This last history, which immediately 
 concerns the earth as one of the daughters 
 of our sun, is so important in helping us 
 to understand the phases of development 
 undergone by our globe, that it may be 
 well to give a short outline of the founda- 
 tion on which it rests. 
 
 1. It is found that the distances of 
 the orbits of the planets from the sun 
 follow a nearly regular law, which is, that, 
 starting from the orbit of Mercury and 
 counting the place of the asteroids as one 
 
68 CREATION. 
 
 planet, each succeeding orbit is about 
 double the distance of the preceding one. 
 
 2. On the whole, the planets nearer 
 the sun are smaller than the more distant 
 ones. 
 
 3. Their density is increasing with their 
 nearness to the sun. 
 
 4. All the planets and their satellites 
 revolve around the sun in the same direc- 
 tion and nearly in the same plane as the 
 equator of the sun itself. 
 
 5. The velocity of their revolution is 
 diminishing with their distance from the 
 sun. 
 
 6. The rapidity of their rotation on 
 their axis, on the contrary, is increasing. 
 
 All these coincidences point to a com- 
 mon law which seems to indicate a com- 
 jnunity of origin. 
 
 To explain it La Place had not to go so 
 far back as Herschel, to the point where 
 matter begins to gather from the immen- 
 sity of space around a nucleus forming a 
 
SKCOND COSMOGONIC DAY. 69 
 
 nebulous mass. He assumed, as liis start- 
 ing-poiut, the sun as a nebulous star with 
 a powerful nucleus, revolving on its axis, 
 and whose hot, gaseous atmosphere ex- 
 tended beyond the limit of the orbit of 
 Neptune. Plunged in the cold abysses of 
 heaven, in which it loses incessantlj'-, by 
 ra,diation, a part of its heat, it cools and 
 contracts; its centrifugal force increasing 
 rapidly at the same time. Under its ac- 
 tion, the cool and heavier particles rush 
 toward the equatorial parts, Avhere, owing 
 to the continual contraction of the main 
 body, they are soon left behind in the 
 shape of a ring similar to those which we 
 observe around Saturn. 
 
 According to the laws of motion, the 
 ring continues to move with the same ve- 
 locity as the main body from which it is 
 detached. But as the ring itself shrinks 
 in cooling, its inner surface, receding from 
 the sun, begins to move less rapidly, while 
 the outside, approaching nearer the sun. 
 
70 CREATION. 
 
 moves with greater rapidity. The equi- 
 librium being thus disturbed, the riug 
 tends to break up, and the outside gaining 
 upon the inside, the whole is rolled up 
 into a single globular mass with a rotary- 
 motion in the same direction as that of the 
 ring itself. The result is a planet revolv- 
 ing around the sun and rotating on its 
 axis in the same direction as the sun and 
 in the plane of its equator. By further 
 contraction of the sun, the same process 
 is repeated and new planets are formed. 
 They decrease in size because the detached 
 rings grow less at every step. They in- 
 crease in density, because the later planets 
 are detached when the density of the sun 
 is increased. The larger planets have a 
 more rapid rotation because they have 
 been contracting during a longer period of 
 time. 
 
 If by the further progress of astronomi- 
 cal science we find ourselves warranted in 
 accepting the grand views of Herschel on 
 
SECOND COSMOGONIC DAY. 71 
 
 the construction of the heavens, the ex- 
 planation of the numerous forms of nebulae 
 and nebulous clusters as developed vrith 
 great ingenuity by Stephen Alexander (in 
 the Mathematical Jom'naV), and the lucid 
 exposition of our planetary and other 
 solar systems by La Place, we might say 
 vp^ith Moses, " These are the generations of 
 the heavens." 
 
IX. 
 
 THIRD COSMOGONIC DAT. 
 
 This day contains two works, a. The formation of 
 the material globe, b. The introduction of the vegeta- 
 ble kingdom. 
 
 a. FoKSIATIOir OF THE EaBTH. 
 
 " Let the waters under the heavens be gathered into one 
 place, and let the dry land appear. And God called 
 the dry land earth ; and the gathering together of 
 the waters called he seas." 
 
 The main idea is condensation of mattei- 
 into the solid globe, its liquid covering 
 and gaseous envelope. Here, as usual, 
 Moses gives us tlie final result of the vv^ork, 
 and not the process by which it was pro- 
 duced. For that we must ask Geology. 
 
 The structure of the hard mantle of rock 
 which covers the unknown interior of the 
 globe, and the nature of its strata, together 
 

 
 '^ I -^ S 
 
 
 "'■jM 
 
 
 ^^ 
 
 HC PHOTOSPH^Fl Of 
 
 SAFPEARING 
 
THIRD COSMOGONIC DAY. 73 
 
 with their ever-increasing temperature 
 downward, will bear witness to the event- 
 ful history of the past ages of our earth ; 
 astronomy and chemistry will cany us 
 still higher up to the very birth of our 
 planet. 
 
 The materials of that part of the earth- 
 crust accessible to our investigation — ^from 
 the alluvial surface sands and pebbles, 
 through the sandstones, conglomerates, 
 slates, and limestones, down to the crystal- 
 line bottom rocks — show themselves to be 
 the debris of pre-existing rocks,, rearranged 
 at the bottom of the ocean ; or due, as most 
 of the limestones, to the secreting power 
 of the polyps, protozoans, and most minute 
 animals of the sea. 
 
 The temperature of the waters of this 
 ocean was no higher than that of our 
 tropical seas; for these rocks contain in- 
 numerable relics of marine animals similar 
 to, though not identical with, those of the 
 present day. Lower down, the crystalline 
 
74 CREATION. 
 
 rocks, mostly stratified — the so-called meta- 
 morphic rocks — still bear the mark of an 
 aqueous origin, but also indicate a high 
 degree of temperature in the waters, which 
 explains both their crystalline character 
 and the almost entire absence of traces of 
 life in these early seas. 
 
 Coming from deeper sources still, but 
 filling perpendicular fissures or chimneys, 
 as in volcanoes, crystalline masses of por- 
 phyiy, compact trap, basalt, and volcanic 
 substances cross the regulai" strata up to 
 the surface, and by their igneous nature re- 
 veal the existence of an internal temper- 
 ature sufficient to keep rocks in a melted 
 condition. 
 
 With these general facts in view, and 
 aided by the light derived from chemistry, 
 physics, and astronomy, Ave may distin- 
 guish, in the gradual formation of the 
 physical globe, before the introduction of 
 life, four periods : 
 
 1. The nebulous. 
 
THIRD COSMOGONIC DAT. 75 
 
 2. The mineral incandescent. 
 
 3. The period of the hot oceans. 
 
 4. The period of the cold oceans. 
 
 Admitting, as we do, the great probabil- 
 ity of the genesis of the solar system having 
 taken place, as described above, according 
 to La Place ; in the first period, the matter 
 of tbe earth was a part of the hot atmos- 
 phere of the sun. In the slow process of 
 contraction, consequent upon its cooling, 
 the sun left it behind in the form of a 
 gaseous ring. The ring breaks in several 
 places, and is rolled up into a globular 
 mass, which, in accordance with the laws 
 of motion, rotates upon itself, and revolves 
 around its present body nearly in the plane 
 of its equator, and with the velocity im- 
 parted to it by the sun itself when it left 
 it behind. The new globe, born from the 
 old matter of the sun, now enters, as a 
 gaseous mass, into the first period of its 
 separate existence. 
 
 Loss of heat by radiation causes further 
 
76 CREATION. 
 
 concentration. The molecules, brought 
 nearer together and to the proper temper- 
 ature for chemical action, now combine. 
 A vast, long-continued, and ever-renewed 
 conflagration, Avith an enormous develop- 
 ment of heat and electricity, takes place, 
 and the result is an incandescent, melted, 
 mineral body, surrounded b}'' a vast lu- 
 minous atmosphere. The earth is a sun • 
 quite similar, except in its mass, to the 
 glowing orb from which the earth now 
 receives its light, and which is slowly 
 passing through a like period of incan- 
 descence. This is the second period of 
 its history. 
 
 The cooling continues : a hard crust is 
 formed on the surface of the melted body 
 of the globe, and, when the temperature 
 becomes low enougli to admit of the chem- 
 ical combination of hydrogen and oxygen 
 into water, the ocean — which was before a 
 part of the atmosphere in the shape of 
 vapoi- — is deposited on the solid surface of 
 
THIRD COSMOGONIO DAY. 77 
 
 the globe. The temperature of this first 
 ocean must have been very high, owing to 
 the immense weight of the atmosphere 
 resting upon it. It has been calculated 
 that when the deposition began, the tem- 
 perature of the first waters could not have 
 been less than 600° Fahr. This geological 
 phase, though, it is one through which a 
 cooling globe has passed, has not, thus far, 
 received the attention it deserves. 
 
