one human day. But miracle should not be assumed here, the rule of reason and the normal law of God's operations being never to work a miracle in a case where the ordinary course of nature will accomplish the same results equally well. We must the more surely exclude miracle and assume the action of natural law only throughout these processes of the creative work because the very purpose of a protracted rather than an instantaneous creation looked manifestly to the enlightenment, instruction, interest, and joy of those "morning stars," the "sons of God" who beheld the scene, then sang together and shouted for joy" (Job 38: 7).

The greatness of the work assigned to the fourth day stringently forbids our compressing it within the limits of one ordinary human day. Especially is this the case if we understand the verse to speak of the original. creation of these light-bearers-the sun and the moon and the stars also, and of their adjustment in their spheres for their assigned work. Think of the vastness of the sun and of the numbers, magnitude, and immense distances of the stars; and ask how it is possible that the creation of these bodies could be either instructive or joyful to the beholding angels if it had been all rushed through within twenty-four hours of human time. This difficulty is in a measure relieved if we suppose the fourth day's work to have been, not the original creation of these heavenly bodies, but only the bringing of them into the view of a supposed spectator upon the earth-i. e. by clearing the atmosphere so as to make these heavenly bodies visible. The question at issue between these two constructions of the fourth day's work must be examined in its place. The amount of creative and other work brought within the sixth day should be noticed. First, God created all the land animals; then Adam; then he brought "every beast of the field and every fowl of the air" to Adam to see what he would call them-which at least must assume that Adam had attained a somewhat full knowledge of language, and that he had time enough to study the special character of each animal so as to give each one its appropriate name, and time enough also to ascertain that there was not one among them all adapted to be a "helpmeet " for himself. Then the "deep sleep" of Adam-how long protracted, the record saith not; and finally the

creation of Eve from one of his ribs-all to come within the sixth day; for the creation of Eve certainly falls within this day, being a part of the creative work, and accomplished, therefore, before God's seventh day of rest from all his work began. These labors of the sixth day, moreover, were precisely such as should not be rushed through in haste. The importance, not to say solemnity, of these transactions and the special interest they must be supposed to awaken in the first-born "sons of God" most stringently preclude precipitate haste. It is not easy to see how Moses or his intelligent readers of the early time could have supposed all this to have transpired within the twelve hours of light in a human day.We may say, moreover, in regard to each and all of these six creative periods that if the holy angels were indeed spectators of these scenes and if God adjusted his methods of creation to the capacities of these pupils-these admiring students of his glorious works-then surely we must not think of his compressing them within the period of six human days. Divine days they certainly must have been, sufficiently protracted to afford finite minds scope for intelligent study, adoring contemplation, and as the Bible indicates, most rapturous shouts of joy.

"Six

Against the theory of indefinitely long periods, it is objected that the law of the Sabbath demands the usual sense of the word "day." The record in Gen. 2: 2, 3, is— "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 sanctified it, because that in it he had rested from all his work which he had created and made." The words of the fourth command are days shalt thou labor and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God, etc.-for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it."The real argument here rests on the analogy between God's working and resting, and man's labor and rest. In each case the period of labor is six out of seven; of rest, one in seven. This argument does not require that God's six working days and one resting day should be of twenty-four hours each. If it did, we should be hard pressed to show that God's seventh day of rest from creation's work was a merely human day

from sun to sun. No; it suffices if we make God's days of creative energy and of creative rest each and all divine days—all alike periods of indefinite length-all of the same sort; and on the other hand man's days of labor and his day of rest, all human days, of the same sort with each other, from sun to sun. As God's resting day is plainly of indefinite length-a period known by its character and not by its duration, so should his days of creative labor be: not only so may they be, but so they ought to be according to the analogy and argument in the case. We come therefore to the conclusion that entirely apart from the demands of geological science, the creative days must be periods of indefinite length, called "days" with reference to the peculiar work done in them and to their peculiar character, and not as being the ordinary human day of twenty-four hours. It may be admitted, moreover, that the phraseology and the whole shaping of the narrative in respect to days may have contemplated the institution of the Sabbath-to be founded as shown above upon the analogy of God's labor and rest with man's permitted labor and enjoined rest in commemoration of God's work of creation.

(3.) We are to consider the geological facts bearing on this point and the weight legitimately due to them.

