or fertile soil: and the heavens and heavenly bodies: 3rd.-Life, in the production of fishes, fowls, and terrestrial animals.

Every thing being thus prepared, the proposition to make man is then introduced with great solemnity: and God said, "let us make man in our image"-"so God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him: male and female created he them." Several circumstances mark his original dignity: the counsel of the Godhead respecting his existence-the image of God, which was reflected in his intelligence and moral rectitude—the subjection of the other animals to his authority-the ordination of marriage, with all its attendant blessings, for his social happiness. Such was the primitive constitution of the world. Man stood forth, God-like and social, having under him all the creatures: and for his life, and theirs, that food was appointed which the earth was to bring forth. Jehovah gave them his benediction: the sacred pause of the "sabbath" ensued; and in order that it should be an immutable memorial, the creator rested, on the "seventh day;" and, by his own example, put an impress upon it which man may violate at his peril. Well might the "stars" sing in harmony, as they rose over the evening

-

of a finished creation, and well might the sons of God, who witnessed the magnificent scene the grandeur and glory of the celestial machinery— "shout for joy!" Two objections have been taken to this part of the narrative :

1st. To the literal interpretation of the first verse. It has been asked, did the first creative act take place on the first day, or many ages before the "beginning" of Moses? The question refers, of course, to the "heavens and the earth," about which he was writing.

66

"The first verse," says Dr. Candlish, contains a very general announcement: in respect of time without date, in respect to space without limits. The expression, 'in the beginning,' fixes no period : and the expression, the heavens and the earth,' admits of no restriction. The announcement here is, that at an era, infinitely remote, the whole matter of the universe was called into being. But the earth is 'without form,' a shapeless mass. It is void,' empty, or destitute of order, life, and light!"

'Wherever the beginning' was in time, or whatever it was in form, observes Dr. Kitts, that 'beginning' was God's creative act. But in these latter days, men of learning have found in the bowels

of the earth, and in the sides of its mountains and its riven cliffs, new facts, new circumstances, which, as they conceived, went to show that the world had, under various modifications, existed thousands of ages, before the creation of man, or at least, before the comparatively recent date to which this record ascribes man's origin."

Dr. Cumming, remarks, "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 thousands or even millions of years: but I do think that each day of the seven days afterwards enumerated, was strictly a literal day. I do not think that to call them vast geological periods, is plain, fair dealing with the word of God." I shall only add Professor Hitchcock's opinion. "The first point," he observes,

66

relates to the age of the world. For while it has been the usual interpretation of the Mosaic account, that the world was brought into existence nearly at the same time with man and the other existing animals, geology throws back its creation to a period indefinitely and immeasurably remote." In proof of these statements we are referred to the evidence of

ascertained facts.

a narrow compass.

These facts may be brought within

In examining the structure of the

earth we have first of all the primitive rock, which we call granite: then above the granite the gneiss. This is composed of exactly the same materials as the granite. "This one fact would be proof that a long period must have elasped, to wear off so much dust or detritus from the hard granite, in order to be deposited and form immense blocks of hundreds of feet in thickness long geological periods must have intervened between the granite formation and the next above it.” We have next the silurian formations: these consist of coral. "Coral beds are formed by small insects, at the rate of about six inches in a hundred years. Now if we find coral beds hundreds of feet in thickness, we can easily calculate that it must have taken "hundreds of thousands of years to form them." We have next the coal formations. These were once gigantic forests. "Now that it must have occupied immense periods in its formation from wood into coal, is obvious from the very nature of the process." We now come to the chalk cliffs. "These are vast masses of dead sea-insects and shells, turned into that alkaline powder which we term chalk. It must have required a long period to bring it to its present state."

Having traced, in these few sentences, the strata from the granite up through the fossilliferous strata, to what is called the alluvium, we may observe that it is in this alluvium that lies upon the surface of the earth, that the remains of man are found. "Nature lay dead," says Miller, "in a waste theatre of rock, vapour, and sea, in which the insensate laws, chemical, mechanical, and electric, carried on their blind, unintelligent processes: the creative fiat went forth; and amid waters that straightway teemed with life in its lower forms, vegetable and animal, the dynasty of the fish was introduced. Many ages passed, during which there took place no further elevation; on the contrary, there was the manifestation of a downward tendency towards the degradation of monstrosity, when the elevatory fiat again went forth, and, through an act of creation, the dynasty of the reptile began. Again, many ages passed by, marked apparently, by the introduction of a warm-blooded oviparous animal, the bird, and a few of marsupial quadrupeds, but in which the prevailing class reigned undeposed, though at least unelevated. Yet again, however, the elevatory fiat went forth, and through an act of creation, the dynasty of the mammiferous quadruped began. And after the further lapse of ages, the elevatory fiat went forth