 Let us try to see what this state of 
 things implies, for it is important for the 
 explanation of the fourth day. 
 
 The oceans were not only very warm, 
 but must have been highly acidulated ; for 
 all the acids which form a large part of 
 the thousands upon thousands of feet of 
 rocks deposited since, must have been then 
 in the atmosphere in a gaseous form. 
 
 These hot and acid waters, resting upon 
 the old mineral crust, must have decom- 
 posed it; and a new series of chemical 
 combinations have been formed, to which, 
 
78 CREATION. 
 
 perhaps, we may refer the deposition 
 of the lowermost crystalline, Lawrentian 
 rocks of Canada and other places, which 
 are found at the base of the new terrestrial 
 crust — the only one we actually know. 
 
 By these powerful chemical actions the 
 earth was transmuted into a vast, galvanic 
 pile, emitting constant streams of electric- 
 ity, which, reaching the ethereal space at 
 the boundary of the thick atmosphere, be- 
 came luminous. According to Herschel, 
 the photosphere of the sun may be due to 
 a similar cause, and if we accept the most 
 plausible explanation of the aurora bore- 
 alis, it is but the last vestige of that 
 electrical condition of our globe. 
 
 During this third period the earth, was 
 still surrounded by a photosphere of sub- 
 dued brilliancy : it was a nebulous star. 
 
 The process of cooling goes on; the 
 physical and chemical forces, thus far so 
 active, subside and enter into a state of 
 quiescence ; the photosphere gradually dis- 
 
THIRD COSMOGONIC DAY. 79 
 
 appears; the globe becomes an extinct 
 body ; the ocean cools down to the mild 
 temperature of our tropical seas, and is 
 ready for the introduction of living beings. 
 The age of matter is over ; the age of life 
 is at hand. The fourth period V5^as that 
 of the dar\ extinct planet and the cool 
 oceans. 
 
 This fourth period, and perhaps the 
 latter part of the third, are represented in 
 the geological strata by the so-called azoic 
 rocks, w^hich are found in all continents. 
 
 At the beginning of this stage of the 
 formation of the globe we have no reason 
 to believe that the three great geographi- 
 cal elements were not still in the place 
 assigned to each by their density; the 
 solid land forming the central mass, a 
 uniform ocean a general covering, and the 
 atmosphere the last envelope. But some- 
 what later we have evidence of the appear- 
 ance of the first land above the waters 
 of the ocean. Extensive surfaces and low 
 
80 CREATION. 
 
 mountain chains, both in the Old and 
 New World, belong to this age. Geology 
 explains very i:>lausibly the sinking of the 
 large surfaces, now containing the oceans, 
 and the risino: between them of the 
 continents and mountains by the gradual 
 shrinkage of the cooling interior, forcing 
 the hard external crust — which had be- 
 come too large — to mould itself on the 
 smaller sphere by folding into mighty 
 wrinkles. This process could not be 
 better described than by the words of 
 Moses : " Let the waters be gathered into 
 one place, and let the dry land appear " — 
 implying that the land was already formed 
 under the surface of the ocean, and was 
 subsequently raised above it. 
 
 Though, during this physico-chemical.his- 
 tory of the earth, all the forces of mat- 
 ter were at work, it was not with equal 
 intensity. The most general — gravita- 
 tion — prevailed in the nebulous period ; in 
 the second stage, the power of the specific 
 
THIFvD COSMOGONIC DAY. 81 
 
 chemical forces, acting by the dry process, 
 was greatest ; in the third, these forces 
 acted more quietly by the wet process. 
 Later, during the era of life, the mechani- 
 cal forces of the waters of the oceans 
 — tides and waves — and land waters, to 
 which are due the formation of most of 
 the strata composing the earth crust, be- 
 came altogether prevalent. Thus every 
 period owes its specific character to the 
 greater activity of one of the material forces 
 at work. 
 
 The first part of this third day closes the 
 era of matter. 
 
 In summing up the creative work ac- 
 complished during the three cosmogonic 
 days, we can easily recognize in this world 
 of matter the same method of successive . 
 development as was employed by the Crea- 
 tor in the world of life. 
 
 Matter, a dark, uniform, inactive, gase- 
 ous fluid, is the starting-point. General 
 activity with movement and light is the 
 
82 CREATION. 
 
 first step ; breaking up into different indi- 
 vidual bodies, scattered through the heav- 
 ens, is the second ; combination in oigan- 
 ized groups, and concentration into or- 
 ganized individuals — as we have been able 
 to follow it up in the formation of the 
 sun and the earth — ^is the third, thus pre- 
 paring the v7orld of matter for the world 
 of life. 
 
 But in this third day there is a second 
 work, entirely unlike the first, belonging 
 to the age of organic life : the creation of 
 the plant. 
 
X. 
 
 THIRD COSMOGOOTC DAT CONTINUED. 
 
 b. Vegetation Appeaes. 
 
 " And God said, ' Let tie earth bring forth vegetation, 
 herb bearing seed, fruit tree yielding fruit after its 
 kind, whose seed is in it upon the earth ; ' and it 
 was so. 
 
 "And the earth brought forth vegetation, herb 
 yielding seed after its kind, and tree yielding fruit 
 whose seed is in it after its kind ; and God saw that 
 it was good. 
 
 " And evening was, and morning was ; day third." 
 
 With the appearance of vegetation the 
 history of the earth enters into an entii'ely 
 new phase. It is the beginning, or the 
 heralding of the Era of life. 
 
 When passing from the phenomena of in- 
 organic nature, or dead matter, into those 
 of organic nature, we find ourselves in an 
 
84 CKEATION. 
 
 entirely new domain, whose laws show no 
 similarity to those of the preceding one. 
 
 In organized beings a new, immaterial 
 principle, superior to matter, governs the 
 material molecules so as to make them 
 assume new forms unknown to the mineral. 
 
 The hundred thousand forms of plants 
 known to botanists are composed, in the 
 main, of but few of the sixty-six chemical 
 elements. Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and 
 some nitrogen are made to combine in a lim- 
 ited number of complex compounds, before 
 unknown to chemistry, and wliich constitute 
 the chief substance of all vegetation. 
 
 The mode of growth in the two realms 
 is totally unlike. 
 
 The most minute incipient ciystal has 
 the same form, the same plane surfaces 
 with sharply defined angles, as the largest 
 crystal of the same kind, and grows with- 
 out definite limitation by the outward ad- 
 dition of similar figures, all parts being 
 alike. The crystal is a fixed form. It 
 
THIRD COSMOGONIC DAT CONTINUED. 85 
 
 does not die, like the plant, by an inward 
 process, but continues to exist until it is 
 destroyed by external causes. 
 
 The fundamental oi-gan of both plants 
 and animals is a flexible, globular mole- 
 cule — the cell — already containing fluid in 
 motion, and growing by inward division. 
 
 The plant is developed from a germ 
 or living seed, growing downward in the 
 root, and upward through successive stages 
 in the stem, the leaf, the flower, and ter- 
 minates the cycle of its individual life by 
 the formation of a new seed, destined to 
 reproduce its like. An ever-circulating 
 fluid, the sap, is bringing food to all its 
 parts. 
 
 In the plant, as in every organized being, 
 there is an inward principle, of individual-: 
 ity, involved in the seed — a soul — not pos- 
 sessed by the crystal, with a variety of 
 organs and functions working toward a 
 common aim, for the benefit of the individ- 
 ual. An inward growth with a beginning 
 
86 CREATION. 
 
 and a definite end, and a power of repro- 
 duction which perpetuates the species ; phe- 
 nomena which are all absolutely foreign to 
 inorganic matter. 
 
 Should that principle of life be removed 
 movement ceases, the growth is stopped, 
 the inorganic molecules recover their free- 
 dom and return to their allegiance, while 
 the organic body decomposes, loses its 
 form, and is destroyed. And still the 
 chemist finds in its debris the identical 
 weight and materials which were employed 
 in its living body; none of the material 
 molecules are lost; but the controlling 
 power which gave them the shape of the 
 plant is gone. 
 
