of placing the historical statement in the same light in which the others are received. "The first verse," he says, "describes the primary act of creation, and leaves us to place it as far back as we may; and the first half of the second verse describes the state of the earth at the point of time anterior to the detailed operations of this chapter." On this supposition, an immense interval elapsed between the beginning and the establishment of the present condition of the globe, and during that interval all the processes have transpired with whose results geologists are now conversant.

The six days' creative acts may constitute those changes only which immediately preceded man's appearance. The description in the first chapter of Genesis had reference specially to man. The light, the atmosphere, the plants, the animals, are introduced in obvious relation to him; and it is but natural to suppose that those changes only would be mentioned which had the closest historical connection with him. The facts of geology warrant the inference that in immediate connection with the time of man's appearance, plants and animals were introduced, not before existing, which were specially adapted to his wants. The paraphrase by Archdeacon Pratt, (p. 49,) omitting his supposition as to the process by which light was introduced, is in harmony with the opinion which we have long held, and often fully explained; and his brief summary is, on the whole, an admirable statement of the view which we think most honors the historical directness of the Scriptures, and best meets the requirements of science. It is an expan

sion of Dr. Chalmers' suggestion, and is based on the wider range of facts which, since his time, scientific inquiry has produced. In the long interval between the first creation of the heaven and the earth, and the preparation of the earth for man, races of plants and animals lived, died, and became fossilized; but because man is not specially concerned with these long historical processes, the Scriptures are silent regarding them.”*

While questions regarding details may be urged which, in the present stage of scientific inquiry, cannot be satisfactorily answered, recent discoveries in geology and applications in natural philosophy, taken in connection with advances in Biblical scholarship, warrant our anticipating such a combination of results as may soon shed light through what is still obscure. Meanwhile, we may suggest the probability that, while in the six natural days the preparation of the earth for man was consummated through a series of divinely-instituted adjustments, these transactions are the outcome or crown of processes which had been transpiring through long antecedent periods-but an outcome only through the mediately creative power of God. The six days' work, therefore, may be representative of those changes and advances which constitute the previous history of our globe as the intended abode of man. Revelation, in closing the Bible, unfolds the future; Genesis, in its commencement, reveals the distant past. The Bible sheds light in both directions, until it fades in mystery; but the same principles of interpretation can be legitimately applied whether

* "Scripture and Science not at Variance,” pp. 77, 78.

we look into the future or into the past. We may assume, therefore, that as one prophetic description sometimes serves to cover widely separated future events, so the one historical description in Genesis may embrace events in the past lying widely apart. In Ezekiel's description of the coming destruction of Tyre, for instance, we have events brought together which were in part fulfilled in the siege of Nebuchadnezzar, and in part two hundred and fifty years afterwards, by Alexander the Great ; yet no such distinction in time is perceptible in the narrative itself. In like manner, the description, in the first chapter of Genesis, while setting forth those transactions which had most direct reference to man, may also embrace those other transactions which, although separated by intervening ages, yet pointed to the same result.

And the six literal days may themselves be representative, as Principal McCosh supposes, "of six epochs, just as our Lord's prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem has throughout a reference to the final day." Taking this view, he indicates that the transaction recorded in the opening of Genesis may not be a mere vision, but a "reality which retains the natural days, as after the type of the natural epochs, and keeps the seventh day as a true day, and yet a prefiguration of the Sabbath of rest which remaineth for the people of God."*

It is unnecessary to prosecute this subject farther; enough has been stated to show that the questions which have been raised may be differently answered, without

* See an Instructive Note in "The Supernatural in Relation to the Natural," pp. 343, 344.

displacing the Bible. Inferences may vary with the shifting results of science. Holding fast the Bible with the one hand, we may grasp all that science brings to us with the other, and retain it until we find for it an appropriate place. There is nothing to repel the Christian in the records of science. He can, therefore, afford to wait for more light; while, in the meantime, he rejects none of those supports which are within his reach. Temporary in their character, they may guide to what is permanent. If there is one lesson more than another which the progress of the sciences is teaching us, it is that of caution. and the necessity of repressing dogmatic tendencies; and if there is one benefit more than another which the history of this discussion is conferring, it is that of great.er confidence in the truth of the Bible.

CHAPTER IV.

UNITY OF THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH-UNITY IN THE STRUCTURE OF THE EARTH, AND IN ITS LIFE-FORMS.

Order is heaven's first law; and the second is like unto it, that everything serves an end. This is the sum of all science. These are the two mites, even all that she hath, which she throws into the treasury of the Lord; and as she does so in faith, Eternal Wisdom looks on and commends the deed.-PRINCIPAL M'COSH.

I. UNITY OF THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH.

THE first reference in Genesis to the unity of "the heaven and the earth," is amply confirmed and illustrated by subsequent statements. The Israelites of old never doubted this doctrine; they believed that "the heaven and the earth" were necessarily one, because they were created and governed by the ONE omnipotent Ruler. It could scarcely be otherwise, for no truth was taught by their prophets with greater directness and felicity of expression.

"While philosophy was still breathing mist, and living in a chaos, the opening sentence of the Bible haa been shining on the Hebrew mind for centuries, a ray direct from heaven."* This unity was as fully and as emphatically taught as were its commencement and its close. That the Israelites had any such conceptions of the vastness of the universe as it has been unfolded by modern astronomy, no one supposes; but their concep

"Man Primeval," J. Harris, p. 15.