either of these words. He does not say, “Let these lights be created," using bara, or "Let these lights be made," using ausa; but yehi – Let them be for the purpose of dividing the day from the night." In fact, the passage recognizes their previous existence, and only assigns them a new and resusci tated function to give light, the one by day and the other by night. And again, what is still more remarkable, the sixteenth verse says, "And God made two great lights." Now, the fact is, that "lights," the word here used, is not the same word as that used in the third verse, "Let there be light.” The word there is our, light; but in the sixteenth verse it is, "He appointed two great maowroth," which means "light-carriers," "linkmen," "torch-bearers; " and the whole passage plainly means, that he constituted the sun and moon to be torch-bearers, to enlighten, the one by day and the other by night. No description, therefore, while the language is popular, can be more consistent with the discoveries of science.

Thus, in the simple record that is here given, we have the creation of all things by God, and, finally, man in God's image, or moral likeness, having dominion over all things. One sees the traces of that dominion still. More or less the animal creation is subject to man. His lordship may pass into tyranny, but still it exists. More or less every creature stands in dread of man. The expression here employed, that "God created man in his own image; male and female created he them," is evidently anticipatory. The first chapter gives a résumé a short epitome of the contents of the second, and alludes to a transaction in the second, reserving for the second chapter a full record of all the facts which it implies.

We read that God gave man "every herb bearing seed and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed, for meat." Permission to eat animal food was not given until after the Noachian deluge, when a new covenant was

made, and man was then permitted to eat of the beasts of the earth.

Looking at the whole of this chapter, we see the simplest language employed — language strictly popular, intelligible in all lands, but in perfect harmony with the highest scientific discoveries. Open your Almanac for 1852, and you will find it states that the sun sets, the sun rises; yet this is absurd, scientifically speaking, and is less warrantable in a semi-scientific work. And so our Bible speaks of the sun setting, and the moon rising. All such phraseology is scientifically wrong, but it is popularly right, and conveys in the fewest and most intelligible words what is meant to be conveyed, a religious truth.

One more remark upon this chapter, which is interesting. The word "God" is in the plural number, and the word "created" is in the singular number. Now, this is very remarkable; it is a violation of grammar; and if it occurred only here, one might say it might be an accidental violation of grammar; but, if you go through the whole Bible, you will find the same thing, "Elohim," plural Hebrew, used with a singular verb. And in Ecclesiastes it is strictly," Remember now thy Creators," though translated very justly and very properly, "Remember now thy Creator." Now, the Jews argue that this implies more than one person in the Godhead, and Christian divines have justly thought that it is an intimation of that great and precious truth, a triune Jehovah.

We notice another very remarkable fact. In the second verse we read this statement: "The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." Now, the Hebrew word there translated “moved" is rendered in Hebrew lexicons, “fluttered like a dove ;" and, thus, this second verse might be rendered, "The Spirit of God kept fluttering after the manner of a dove upon the face of the waters." Hence, when you recollect that the Spirit descended upon Jesus after the man

ner of a dove, or, as a dove descends, you will see that you have the same allusion in reference to the Spirit in this verse. And this is not the interpretation of Christians only, but also of Jews. So soon did the Holy Spirit begin his work on earth.

I may notice, too, that Longinus, one of the most celebrated critics and judges of rhetoric of ancient Greece, pronounces the third verse to be the sublimest thing in this or in any other language:" And God said, Let there be light,” and the response from every part of the universe is, "There was light.” The more intimate our acquaintance is with the Mosaic record, on the one hand, and the legendary and distorted traditions and fables of the heathen, alluding to the origin and nature of all created things, on the other, the more we shall be persuaded of the inspiration of the one, and the human origin of the other. The more earnestly, moreover, we feel on religion, the less shall we be disposed to quarrel with what the philosopher calls unscientific words used to set out divine truths. Had scientific words been used, peasants might have been uninstructed. But now peasant and philosopher equally understand.

CHAPTER II.

SIX DAYS LITERAL CREATION A PROCESS WEEKS OF SEVEN DAYS -TREE OF KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL LOCALITY OF EDEN — LABOR IN EDEN ANIMAL CREATION - GEOLOGY AND MAN.

I MAY take this opportunity of noticing that the excellent, though not perfect, work to which I referred in my last (Hitchcock's “Religion of Geology"), is to be had at a very low price, being published as one of a cheap series. I allude to it again with the greater pleasure, because I am anxious that you should see from it, as a popular résumé, though not without its defects, the light that geology casts upon religion. I may mention, too, that some questions have been asked of me on this subject, and, among the rest, whether the earth was always in a state of darkness before the light was created. I answer, the verse expressly states darkness was then on the face of the deep. There was chaos, or darkness, over all the face of the earth prior to the present configuration — that is, the absence of light: at the beginning, God said, "Let there be light, and there was light." The light may have existed thousands of years before the creation of our earth, but it was now darkened it was a distinct creation of God, and was afterwards concentrated, or made to gather together in the sun; and the sun an opaque body in himself— became the radiating centre, or the mirror to reflect these rays upon the world. Evidently, the earth had lapsed into chaos, whether having light or not previously; certainly there was no light, at least on earth, immediately before God pronounced the words, "Let there be light, and there was light,"

I think, also, that the "heaven" alluded to is, throughout, not the heavenly bodies at all, but simply the space that is now filled by our atmosphere, which Peter says will pass away with a great noise, and which now surrounds and wraps the globe, and which is part and parcel of the economy in which we live.

I believe that the six days were six literal days. I know that some geologists have endeavored to prove that each day was not a literal day of twenty-four hours, but a vast geological period, as it is called. I do not think this is plain, fair dealing with the Word of God. It seems to me that the two first verses describe the original creation of all things out of nothing, and that between the act recorded in the two first verses, and the processes of the six days that followed, there may have intervened millenia · thousands or millions of

years; but I do think that each day of the seven days afterwards enumerated was strictly a literal day. Whenever we find that the literal interpretation of a passage perfectly harmonizes with the rest of the analogies of Holy Writ, or rather is not plainly impossible, we should cleave to that literal interpretation; that is, unless there be good reason to accept the passage in a figurative sense. And, in the next place, the allusion in the fourth commandment appears to me decisive, "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day." Now, let any unprejudiced mind peruse that commandment, and he will come to the conclusion that the earth and the heaven ing by the heaven the atmosphere surrounding this earthwere all created in the course of six literal days, and that God rested on the seventh day..

mean

The chapter we have now entered on describes the completion of this process: "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them." God might have called