 We have therefore to recognize here 
 the introduction of a new principle. If it 
 is not indicated in the text by bard, it is 
 because it is but the peristyle of the 
 temple of true life, the sentient life and 
 the condition of its existence. 
 
 The characteristics of the plant kingdom 
 
THIRD COSMOGONIC DAT CONTINUED. 87 
 
 are admirably summed up in tlie words, 
 " And God said, Let the earth hriTig forth 
 vegetation^ the herb yielding seed, and the 
 fruit-tree yielding fruit after its hind, 
 whose seed is in itself' 
 
 The words " Let the earth bring forth," 
 may seem to favor the idea of a combina- 
 tion of elements without the introduction 
 of a new principle. But the same phrase 
 is used in verse 20, when a true creation 
 {bard) — that of the fii'st animals — was 
 meant and took place. And again, in 
 Genesis ii., 4th and 5th, we find "in the 
 day the Lord God made every plant of the 
 field before it v}as in the earth, and every 
 herb of the field before it grewP This 
 declaration distinguishes the plant life as 
 a principle distinct from the matter which 
 it moulds into the new form necessary for 
 its new functions. 
 
 This view must be held as the most ra- 
 tional ; for all experiments — even the very 
 latest and apparently most successful — 
 
CREATION. 
 
 made during the last hundi'ed years, up to 
 the present time, to prove the so-called 
 spontaneous generation of organized beings 
 from dead matter, have failed to convince 
 the majority of thinking men of its reality. 
 Taking into consideration the present state 
 of our knowledge, we are obliged to admit 
 that matter, unaided, can never rise above 
 its own level ; nor, unless associated with 
 a new power, can it ever engender life. 
 
 The most important function of the 
 plant in the economy of nature is, with the 
 aid of the sun's light, to turn inorganic in- 
 to organic matter, and thus prepare food 
 for the animal. Nothing else in nature 
 does this important work. The animal 
 cannot do it, and starves in the midst of 
 an abundance of the materials needed for 
 the building up of its body. The plant 
 stores up force which it is not called upon 
 to use ; the animal takes it i-eady made as 
 food, and expends it in activity. The 
 plant, therefore, is the indispensable ba- 
 
THIRD COSMOGONIC DAY CONTINUED. 89 
 
 sis of all animal life ; for though animals 
 partially feed upon each other, ultimately 
 the organic matter they need must come 
 from the plant. 
 
 The manner in which Moses introduces 
 the creation of the plant, as a work dis- 
 tinct in its nature from the first work of 
 the third day, and the position he assigns 
 to it, within and at the end of that day, 
 and before the creation of living beings, 
 are highly philosophical. This order is 
 required by the law of progress, accord- 
 ing to which the inferior appears before 
 the superior, because the fii'st is the con- 
 dition of the phenomenal existence of the 
 latter. 
 
 Is this position of the plant in the order 
 of creation confirmed by geology ? If we 
 should understand the text as meaning 
 that the whole plant kingdom, from the 
 lowest infusorial form to the highest di- 
 cotyledon, was created at this early day, 
 geology would assuredly disprove it. But 
 
90 CREATION. 
 
 tlie author of Genesis, as we have before 
 remarked, mentions every order of facts but 
 once, and he does it at the time of its first 
 introduction. Here, therefore, the whole 
 system of plants is described in full outline, 
 as it has been developed, from the lowest 
 to the most perfect, in the succession of 
 ages ; for it will never again be spoken of 
 in the remainder of the narrative. 
 
 What plants actually existed at this pe- 
 riod geology must find out. The possi- 
 bility of infusorial plants living in warm, 
 and even in hot water, is proved by their 
 being found in the geysers of Iceland, and 
 in hot, acidulated springs. The latest geo- 
 logical investigations tell us that abun- 
 dant traces of cai:bonaceous matter and 
 old silicious deposits, among the so-called 
 azoic rocks, indicate the presence of a large 
 number of infusorial protophytes in those 
 early seas. "Whether they furnished food 
 for the primitive protozoans of a similar 
 grade is still a matter of doubt ; but the 
 
THIRD COSMOGONIC DAT CONTINtJED. 91 
 
 limestone strata in the azoic age seem to 
 speak in tlie affirmative. 
 
 The striking fact that Moses, though 
 fully recognizing the great difEerence be- 
 tween the two works of the third day, and 
 the importance of the vegetable kingdom, 
 did not assign to it a special day, but left 
 it in the age of matter, is not less full of 
 meaning. 
 
 The plant is not yet life, but the bridge 
 between matter and life — ^the link between 
 the two ages. Placed within the material 
 age of creation, it is the harbinger and 
 promise of a more noble and better time 
 to come. It is the root of the living tree 
 planted in the inorganic globe, and des- 
 tined to flourish in the age of life. 
 
XI. 
 
 FOURTH COSMOGONIC DAT. 
 
 The f oiu-th day opens the era of life, vdth the appear- 
 ance of the sun, moon, and stars in the heavens visible 
 from the earth ; a work which apparently still belongs 
 to the physical order, but whose object is to benefit life. 
 
 SoLAK Light. 
 
 "Let luminaries be in the expanse of the Heavens, to 
 give light upon the earth ; and to separate the day 
 from the night ; and for seasons, and for days, and 
 for years." 
 
 Ir the genesis of the solar system as ex- 
 plained by Laplace is true, as we believe it 
 is, the sun and moon were not then created, 
 but they existed before, and now entei- into 
 new relations with the earth. During the 
 age of matter, the intensity of chemical 
 action was a source of permanent light — 
 the earth was self-luminous, the light of 
 
FOURTH COSMOGONIC DAT. 93 
 
 the sun, moon, and stars being merged in 
 the stronger light of its photosphere, and 
 therefore invisible to it. But after the dis- 
 appearance of its luminous envelope, our 
 glorious heavens, with sun, moon, and 
 stars become visible, and the earth depends 
 upon this outside source for light and heat. 
 Its spherical form causes the unequal dis- 
 tribution of both, which establishes the 
 differences of climate from the pole to the 
 equator. Its rotation gives, for the first 
 time, a succession of day and night, which 
 breaks the permanent light of the preceding 
 ages. Its revolution round the sun brings, 
 in their turn, the seasons and the years, 
 Thus are prepared the physical conditions 
 necessary to the existence of living beings, 
 the periods of activity and rest, of summer 
 and winter, and that variety of tempera- 
 ture and moisture which fosters the almost 
 infinite richness of the organic forms of 
 plants and animals displayed in our world 
 of life. 
 
94 CREATION. 
 
 In the third day the earth was ready 
 for life; in the fourth, the heavens are 
 ready to help in the work. The fourth day 
 is, as it were, a reminiscence of the inor- 
 ganic period, and forms another connection 
 between the two principal stages of the 
 globe. 
 
XII. 
 
 FIFTH COSHOGONIC DAY. 
 
 Cbeation of the Lower Asjmals in the Wateb aud Air. 
 
 "And God said, Let the waters teem with creeping crea- 
 tures, (swarm with swarmers,) living beings, and let 
 birds fly over the earth across the face of the ex- 
 panse of the heavens. 
 
 "And God created the great stretched out sea mon- 
 sters and all living creatures that creep, which the 
 waters breed abundantly after their kind, and every 
 winged bird after its kind, and God saw that it was 
 good. 
 
 "And God blessed them, saying. Be fruitful and 
 multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let the 
 birds multiply on the earth. And evening was,'and 
 morning was, day fifth." 
 
 The fifth and sixth days offer no difficul- 
 ties, for they unfold the successive crea- 
 tion of the various tribes of animals which 
 people the water, the air, and the land, in 
 the precise order indicated by geology. 
 
 This history is introduced by the sol- 
 emn word bard, which occui-s here for the 
 
96 CREATION. 
 
 second time, and gives us to understand 
 that, with the creation of the animal, an- 
 other great and entirely new order of ex- 
 istence begins. 
 
 All that we said on the occasion of the 
 introduction of vegetation, as the lower 
 realm of organized nature, applies with 
 double force to the animal. The plant, 
 indeed, as we have remarked, was but 
 a preparation for the appearance of the 
 living organized being. The variety of 
 animal forms is many times greater. The 
 principle of individuality becomes more 
 intense in the animal, the variety of or- 
 gans and of organic functions is greatly 
 increased. 
 
