the waters, and placed in them a productive seed. The seed became an egg, bright as gold, blazing like the luminary with a thousand beams, and in that egg he was born himself in the form of Brahma, the great forefather of all spirits. The waters are called Nara, because they were the offspring of Nara, the supreme spirit; and as in them his first ayana (progress) in the character of Brahma took place, he is thence Narayana, he whose place of moving was the waters. From that which is the cause, not the object, of sense-existing everywhere in substance, not existing to our perception, without beginning or endwas produced the divine male, famed in all the worlds as Brahma. In that egg the great power sat inactive a whole year of the creator; at the close of which, by his thought alone, he caused the egg to divide itself, and from its two divisions he framed the heaven above and the earth beneath; in the midst, he placed the subtle ether, the eight regions, and the permanent receptacle of the waters. He gave being to time; to the stars also, and the planets; to rivers, oceans, and mountains; to level plains and uneven valleys; to devotion, speech, complacency, desire, and wrath; and to creation. For the sake of distinguishing action, he made a total difference between right and wrong.

"That the human race might be multiplied, he caused the Brahman, the Kshatriya, the Vaishya, and the Shudra, (the four castes,) to proceed from his mouth, his arm, his thigh, and his foot. Having divided his own substance, the mighty power became half male and half female, and from that female he produced Viraj. Know me, O most

excellent Brahmans, to be that person whom the male power, Viraj, produced by himself-me, the secondary framer of all this visible world."*

These are merely specimens of what millions have believed in bygone ages, or are still believing. Ancient and modern cosmogonies alike contradict the commonest and most elementary truths of physical science. In the sacred writings of the Hindoos, there are at the present day statements so ludicrous as to sadden us when we reflect that for millions they are the basis of religious beliefs. The moon is described as having inherent light, and as higher than the sun; and rational beings have for ages been taught and have believed that seven stories of the globe rest on the heads of elephants, whose movements are the cause of terrifying and calamitous earthquakes. And the Mahommedan is taught by his Koran. to believe that the mountains were created to prevent the earth from moving, and to hold it as by anchors and cables: "And God hath thrown upon the earth mountains firmly rooted, lest it should move with you."†

While far removed from such incongruities as these, the Mosaic record shows also remarkable freedom from merely local or national peculiarities. To this fact too little importance has been attached. It is especially

See "What is Truth?" an Inquiry concerning the Antiquity and Unity of the Human Race, by Rev. E. Burgess, pp. 241, 242.

† Koran. The Mahommedans supposed that the earth, when first created was smooth and equal, and thereby liable to a circular motion as well as the celestial orbs; and that the angels, asking who would be able to stand on so tottering a frame, God fixed it next morning by throwing the mountains upon it.—SALE'S KORAN, vol. 2, pp. 96, 296.

worthy of notice that such incidental details as the climate, the sky, and the configuration of the land, give to a large extent, their own character to locally prevailing ideas regarding the whole universe. The Euphrates and the Mesopotamian plains influence the Babylonian cosmogony; the Nile gives character to the Egyptian; sunny slopes and contrasting heights determine the Grecian; and valley gloom, forest depths, and wintry storms, the Scandinavian. It is easy to trace the physical basis of distinct cosmogonies. The bases themselves may vary, but their connection with religious beliefs is always uniform. Even national myths about creation have not preserved their original cast. They have varied with the history of the people. While the religious tendency of the national mind, and the traditional basis as to the mere fact of creation, have remained, the form of the cosmogony has been completely changed; it has been so moulded as to suit the different physical conformation and other varied conditions of the new country in which the people have settled. These modifying processes Baron Bunsen himself has acknowledged, when he says: "Again, the dispersed tribes formed many of their myths anew when they settled in their later dwelling places. Thus, in the cosmogonic myths of the Icelander, as presented to us in the Edda, it is impossible not to perceive the influence of the peculiar locality of the North Scandinavian."* But then, no such process or influence is ever traceable in the Bibie account. There is nothing local; nothing contingent; nothing dependent on the

* Bunsen's "Philosophy of Universal History," vol. 1, p. 80.

traditions of any country; nothing incongruous or ab

surd.

How account for this? How few have ever made the attempt! How seldom is an explanation sought! Was not Moses brought up in the learning of the Egyptians? How did he escape its influence? Was he not for many years a wanderer in the Arabian desert, and was he not familiar with all the traditions floating in the East and the West? If the Bible is no higher than other records, is it not strange that not a line appears which indicates in the least any such antecedent influence? Might we not reasonably count on the leader and lawgiver of Israel showing some disposition to associate Eden, man's birthplace, with the land of promise, which he longed to reach, and which he saw in the distance as Israel's future home? Yet, in this remarkable history, not one of these defects appears. Vast in its outline, it is yet so scrupulously strict in its minuter details, that it may be read without dubiety, not only in the midst of the exactest records of antiquity, but in the light of those modern discoveries in physical science which bear most directly on its statements. In reliableness and in consistency, it stands alone. The myths of heathenism regarding the origin of the world can be easily separated from it. They are all rebuked by its accuracy. While it contains every element of truth which imparts to them any coherency which they possess, it gives no place to their grotesque and deformed traditions.

Whence this singularly exact and most impressive. record? In the midst of that intellectual and supersti

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tious chaos which, according to some theorists, antiquity at first presented, how arose this bright, solid, and wondrously harmonious system? Traditions could not aid Moses. They only darkened while they multiplied the elements of confusion. Had he really, as some suppose, the sagacity to select, and the skill to combine, separate truths as to creation, while he cast aside the errors or the refuse of ages? Before we can answer that question, we require to pass in review the grotesque beliefs and practices of all the surrounding nations at the time in which he lived, the ignorance of the people, the defective scholarship of the priests, and the absence of attainments in natural science; and we must inquire into the mere possibility of Moses or of any other man, however refined in feeling and profound in thoughtfulness, producing of himself such a history as shines in the first chapter of Genesis. The production of such a record as that out of the materials then existing, may be held as beyond the capability of any unaided human intellect. We do not reason here regarding the inspiration of the record; we are dealing only with the superiority of the Bible record over all others, as presumptive evidence that it is worthy not only of careful study, but of our unhesitating acceptance.

It does not avail, for the settlement of this question, to say that the singular excellence of the Bible account of creation is due to the comparatively pure and correct views of the Divine Being which were held by the Hebrews; for there is this prior question, How came the Hebrews to have these correct views? With their acknowledged tendency to idolatry and to other heathen