St. John, we have proof that this is the beginning of all beginnings, when it is said, "In the beginning was the Word: the same was in the beginning with God: all things were made by him."

A subsidiary yet substantial argument for the beginning in Genesis being the commencement of beginnings, lies in the special use of the term bara as expressive of a creative act. It is remarkable that this term is in Scripture invariably applied to God, and never to any created being. God was known by the Israelites as Boré, Creator. Creation is a divine act-something performed indisputably by God alone; and the question has lately been limited to creation out of nothing, or a creation of something new out of what before existed. It is admitted that Yatzár, he formed, and Asáh, he made, may be used as applicable to men; and that Bara, he created, is alone applicable to God; but it is said that it does not necessarily express creation out of nothing. Scholars do not now insist on this exclusive meaning. They do not assert that it never has such a meaning; yet it is the only Hebrew term which expresses this idea, and we have to look to the context and to the connections of the term rather than to the term itself, to determine conclusively which view should be taken. "But that in the first verse," says Gesenius in his Thesaurus, "the first creation of the world out of nothing, and in a rude and unformed state, and in the remainder of the first chapter the elaboration and disposition of the recently created mass are set forth, is proved by the connections of things in the whole of this chapter;" and he

adduces, in support of this opinion, the conclusions of Jewish Rabbis.

We are perplexed by finding that so distinguished a writer as Max Müller refuses the conclusions of such scholars as Gesenius, at least on the grounds on which they rest them, and approvingly quotes those who regard bara as properly meaning to create out of preëxisting materials; but let it be observed that he does not positively preclude its meaning in any circumstances to create out of nothing.* As bara, in its most recondite application, can refer only once to creation as originating matter, and afterwards, of course, only to what is evolved as new from existing things, its special meaning must be determined by its connections. The peculiar description, In the beginning, gives emphasis also to the created which follows, as separating what has begun to be from the Creator who is eternal; and it may be held as establishing historically the idea of an absolute beginning in time. Creation can only be understood aright as connected with the will of a personal God. Apart from God, creation by law is utterly unintelligible. Origination, or immediate creation, and development or forming in mediate creation, cannot be studied satisfactorily without reference to the will, the wisdom, and the power of the everlasting Ruler.

But it would be unwise to dogmatize regarding the

"Chips from a German Workshop," vol. I., p. 135.-Interesting statistical details regarding the use and meaning of the terms which are translated create, form, and make, are given by Archdeacon Pratt in his most admirable work, "Scripture and Science not at Variance," pp. 47, 48. Sixth edition.

absoluteness of this beginning as the first of all beginnings. In the measureless past, in which millions on millions of ages have sunk and have been lost, as pebbles in the ocean, there may have been other universes before ours, which have historically run their course, fulfilled their ends, and perished. Brought out of nothing, they may have again been reduced to nothing. The fact is conceivable, though not the process, unless we assume the eternity of matter; or that when God has created a world out of nothing, he has done what he cannot undo. Universes may have come, run their course, and gone. Their histories may be Creation-seasons. Nor can we

speak absolutely of ours being the beginning of all beginnings; because in other spheres of measureless SPACE, which no telescope can ever reach, there may be other universes with earlier beginnings than ours. It is enough for us to know that this, our universe, our heaven. and earth, was created by God; and that the first statement in Genesis proclaims the beginning of all beginnings connected with the history of our globe. violence to reason when we assume that He who made one world in space, made all worlds in space; that He who made one world in time, made all worlds in time; and that He who gave matter its forms, gave it also its origination, or that which is the ground of all its forms.*

And we do no

* See "Lange's Commentary on Genesis."

CHAPTER III.

THE FIRST CHAPTER OF GENESIS-THE ORIGIN OF LIGHTITS EXISTENCE BEFORE THE SUN WAS MADE SEPARATELY VISIBLE-THE ORIGINATION OF LIFE-THE CREATIVE DAYS.

It is not for the refutation of objectors merely, and for the conviction of doubters, that it is worth while to study the two volumes-that of nature and that of revelation-which Providence has opened before us, but because it is both profitable and gratifying to a well-constituted mind to trace in each of them the evident handwriting of Him, the Divine author of both.-ARCHBISHOP WHATELY.

I. THE ORIGINATION OF LIGHT.

THE grandeur and impressiveness of the description in the Bible of the origin of light, and of the introduction of the sun and moon, it is almost impossible to exaggerate. In his treatise on the Sublime, the Roman poet Longinus has quoted, with the highest admiration, "Let there be light, and there was light." Familiar as we are with the description, it is necessary to repeat it. "And God saw the light that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.... And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years; and let them be for lights in the firmament of heaven to give light upon the

earth and it was so. And God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven, to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, land to divide the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day."

The sublimity of this brief description has often been lost amid the sneers of the infidel and the atheist. "How could there be light before the sun?" was one of the triumphant questions which Voltaire and his followers rarely failed to press upon the Bible student. There was no escape from the difficulty; for nothing could be clearer than the fact that the Bible did commit itself to the statement that light existed before the sun appeared. It does not say, observe, before the sun-mass or sun-elements existed; but it does assert that there was light before the sun shone forth in its visible and appointed relation to this world. The statement was too explicit and too direct to admit of any satisfactory explanation beyond what the fair reading of the description itself allowed: namely, that there was light before the sun was visible; and this supposition-for the state of science admitted of nothing more-was invariably denounced as a weak, if not a mischievous, theological invention. Many scorned it as a superstitious belief, or the paltry resource of controversial despair.

But the mystery has been receding as discovery has advanced. That there may be light without the visible