 Matter is in the animal, but controlled 
 and shaped into new forms foreign to its 
 own nature, to suit the wants of the im- 
 material being within. Vegetative life is 
 in it, but subservient to higher functions, 
 which the plant could never perform by 
 itself. A conscious perception of the 
 
FIFTH COSMOGONIC DAY. 97 
 
 outer world by sensation^ however, aud a 
 will to react upoa it, are powers Avhicli 
 place tlie animal on a higher platform, 
 and make it a being which, by its na- 
 ture and its functions, is entirely distinct 
 from the lower grades of existence. 
 
 Here the important question which we 
 have already asked, again recurs : Do all 
 these phenomena of life, so didBEerent from 
 the simple work of the inorganic par- 
 ticles of matter, take place without the 
 help of a new power, of an immaterial 
 nature, for which matter is but an in- 
 strument for performing these higher func- 
 tions; or are they merely the result of 
 a new combination of the chemical ele- 
 ments, left to themselves ? In other 
 words : Can life proceed from non-living 
 matter; or is it true that life can be 
 evolved only from the living?. All the 
 more recent, careful experiments have de- 
 monstrated that the first is but an illusion ; 
 life alone begets life; and such reliable 
 
98 CREATION. 
 
 observers as Pasteur, Tyndall, and others, 
 have declared the spontaneous generation 
 an untenable hypothesis. Even the most 
 pronounced materialists, such as Haeckel, 
 avow that science has not yet been able 
 to evolve life out of dead matter ; but, as 
 the latter savant naively expresses himself, 
 " it must be so, for otherwise we should 
 have to admit a miracle," whicTi for him 
 is an absurdity. And still this mii-acle 
 did occur, for the introduction of a new 
 element is a creation — that is, a miracle 
 • — and so the Bible says. 
 
 Let us cast a glance at the geological 
 history of the life system, such as present 
 science enables us to read it, and the ad- 
 mirable correctness of the Mosaic account 
 will be evident. 
 
 GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OP LIFE. 
 
 Geology informs us that the terrestrial 
 crust, down to its lowest attainable depths, 
 is composed of layers placed upon each 
 
FIFTH COSMOGONIO DAY. 09 
 
 other, different in mineralogical character 
 and structure, and evidently deposited at 
 the bottom of the ocean. The order 
 of their superposition furnishes a sure 
 chronological table of the events which 
 took place during their formation; the 
 lowermost stratum, the first deposited, be- 
 ing the oldest ; the surface layers, the last 
 formed, being the most i-ecent. 
 
 These strata preserve in their folds the 
 archives of the creation of organized be- 
 ings, living at the time of their deposition, 
 whose innumerable remains fill their rocky 
 shelves and reveal to the geologist the 
 order of appearance of the various tribes 
 of plants and animals, thus enabling him 
 to reconstruct the history of the life sys- 
 tem, through all its gradual changes, from 
 its earliest beginning to the present time. 
 
 Five great ages of life may be distin- 
 guished, each of them characterized by 
 the predominance of a certain class of 
 animals, and marking the great steps of 
 
100 CREATION. 
 
 gradual progress in the vast system of 
 the liviag forms of the past. 
 
 These are preceded, as a preface, by an 
 age of protophytes and protozoans, as yet 
 rather vaguely determined, in the so-called 
 azoic or archsean rocks. 
 
 1. The age of invertebrated animals, con- 
 tained in the Silurian series of rocks. 
 
 2. The age of fishes, in the Devonian 
 series. 
 
 3. The age of the first land plants, in 
 the Carboniferous rocks. 
 
 4. The age of the reptiles, in the Me- 
 sozoic rocks — ^triassic, Jurassic, and creta- 
 ceous. 
 
 5. The age of the mammals, in the Ter- 
 tiary rocks, which is closed by the age of 
 man, in the Quaternary or present age. 
 
 The Age of Protophytes and Protozoans. 
 
 The lowermost strata to which we have 
 access are the so-called Laurentian of Can- 
 ada, and analogous formations in other 
 
FIFTH COSMOGONIC DAY. 101 
 
 continents. These rocks of great thickness 
 show absolutely no traces of life and can 
 really be considered as the end of the 
 azoic age of the globe. But just above 
 them the middle Laurentians contain 
 carbon, in the shape of graphite, and 
 masses of limestone, both of which indi- 
 cate the first signs of vegetable and ani- 
 mal life. It is well known that carbon, 
 when found chemically isolated, denotes 
 a vegetable process. A vast quantity of 
 graphite and carbonaceous matter, found 
 disseminated in the most ancient layers, 
 up to the Cambrian, seems to prove the 
 presence in the waters of a great number 
 of protophytes whose delicate forms could 
 not be preserved, while the solid sub- 
 stance — the carbon — testifies to their 
 former existence. 
 
 The intercalated limestones, carefully ex- 
 amined under the microscope by Dr. Daw- 
 son, appeared to him to be fossil species of 
 monsti'ous protozoans, though other skil- 
 
102 CREATION. 
 
 ful investigators have since refused to rec- 
 ognize an animal in the Eozoon Canadense. 
 It must be confessed that this would be a 
 natural beginning of the life system, all the 
 more that the limestone deposits are, to a 
 great extent, in later ages, the result of the 
 life operations of most minute beings. 
 
 The Cambrian and Silurian Age — Fri- 
 mordial Favina. 
 
 If there is still some doubt as to the ex- 
 istence of life at this early stage, there is 
 none in regard to it at the beginning of the 
 Cambrian and the Silurian age. Here 
 we find ourselves at once in the presence, 
 not of doubtful animal forms, but of a 
 complete fauna, representing the three 
 great archetypes of invertebrated animals, 
 the radiates, mollusks, and the articu- 
 lates, with all their various subdivisions. 
 They do not appear successively, as might 
 be expected, in the oi'der of their perfec- 
 tion, but all simultaneously, on the same 
 
Plate V. 
 
 Dipterus. 
 DEVONIAN AG E — F I S H ES. 
 
FIFTH C0SM060NIC DAY. 103 
 
 level, the mollusks preserving a decided 
 pre-eminence. 
 
 During untold ages, represented by suc- 
 cessive deposits of rocks, amounting to 
 over twenty thousand feet in thickness, 
 corals and plant-like radiates, mollusks of 
 all grades — some of gigantic size — num- 
 berless crustaceans of embryonic forms, 
 swarm in the tepid waters of the ocean ; 
 but no fishes are found, save a few at the 
 very end of this long period, as fore- 
 runners of the hio;her forms which are 
 coming. This is the reign of the lower 
 animal life — the involuntary or instinct life 
 — ^typified by the invertebrates. 
 
 Devonmn Age. 
 
 The Devonian strata contain an abun- 
 dance of remains of the fish tribe, which 
 is added to the riches of the sea, and 
 takes the lead among the tenants of the 
 ocean ; for, though the lowest grade in the 
 archetype of yertebratpSj it belongs to the 
 
104 CREATION. 
 
 higher level of animal life, with brain, in 
 which the sensation and will predominate. 
 The strange forms of these first fishes, 
 their reptilian character, their powerful 
 organization, make them the scavengers 
 and the kings of the seas. This is the 
 reign of fishes. 
 
 These two long ages, the Silurian and 
 the Devonian, Avere the aquatic age of the 
 world. The whole life system was confined 
 to the waters of the ocean. The tempera- 
 ture of these waters and the physical cir- 
 cumstances which characterized them must 
 have been similar in all continents, for the 
 Silurian and Devonian animals show a 
 remarkable resemblance of species in the 
 most vtddely separated regions of the globe. 
 Though the specific forms are numerous, 
 they are not so deeply marked. 
 
 The same aquatic character is also ob- 
 served in the vegetation. The few plants 
 which have resisted the decomposition are 
 those which live only in the water, and 
 
FIFTH COSMOGONIC DAY. 105 
 
 nearly all belong, like the algae, to the 
 flowerless thallogens, whose tissues are 
 composed exclusively of vegetable cells. 
 In the Devonian, plants of a higher grade, 
 belonging to the vascular cryptogams, 
 such as the ferns, are added, and already 
 proclaim the presence of land. But the 
 triumphal development of vegetation takes 
 place in the following — ^the Carboniferous 
 — age, in which the superabundance of 
 plant life becomes the chief characteristic. 
 
 Garhoniferous .Age. 
 
 During the Devonian age, the great pre- 
 dominance of the sandstone formations 
 indicated the shallowness of the seas in 
 which these materials of the decomposing 
 rocks, tossed about by the waves, were de- 
 posited. 
 