If the point last put has been sustained, it will be seen at the outset that even should geology make large demands for time, far beyond the ordinary human day, we shall have no occasion to strain the laws of interpretation to bring the record into harmony with such demands.We open this inquiry therefore into the facts of geology, not so much to make out if possible a harmony between them and Genesis by toning down the facts of science or by toning up the inspired record, as to show how readily and how beautifully the facts just as they are (so far as known) accord with the legitimate sense of the sacred record.

Preliminary to the main inquiry before us is the question as to the primary original state of matter. Was it brought into existence in its primordial elements-those molecules which not only defy all human effort at analysis, but which seem to be in their nature the simplest forms of matter?-Chemistry has shown that many of the most familiar substances, long sup

posed to be simple, are really compound. Were they brought into existence in the state in which we commonly see them, or in their ultimate, most simple elements? For example, did God originally create water, or the two gases (hydrogen and oxygen) of which it is composed, which were subsequently combined chemically into water?-On this point the Scriptures are silent. If Science has any thing to reveal about it, the field is open to her and she may proceed, nothing in the sacred Scriptures dissenting or restricting. If she succeeds in proving or half proving that the first state of matter was nebulous-a "fire-mist "-gaseous in form, very well. I do not see that the record of Moses contests this theory. It passes this point with no dogmatic statements whatever, not even a fact which necessarily implies either the affirmative or the negative. The record in Genesis does assume that at the point where the second day's work begins, the atmosphere was heavily charged with vapor, and that a part of this was precipitated upon the earth in water and a part borne upward into the higher strata of the atmosphere. The third day's work gathered the waters then upon the earth's surface into the ocean beds and left portions of the land dry. Consequently the state of the atmosphere, and in general the condition of the waters of our globe were not arranged at first just as we have them now. So much we are told.

There are yet other preliminary questions.

On the shores of lakes, seas, oceans, we find pebbles rounded and smooth, mineralogically of the same elements which are found in rock formations. Were they created in this rounded and worn state, or were they once portions of these rock strata, but subsequently broken up by natural agencies and worn by the action of flowing water?

Another case. Coal beds often contain what seem to be whole trees and huge vegetables (ferns, etc.) apparently charred and converted into coal. Were they created just as we find them, or were they indeed trees and vegetables before they became coal?—Yet another case. The rocks nearest the surface contain almost universally more or less of what seem like fossilized plants and animals. They have the form of the plant or animal in wonderful perfection. Were these

fossiliferous rocks, containing apparent fossils, created as we see them, or were these fossils once real plants and animals?—I see no reason whatever to hesitate over these questions. We can not suppose that God created these worn and rounded pebbles, these charred trees and ferns, these prints of animal footsteps-these fac-similes of his creative work in the vegetable and animal kingdom, for the sake of puzzling or misleading, or, in plainest words, deceiving his intelligent offspring. He never could have meant to baffle all scientific inquiry into his works of creation. Rather we must assume that he lays his works open to such inquiries, and invites men to study and learn his ways. If this be admitted, it follows that these stratified and fossil-bearing rocks open to us a great volume of PreAdamic history of our globe, revealing its processes of rock-formation; to some extent its climatic and various conditions for the support of life, vegetable and animal, and for its successive populations of plants and animals.

Grouping comprehensively some geological facts bearing on the duration of the great creative periods, I note (1.) Vast strata of rock-formations, widely diverse from each other, too diverse to have been formed under the same circumstances and conditions of our globe. Some the lowest in relative position-appear to have been once in a state of fusion under intense heat, while others--in general all the higher rocks-seem to have been deposited under water. Mineralogically, these rocks differ from each other very widely and also from the fused rocks. ·(2.) Again, some are manifestly composed of fragments of pre-existing rocks, broken off and worn by long-continued attrition and then compacted-known as pudding-stone-the breccias.(3.) Yet again; immense strata of these intermediate and higher rocks contain fossil organic remains, some of vegetables, others of animals or of both, and also in very great variety. More marvelous still; they are found occurring in groups, bearing a well defined relation to each other, so that one strata of rock contains species of vegetables and also of animals in a measure adapted to each other, and adjusted to the condition of the earth's surface and climate at one and the same time. Another strata shall contain a different group,