 In the Carboniferous age the continents, 
 which were slowly growing under the 
 water, reach the surface. These vast ex- 
 panses of newly emerged, still swampy, 
 
106 CREATION. 
 
 lands cover tlieniselves with a mantle of 
 verdure. In the warm and moist atmos- 
 phere, overcharged with carbonic acid gas, 
 humble cryptogams attain to the size of 
 stately forest trees, and luxuriant ferns and 
 kindred plants provide the material for the 
 vast beds of coal so precious to civilized 
 man. This is also an age of slow oscilla- 
 tions of the land. The swamp, in which 
 were decomposed the plants which form 
 a bed of coal, was slowly submerged and 
 the growth of the forest stopped. New 
 deposits of mud and sand covered that 
 mass of vegetation, under which it was 
 transformed into coal. A subsequent 
 movement raised the land again above 
 the water, the vegetative process begins 
 anew and provides materials for another 
 forest and another bed of coal. This pro- 
 cess is repeated so often that we find a se- 
 ries of over forty similar superposed beds 
 of coal, in the United States ; sixty, in 
 Nova Scotia, and nearly one hundred, in 
 
riFTH COSMOGONIC DAT. 107 
 
 England. When we reflect that it has 
 been calculated that a luxuriant forest, 
 like that of the valley of the Amazon, 
 put under water, Avould produce only half 
 an inch of coal, we can form an idea of 
 the length of a geological period, imply- 
 ing the successive growth and transfor- 
 mation into coal of hundreds of forests, 
 adorning the ground one after another, 
 and leaving; behind them beds of coal of 
 four, eight, and twenty feet in thickness. 
 
 The Carboniferous age was pre-eminent- 
 ly an age of verdure. Though similar coal 
 beds are found in every age, geology fails 
 to record, before or after this remarkable 
 period, a time at which these deposits are 
 at once so extensive, so universal, and 
 quantitatively so abundant. 
 
 But in that immense mass of vegetation, 
 none of the present flowers, with vivid 
 colors, enlivened the landscape. Seven- 
 eighths of the species represented were 
 fenis, either in the form of luxuriant foli- 
 
108 CREATION. 
 
 age or in the shape of trees. The other 
 trees, like the stately lepidodendron, are 
 gigantic forms of the puny ground pine of 
 the present day. The stout sigillarias with 
 their enormous roots, the slender calamites, 
 resembling the cane-brakes, were the princi- 
 pal ornaments of these dark, moist forests. 
 All these belong, like the ferns, to the great 
 vascular cryptogams, or intermediate forms. 
 The only flowering trees were a small num- 
 ber of gymnosperms, or of the pine tribe, 
 whose inconspicuous flowers do not modify 
 the character of the forests but which her- 
 ald a higher type of vegetation to come. 
 
 We see here, therefore, the first grand 
 display of a land vegetation, the form of 
 which, however, is limited to the class of 
 plants whose botanical character is • the 
 predominance of foliage over every other 
 part of the plant. 
 
 This age of verdure extended over the 
 whole world ; for we find it with similar 
 characteristics, nay, similar specific form, 
 
FIFTH COSMOGONIC DAY. 109 
 
 in all the continents, though there is no- 
 where so great a development as in North 
 America. Coal is found with the same 
 species of plants from the Arctic regions, 
 in Spitzberg, through the temperate and 
 tropical zones, to South America, Africa, 
 and Australia. Every one is aware of the 
 vast importance of these enormous de- 
 posits of . coal for human industry, upon 
 which depends so much of the riches of all 
 civilized nations. 
 
 But the coal era performed also an im- 
 portant function in favor of the life sys- 
 tem, in purifying the atmosphere of its 
 excess of carbonic acid gas. By the de- 
 composition of that gas by the living 
 plants, under the action of the sun, the 
 carbon was fixed in the coal beds, while 
 the oxygen was returned to the atmos- 
 phere, for the furtherance of animal life. 
 The beneficial influence of this process is 
 shown by, the fact that the first air-breath- 
 ing animals, such as insects and amphib- 
 
110 CREATION. 
 
 ians, begin to appear only in and toward 
 tlie end of that period. 
 
 The progress of the life system in the 
 Carboniferous age is not so well marked. 
 A few small amphibious reptiles, and to- 
 ward the end large types, of a mixed 
 character already announce that the great 
 reptilian age is at hand. 
 
 The three preceding ages together make 
 the Palaeozoic Era, or the ancient history 
 of the life system ; for it can be fitly called 
 the time of the three great beginnings : 
 
 1. The vegetative life of the invei"te- 
 brates in the Silurian. 
 
 2. The higher life of the brain animals 
 as represented by the fishes. 
 
 3. The Carboniferous, with the first dis- 
 play of land life. 
 
 Now opens 
 
 The Mesozoic Age. 
 
 In the Triassic, of this age, the sand- 
 stone formation, indicating a considerable 
 

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FIFTH COSMOGONIC DAY. Ill 
 
 destruction and reconstruction, with a 
 meagre supply of fossils, predominates. 
 
 In the Jurassic and Cretaceous, the great 
 abundance of limestone formations de- 
 notes a prevalence of loAver marine life j 
 the very rocks are formed by an accumu- 
 lation of microscopic protozoans. The de- 
 velopment of the invertebrates, and par- 
 ticularly of the moUusks, attains here its 
 highest pitch, in the number and beauty 
 of its most perfect form, the cephalo- 
 pods. Ammonites, remarkable for their 
 great size and their elaborate elegance 
 and variety, and innumerable Belemnites, 
 fill the Jurassic and the Cretaceous seas 
 with a profusion of mollusean life which 
 is never found again, to that degree, in 
 later periods. 
 
 This is again the time of the formation 
 and growth of coral reefs and coral isl- 
 ands, which were so well defined, that the 
 geologists of the Jura gave a full account 
 of their structure, before Dana and Dar- 
 
112 CREATION. 
 
 win described the same phenomena as ob- 
 served by them, among the thousand isl- 
 ands which stud the Pacific. 
 
 But by far the most important feature 
 of this age, is the preponderance and va- 
 riety of reptilian life. 
 
 Gigantic amphibians, in the first period, 
 present a curious mixture of the charac- 
 ters of that class intermingled with those 
 of the true reptiles. 
 
 The Jurassic seas were peopled with the 
 long-necked Plesiosaurs and the stoutbuilt 
 Ichthyosaurs, from twenty to thirty feet 
 long. 
 
 In the great central sea, which was then 
 covering the plains of Kansas, swam a va- 
 riety of reptiles, some of which, of ser- 
 pentine forms, like the Elasmosaurus and 
 the Edestosaurus, attained the size of sixty 
 to eighty feet and more ; while the Atlantic 
 coast was tenanted by numerous species of 
 massive Mosasaurs. 
 
 Land reptiles were equally abundant 
 
FIFTH COSMOGONIC DAY. 113 
 
 and notable in size. Besides the crocodile 
 and the lizard-like Iguanodon, the Meg- 
 alosaur and many others, the family of 
 the Dinosaurs deserves a special mention. 
 Their bird-like aflBnities of structure, the 
 disproportion of their anterior legs to their 
 hind limbs, whose length and strength al- 
 lowed them to take an upright position 
 which gave them a kangaroo-like appear- 
 ance, make them one of the most remark- 
 able families of this age of reptiles. 
 
 This family contained also the largest 
 types of land animals that have ever ex- 
 isted. The Hadrosaurus of New Jersey 
 stood erect, from twenty to twenty-five 
 feet high. The Atlantosaurus of Colo- 
 rado reached the height of from sixty to 
 eighty feet, so that it would be difficult 
 to understand how the strength of its 
 muscles could have supported the weight 
 of its bones, if it was not that the latter 
 had been foimd hollow, like those of the 
 birds. 
 
114 CEEATION. 
 
 The atmosphere also was replete with 
 reptilian life. There were bat-like ani- 
 mals with enormous heads and membran- 
 ous wings — the Pterodactyls — of all di- 
 mensions, from our ordinary bats to mon- 
 strous species whose expanded wings 
 measured twenty-five feet from tip to tip. 
 Contemporaneously with them, a wonder- 
 ful family of birds, with teeth and rep- 
 tilian characters, prepared the transition 
 to the true bu-ds, which made their appear- 
 ance, in small numbers, at a later time. 
 
 A last feature of the Mesozoic age must 
 be noted. The forest trees of the Triassic 
 and Jurassic periods were essentially made 
 up of Calamites, colossal Horsetails, and a 
 majority of Grymnosperms ; that is Pines, 
 Cycads, and other Conifers. 
 
 With the Cretaceous period, the char- 
 acter of the vegetation changes. The 
 classes of the Monocotyledons and the Di- 
 cotyledons sliow themselves in profusion. 
 The oak, the maple, the sassafras, etc., 
 
C5 
 
 O 
 
 N 
 
 o 
 
 M 
 UJ 
 
FIFTH COSMOGONIC DAT. 115 
 
 which constitute the bulk of our pres- 
 ent forests, are found in abundance in the 
 temperate regions, and palm trees in the 
 warmer latitudes. The scenery assumes 
 altogether the modern aspect which it 
 still retains. 
 
 No two ages in the history of the life 
 system present a more striking contrast 
 than this age of the mastery of reptiles, 
 and the Neozoic, or Tertiary, which fol- 
 lows. These huge reptiles, which filled 
 the water, the land, and the atmosphere, 
 suddenly disappear after the Cretaceous, 
 While the vegetation of the landscape re- 
 mains very much the same, a new class 
 of animals, the mammals, the typical and 
 the highest of the vertebrates, at once 
 take their place on the globe. During the 
 three periods which succeed each other 
 in that age — the Eocene, the Miocene, and 
 the Pliocene — the various types are gradu- 
 ally developed; in the Eocene, mostly 
 mixed types, which are afterwards special- 
 
116 CREATION. 
 
 ized ; in the Miocene, the great pachy- 
 derms, the Mammoth and the closely allied 
 Mastodon, the group of the Herbivores, 
 and Frugivores, including the monkeys; 
 in the Pliocene, are added a large number 
 of Carnivorous animals, which become 
 characteristic of this period. 
 
 Last of all man appears, uniting in him- 
 self all the perfections of the animal king- 
 dom, and with him a higher plane of life, 
 which begins the moral world. 
 
 These facts speak a strong language. 
 They tell us that creation is a reality. 
 Besides the primordial creation of matter, 
 that, few Avill deny, the creation of life 
 must be acknowledged, since, as we have 
 seen, science has thus far been unable 
 to derive it from dead matter by any pro- 
 cess whatever. Scientific inquiries are far 
 from having demonstrated that all the ar- 
 chetypes of the invertebrates which ap- 
 pear simultaneously in the Silurian, are 
 denved from one another. Science fails to 
 
FIFTH COSMOGONIO DAY. 117 
 
 discover traces of a direct descent of the 
 vertebrate from the invertebrate, whose 
 plan of structure is entirely unlike ; of 
 the large fishes of the Devonian from 
 any preceding animal form ; of the huge 
 reptiles of the middle ages of life from 
 the fishes of the Devonian. It cannot be 
 proved that the great pachyderms, which 
 suddenly come upon the stage in the ter- 
 tiary epoch, are the offspring of the rep- 
 tiles of the preceding age. The bond 
 which unites them is of an immaterial 
 nature ; the marvellous unity of plan 
 which we observe is in the mind of the 
 Creator. We should then acknowledge a 
 plam,y admirable in conception, perfect in 
 execution. There is a wisdom which de- 
 vises, a free will, and a power which exe- . 
 cutes and creates in succession, at the ap- 
 pointed time, when it is fitting, and not a 
 single great unconscious whole developing 
 by itself. 
 
 To say more for the present is to- go be- 
 
118 CREATION. 
 
 vond the facts as we know them. Whether 
 the further progress of embryology will 
 force us to modify these views remains for 
 the future to say. 
 
 In the order of time there is progress. 
 The inferior being always precedes the su- 
 perior ; the imperfect the perfect. Inor- 
 ganic nature precedes organization. The 
 watery element reigns before the terres- 
 trial ; the aquatic and inferior animals be- 
 fore the terrestrial and superior. In the 
 series of the vertebrated animals, we see 
 fishes, reptiles, birds, and mammifers ap- 
 pearing in the ages of the globe in the 
 order of their perfection. 
 
 Whether or not we view this order as the 
 result of evolution, God's guiding hand 
 inust be discerned, without which nature 
 alone could not have produced it. 
 
 The accordance of these facts of geol- 
 ogy with the Mosaic account is so evident 
 that no further explanation is necessary. 
 
 It is, perhaps, here the place to note 
 
FIFTH COSMOGONIC DAT. 119 
 
 the wonderful accuracy witli wliicli Moses 
 gives, in a few words, the characteristics 
 of the groups of animals which he men- 
 tions. It would be difficult better to de- 
 signate than as " swarmers, living beings," 
 the prodigious quantity of small medusae 
 and marine animalculse which are every 
 day produced and swallowed by the mil- 
 lions, as the food of the monstrous whales. 
 And again, no name could be better applied 
 to the great reptiles of the Mesozoic age 
 that he describes, than the word tanni- 
 nim, or great stretched out sea monsters, 
 by which they are indicated in the text. 
 
 In the Tertiary the herbivorous animals, 
 domesticated by man, are named cattle ; 
 while the others, including the carnivo- 
 rous, are called the wild beasts, and the 
 smaller ones, the creeping things. 
 
XIII. 
 
 SIXTH COSMOGONIC DAT. 
 
 The sixth day, -which is the third of the era of life, 
 contains two works, as did the third day of the era of 
 matter : a. The creation of the higher animals, espe- 
 cially those living on the dry land, corresponding with 
 the Tertiary age. b. The creation of man in the Qna- 
 temary age. 
 
 a. Higher AnimaiiS. Mamatat.t* . 
 
 " And God made the beasts of the earth after their Mnd, 
 and the cattle after their kind, and every creeping 
 thing of the ground after its kind, and God saw 
 that it was good." 
 
 For this creation the word made is used 
 instead of create, for it is not the first in- 
 troduction, but the continuation of the life 
 system. 
 
 The creeping animals of the sixth day 
 are not reptiles, but, according to Gesen- 
 
SIXTH COSMOGONIO DAT. 121 
 
 ius the smaller mammalia — rats, mice, 
 etc. 
 
 The greatest changes in the mineral 
 and organic creation, according to geol- 
 ogy, took place between the cretaceous and 
 tertiary epochs. And there, also, Moses 
 places the beginning of a new day. For 
 not only are the land animals a new set of 
 beings, they are also the highest, and the 
 family to which man belongs as a member 
 of the life system of natui-e. 
 
XIV. 
 
 SIXTH COSMOGONIC DAY CONTINUED. 
 
 b. Creation of JIan. 
 
 ■■'Aiid God created man in his image, in the image of 
 God created he him, male and female created he 
 them." 
 
 The second work of the sixth day is of a 
 vastly different nature from the first. 
 
 The animal kingdom, as such and in 
 itself, is finished; but between this plane 
 and the new sphere which is coming a link 
 is necessary, and this link to a more ex- 
 alted grade of life is man. 
 
 The creation of man is a fact of such 
 great importance that it could not be men- 
 tioned otherwise than separately. Here 
 again, and for the third time, the word iard 
 announces, not a simple continuation of 
 the animal, but the creation of still another 
 
SIXTH COSMOGONIC DAY CONTINUED. 123 
 
 order of existence, the most exalted of all. 
 Three times, as if to emphasize the event, 
 the potent word is repeated. 
 
 Man, made by the Creator in his own 
 image, and upon whose creation Moses puts 
 so much stress, to enforce, as it were, the 
 idea of his dignity, could not be con- 
 founded with the animals. With his ad- 
 vent a still higher plane is introduced 
 which comprises not only animal but 
 spiritual life, which has its own laws, its 
 own character, and for which the body is 
 but an instrument — an instrument that in 
 its service is called upon to perform much 
 higher functions than the simple physio- 
 logical ones. 
 
 That spiritual element, which constitutes 
 man as a distinct creation, can no more be 
 derived from the physiological functions 
 of the animal than life can be evolved 
 from dead matter. There is between the 
 two planes an impassable abyss. The in- 
 visible world, the world of ideas, which 
 
124 CREATION. 
 
 contains the roots of all existence, is ab- 
 solutely shut up from the animal, for he 
 has no power to perceive it. All his 
 knowledge comes to him through his bodily 
 senses, which are confined to the use of 
 his bodily wants, and, directed and limited 
 by instinct, do not extend in any way to 
 the region of the unseen. The animal, 
 therefore, incapable of knowing God, is 
 not a responsible moral agent. He is still 
 under the law of nature, that is of in- 
 stinct or necessity, while man, possessed 
 of a knowledge of God, is under the law 
 of liberty and thus becomes a responsible, 
 or in other words, a moral being. 
 
 We often hear of palaeontologists look- 
 ing sedulously for the missing link between 
 man and the animal. They forget that in 
 the sense of which they speak, there can 
 be no link wanting. The figure and the 
 structure of the ape is as near as need 
 be, to be called a link between man and 
 the animal ; the difEerence between the 
 
SIXTH COSMOGONIC DAT CONTINUED. 125 
 
 two beings is not in the shape of a 
 thumb or of any particular bodily organ,, 
 but in the moral nature. An animal, as 
 beautiful in form as Apollo Belvidere, but 
 not possessed of the sense of the invisible, 
 would still be an animal and nothing 
 more. A poor misshapen Hottentot, en- 
 dowed mth. these spiritual faculties, ren- 
 dering him capable of becoming a living 
 member of the spiritual w^orld, through 
 faith in Christ, would still be a man, be- 
 longing to that upper plane of life, and 
 bound to his Maker by ties of love and 
 adoration. 
 
 The invisible world of ideas is the true 
 domain of man, the scene of his activity. 
 For this reason, language has been vouch- 
 safed to him, while it is denied to the 
 animal, whose functions are limited to the! 
 procuring of food, to self-defense and to 
 reproduction. Even the powers of the 
 monkey are tbus restricted. Hence the 
 unlimited .capacity for progress in man, 
 
126 CREATION. 
 
 and the completely stationary condition in 
 the monkey tribe and in all animals, are 
 easily explained. Nature has separated the 
 two orders by immutable laws. 
 
 Any length of time that Darwin might 
 desire for his transformations, would never 
 suffice to make of the monkey a civilizable 
 man. 
 
 The new element, therefore, which is 
 infused into man, at his creation, is the 
 religious element, or the capacity of being 
 associated, in God's service, with God's 
 life and God's perfections. 
 
 But why does Moses place this creation, 
 not in a separate day, but with the mam- 
 malia in the sixth day ? 
 
 Man is the crowning act of the Creator. 
 He is the summary of all the perfections 
 scattered through the animal kingdom, of 
 which he is the head. He is the end 
 and aim of the whole development of our 
 planet, and as such belongs to our physical 
 earth. 
 
SIXTH COSMOGONIC DAT CONTINUED. 127 
 
 But he is also a being of a new and 
 superior order, and therefore must be kept 
 distinct. The appearance of the physical 
 man is the prophecy and the promise of 
 a future and more perfect age of develop- 
 ment which begins with him — the age of 
 moral freedom and responsibility — that of 
 the historical world. 
 
 This second work of the sixth day is 
 thus the link between the age of the phy- 
 sical creation and that of the moral de- 
 velopment of mankind, as the plant was 
 the link between the material world and 
 that of life. It is the moral world 
 planted in the material world, in order to 
 make the latter subservient to a higher 
 and better aim. 
 
 Before we leave this grand history of 
 the creation let us offer a few remarks on 
 the relation that it holds to evolution, the 
 favorite doctrine of the day. 
 
 Though the narrative is, on the whole, 
 singularly non-committal, in regard to any 
 
128 CREATION. 
 
 specific scientific doctrine, there are a few 
 points on which it is positive. It teaches 
 that: 
 
 1. The primordial creation of matter, the 
 creation of the system of life, and the crea- 
 tion of man, are three distinct creations. 
 
 2. They are not simultaneous but suc- 
 cessive. 
 
 3. God's action in the creation is constant. 
 As we have already observed, each of 
 
 these great orders of things is introduced 
 by the word hard, so that Moses seemed to 
 distinguish the three great groups of phe- 
 nomena as distinct in essence. According 
 to this, the evolution from one of these 
 orders into the other — from matter into 
 life, from animal life into the spiritual life 
 of man — is impossible. 
 
 The question of evolution within each of 
 these great systems — of matter into vari- 
 ous forms of matter, of life into the va- 
 rious forms of life, and of mankind into 
 all its varieties — remains still open. 
 
SIXTH COSMOGOlSriC DAT CONTINUED. ] 29 
 
 The relation of these three worlds is no 
 less remarkable. Matter — the lowest or- 
 der — ^is a general substratum for all the 
 others. Aided and fashioned by the prin- 
 ciple of life it performs higher functions 
 in the plant and animal. Matter, plant 
 life, and animal life perform higher intel- 
 lectual and moral functions, under the 
 guidance of the human soul. 
 
 Every one of the lower powers, associ- 
 ated with a higher element, becomes in- 
 strumental ; the higher as a cause, the 
 lower as a condition of existence, or as an 
 instrument, both co-operating to a com- 
 mon progress. 
 
 But after each of these factors has per- 
 formed its part, something yet j-emains to 
 be explained. The result, varied as it 
 may be, is never arbitrary confusion, but 
 order and beauty; and this shows the 
 constant and indispensable supervision of 
 God over Ms work. 
 
 9 
 
1,'50 CEEATIOW. 
 
 Here end the working days of the Cre- 
 ator. All his other works God had de- 
 clared to be good ; but on the sixth day 
 " God saw every thing that he had made, 
 and, behold, it was very good.'''' 
 
 The work of the whole week is now 
 finished, and perfect as God will have it 
 for his purpose — his own gloiy and the 
 education of man. 
 
XV. 
 
 THE SEVENTH DAT. THE SABBATH OF CREATION. 
 
 " Thus the heavens were finished, and the earth, and all 
 the host of them. 
 
 And on the seventh day God ended his work 
 ■which he had made and rested on the seventh day 
 from all the work which he had made. 
 
 And God blessed the seventh day and hallowed 
 it, for in it he rested from all his work which God 
 had created and made." 
 
 Now begins the seventh day, the day of 
 rest, or the Sabhath of the earth, when the 
 globe and its inhabitants are completed. 
 
 Since the beginning of this day no new 
 creation has taken place. God rests as 
 the Creator of the visible universe. The 
 forces of nature are in that admirable 
 equilibrium which we now behold, and 
 which is necessaiy to our existence. No 
 more mountains or continents are formed, 
 
132 CEEATION. 
 
 no new species of plants or animals are 
 created. Nature goes on steadily in its 
 Avonted path. All movement, all progress 
 has passed into the realm of mankind, 
 which is now accomplishing its task. 
 
 The seventh day is, then, the present age 
 of our globe ; the age in which we live, 
 and which was prepared for the develop- 
 ment of mankind. The narrative of Moses 
 seems to indicate this fact ; for at the end 
 of each of the six working days of creation 
 we find an evening. But the morning of 
 the seventh is not followed by any event- 
 ing. The day is still open. When the 
 evening shall come the last hour of hu- 
 manity will strike. 
 
 This view of the Sabbath of creation 
 has been objected to, on account of the 
 form of the command in the Decaloo-ue, 
 relating to the observance of the Sabbath. 
 But those who object, confound God's 
 Sabbath with man's Sabbath, and foi'get 
 the words of Christ, that our Sabbath was 
 
THE SEVENTH DAT. 133 
 
 made for man, who needs it, and not for 
 God. God rests as a Creator of tlie ma- 
 terial world only to become active, nay, 
 Creator in the spiritual world. His Sab- 
 bath work is one of love to man — the re- 
 demption. His creation is that of the 
 new man, born anew of the Spirit, in the 
 heart of the natural man. So man is 
 commanded to imitate God in leaving 
 once in seven days the work of this 
 material world, to turn all his attention 
 and devote his powers to the things of 
 heaven. 
 
 There are, therefore, three Sabbaths : 
 
 1. God's Sabbath, after the material 
 creation. 
 
 2. The Sabbath of humanity, the prom- 
 ised millennium, after the toil and struggle 
 of the six working days of history. 
 
 3. The Sabbath of the individual, short- 
 lived man, the day of rest of twenty- 
 four hours, made for him according to 
 his measure. 
 
1 84 OKEATION. 
 
 The length of the day in each, is of no 
 account. The j)lan, in all, is the same, and 
 contains the same idea — six days of work 
 and struggle in the material world, followed 
 by a day of peace, of rest from the dailj- 
 toil, and of activity in the higher world of 
 the spirit. For the Sabbath is not only a 
 day of rest, it is the day of the Lord. 
 
 The following tableau, summing up the 
 results of the preceding discussion, may be 
 found of service in making clear the cor- 
 respondence between the record of Moses 
 and that of science. 
 
 Whatever be the opinion which we may 
 entertain as to the correctness of the his- 
 tory of the creation of the universe and 
 the earth, such as the present results of in- 
 ductive science can furnish, we may affirm 
 that the best explanation science is now 
 able to give, on this great topic, is also that 
 which best explains, in all its details, the 
 first chapter of Genesis, and does it justice. 
 
XVI. 
 
 CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 Stjch is the grand cosmogonic week de 
 scribed by Moses. To a sincere and un- 
 prejudiced mind it must be evident that 
 these great outlines are the same as those 
 which modern science enables us to trace, 
 however imperfect and unsettled the data 
 afforded by scientific researches may ap- 
 pear on many points. 
 
 Whatever modifications in our present 
 view of the development of the universe 
 and the globe may be expected from new 
 discoveries, the prominent features of this 
 vast picture will remain, and these only 
 are delineated in this admirable account 
 of Genesis. 
 
 These outlines were sufficient for the 
 
136 CKEATION. 
 
 moral purposes of tlie book ; the scientific 
 details are for us patiently to investigate. 
 They were, no doubt, unknown to Moses ; 
 as the details of the life and of the work 
 of the Saviour were unknown to the great 
 prophets, who announced his coming and 
 traced out with master hand his character 
 and mission, centuries before his appear- 
 ance on the earth. 
 
 But the same divine hand which lifted, 
 for Daniel and Isaiah, the veil which 
 covered the tableau of the time to come, 
 unveiled to the eyes of the author of 
 Genesis, by a series of graphic visions and 
 pictures, the earliest ages of the creation. 
 Thus Moses was the prophet of the past, 
 as Daniel and Isaiah and many others 
 were the prophets of the future. 
 
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THE RELIGIOUS FEELING. 
 
 By Rev. NEWMAN SMYTH. 
 
 One Volume, 12mo, cloth, «... $1.26. 
 
 In this volume Mr. Smyth has it for his object to formulate the relig- 
 ious feeling as a capacity of the human mind, and to vindicate its clainii. 
 40 authonty. He sets before himself at the outset the task of convicting 
 sceptical philosophy out of its own mouth. The work is thoroughly logical, 
 and displays a familiarity with the most recent German thought which is 
 rarely to be found. 
 
 CRITICAIi NOTICES. 
 
 *'The argument in its clearness, force and illustrations, has never, to our knowledge, 
 been better stated. Mr. Smyth has brought to his work a clear, analytical mind, an 
 extensive knowledge of German philosophical thought, and an intellectual familiarity 
 with the later Kuglish schools. He does his own thinking, and writes with perspicuity 
 and vigor." — The Aduance. 
 
 ** We welcome this volume as a valuable contribution to that type of thought in the 
 vindication of theism which is specially demanded at the present time. The discussion 
 throughout evinces much reading and vigorous thought, and is conducted with marked 
 candor and ability.*" — Ne^o Englander. 
 
 ** The argument contained in these pages is eminently satisfactory. It is one of the 
 best answers to Darwin and his followers we have ever met with." — The Churchtnan. 
 
 Orthodox Theology of To-Day. 
 
 By Rev. NEWMAN SMYTH, D.D. 
 
 One Volume, IZmo, - - - $1 26. 
 
 The object of this little volume is to answer certain objections which 
 have been urged against evangelical teaching, and it is sent forth "for 
 the purpose of helping among men the removal of some common diffi- 
 culties in the way of the coming of a better day of faith." 
 
 CRITICIE. NOTICES. 
 
 "That pleasing vigor of thought and that frequent rare beauty cf language . . . 
 are fonspicious excellencies of these Fermons, with most of whose utterances we can hav** 
 strong sympathy." — The CengregatioHnlisi. 
 
 **His latest book. The Ortkodpjc Tfifoloey o/To Day,h2.5 all the good qualities sa 
 abundantlv manifested in his volumes The I\eligiovs Feeling and Old Faiiks in Nerv 
 Light. But it is a stronger and broader book than either." — N. Y. Christian 
 Advocate. 
 
 *' He puts things differently from the professed conservators of Orthodoxy, and he has 
 much sympathy with honest doubters ; but he keeps his reader under the powerful in- 
 fluence of Evangelical conceptions of God, Christ, redemption and retribution. No man 
 can learn from his pages to think lightly of sin, or to make little of religious truth."— 
 Phila^ Sunday School Times. 
 
 *** For sale ty all booksellers, or sent., post-paid, upon receipt o} 
 price, ty 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers. 
 
 ■ 743 AND 745 Broadway, New York, 
 
Old Faiths in New Light 
 
 BY 
 
 NEWMAN SMYTH, 
 
 Author of " The Religious Feeling»^^ 
 
 One Volume, 12mo, cloth, - - - $l.SO. 
 
 This work aims to meet a growing need by gathering materials oi 
 faith which have been quarried by many specialists in their own depart- 
 ments of Biblical study and scientific research, and by endeavoring to 
 put these results of recent scholarship together according to one leading 
 idea in a modern construction of old faith. Mr. Smyth's book is remark- 
 able no less for its learning and wide acquaintance with prevailing modes 
 of thought} than for its fairness and judicial spirit. 
 
 CRITICAL NOTICES. 
 
 "The author is logical and therefore clear. He also is master of a singularly 
 attractive literary^ st>ie. Few writers, whose books come under our eye, succeed ia 
 treating metaphysical and philosophical themes in a manner at once so forcible and so 
 interesting. We speak strongly about this book, because we think it exceptionally 
 valuable. It is just such a book as ought to be in the hands of all intelligent men and 
 women who have received an education sufficient to enable them to read intelligently 
 about such subjects as are discussed herein, and the number of such persons is very 
 much larger tlian some people think." — Cougregattonalist. 
 
 " We have before had occasion to notice the force and elegance of this writer, and 
 his new book shows scholarship even more advanced. * * * When we say, with 
 some knowledge of how much is undertaken by the saying, that there is probably no book 
 of moderate compass which combines in greater degree clearness of style with profundity 
 4f subject and of reasoning, we fulfil simple duty to an author whose success is all the 
 more marked and gratifying from the multitude of kindred attempts with which we have 
 been flooded from all sorts of pens.'* — Presbyterian. 
 
 **The book impresses us as clear, cogent and helpful, as vigorous in style as it is 
 honest in purpose, and calculated to render valuable service in showing that religion and 
 science are not antagonists but allies, and that both lead up toward the one God. We 
 fancy that a good many readers of this volume will entertain toward the author a feel'uig 
 of sincere personal gratitude." — Boston Journal. 
 
 " On the whole, we do not know of a book which may better be commended to 
 thoughtful persons whose minds have been unsettled by objections of modem thought 
 It will be found a wholesome work for every minister in the land to read." 
 
 — Examiner and Chronicle* 
 
 '* It is a long time since we have met with an abler or fresher theological treatise 
 than Old Faiths in New Lights by Newman Smvth, an author who in his work on 
 '*The Religious Feeling" has already shown ability as an expounder of Christian 
 doctrine.'* — Independent. 
 
 *0* For sale by all hookseltsrs, or sent f>ostpaid^ upon receipt of ^rice^ 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, 
 
 Nos. 743 AND 745 Broadway, New York 
 
The 
 
 Conflict of Christianity 
 
 WITH HEATHENISM. 
 
 By DR. GERHARD UHLHORN. 
 
 TRANSLATED BY 
 PROF. EGBERT C. SMYTH and REV. C. J. H. ROPES 
 
 One "Volume, Cro^wn 8vo, -$2.50. 
 
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 religious and moral condition of the Pagan world, the rise and spread 
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 is no work that portrays the heroic age of the ancient church with equal 
 spirit, elegance, and incisive power. The author has made thorough and 
 independent study both of the early Christian literature and also of the 
 contemporary records of classic heathenism.' 
 
 CRITIC.VL. NOTICES. 
 
 ** It is easy to see why this volume is so highly esteemed. It is 
 systematic, thorough, and concise. But its power is in the wide mental 
 vision and well-balanced imagination of the author, which enable him to 
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 command his interest." — PAz/. S. S. Times. 
 
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The Confiicts of the Age. 
 
 One Vol., 8vo, - Paper, 50 Cts. ; Cloth, 75 Ctc 
 
 The four articles which make up this little volume are • 
 
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 (3) What Morality have we left ? By a New-Light Moralist. 
 
 (4) Review^ of the Fight. By a Yankee Farmer. 
 
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 seem badly puzzled in their attempts to solve the mystery. 
 
 CUITICAI. IfOTICES. 
 
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 absurdities which lie in the modern speculations about truth and duly. We have no key 
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 ableness of the Agnosric. ai\d the New Light novelty of Ethics without a conscience." — 
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