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 PRESBYTERIAN QUARTERLY. 
 
 NO. 6.-OCTOBER, 18 8 8. 
 
 I. THE PENTATEUCHAL STORY OF CREATION. 
 In the opening portion of the Book of Genesis we have a his- 
 tory of creation which claims to be a direct revelation from God. 
 Geology aims to give us a history of creation gathered from a care- 
 ful study of the structure of the earth itself, especially the study of 
 its fossils— those " medals of creation," as they have been aptly 
 termed— in which many tilings respecting the order of creation 
 are written for our learning. 
 
 These two histories ought to be in perfect harmony the one 
 with the other. The books of revelation and of nature, where 
 they cover the same ground, ought to agree. And yet, as a mat- 
 ter of fact, and as these two records are often interpreted, so great 
 is their apparent discrepancy as to lead Prof. Huxley to write : 
 
 "My belief is, and long has been, that the Pentateuchal story of creation is 
 simply a myth. I suppose it to be a hypothesis respecting the origin of the uni- 
 verse which some ancient thinker f ound himself able to reconcile with his know- 
 ledge of the nature of things, and therefore assumed to be true. As such I hold it 
 to be not only an interesting, but a venerable monument of a stage in the mental 
 progress of mankind, . . and to possess neither more nor less scientific importance 
 than the cosmogonies of the Egyptians and Babylonians. "— Order of Creation, 
 page 147. 
 
 Such discrepancies as are alleged in this case are, I believe, ap- 
 parent, not real, and may be owing either to a misinterpretation 
 of the Pentateuchal story of creation, or to a misreading of the 
 
346 
 
 THE PEE8BYTEEIAN QUARTERLY. 
 
 "rock-record" by the geologist. Those to which Prof. Huxley 
 refers in the article from which the above quotation is made, and 
 on which he bases his rejection of " the Pentateuchal story," are, 
 if I mistake not, owing largely to his misinterpretation of that 
 story — a misinterpretation growing out of his failure to pay pro- 
 per attention to the difference in character of the two histories. 
 
 1. Genesis is a part of Scripture, written for the purpose of 
 teaching the true religion, and, in so far as it is historical, it be- 
 longs to what we are accustomed to call, distinctively, sacred his- 
 tory. Geology is a human science, and the history of creation 
 which it gives us originates with man, is man's reading of the 
 "rock-records" of the earth, and hence belongs to the category 
 of secular or profane history. The difference between these two 
 kinds of history we may learn by comparing Mosheim's " Ecclesi- 
 astical History" with Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Eoman 
 Empire." They cover the same ground, they are histories of the 
 same peoples during the same centuries, and hence both record 
 many of the same events; e. g., the conversion of the Emperor 
 Constantine, and the removal of the capital from Rome to Con- 
 stantinople. But they have been written with different ends in 
 view ; the difference we indicate by the terms sacred and secular, 
 or ecclesiastical and civil, and hence each very properly records 
 events of which the other takes no notice. Mosheim tells us of 
 the introduction of Christianity into Gaul under the ministry of 
 Pothinus, whilst Gibbon does not even mention Pothinus' name ; 
 and Gibbon gives a graphic description of Julian's night-passage 
 of the Tigris in the face of the enemy, and his utter defeat of the 
 Persians, whilst Mosheim has not a word on the subject. This is 
 just as it ought to be, and no one for a moment imagines any dis- 
 crepancy between the two histories on this account. 
 
 2. A second fact, which should never be lost sight of in com- 
 paring the Pentateuchal account of creation with that of geology, 
 is the exceeding brevity of the former. Dana's " Geological Story 
 Briefly Told " is the best short summary of geological science I know 
 of, and forms a volume of two hundred and sixty-three pages, whilst 
 Moses' whole account of creation would not make two of those 
 
 indeed, would not occupy as much space as the "table of 
 
THE PENTATEUCHAL STORY OF CREATION. 347 
 
 contents" of Dana's book. For this reason Moses' statements 
 must be general in their character, avoiding all detail, and he must 
 confine himself rigidly to such facts as properly belong to a sacred 
 history of creation. 
 
 3. The history of creation contained in Genesis claims to be a 
 direct revelation from God — when and to whom made we do not 
 know — an errorless record of which was secured by the inspiration 
 of Moses. Now, the Scriptures tell ns that inspired prophets often 
 very imperfectly understood the revelations made through them. 
 (1 Pet. i. 10, 11.) In the highest sense of the expression, God 
 God and not the prophet is the author of the communication, not 
 only as to its substance, but even as to the very words which the 
 Holy Ghost has taught him to use. (1 Cor. ii. 13.) For this 
 reason it is evidently improper to make Moses' understanding of 
 the record he was inspired to write, or the knowledge of nature 
 possessed in Moses' day, our standard for interpreting this portion 
 of Genesis, as some have seemed disposed to do. 
 
 4. The Scriptures were intended for all men, "the common 
 people" as well as scholars, and are therefore written in the lan- 
 guage of common life, a language in which things are spoken of 
 as they appear. The astronomer, in his intercourse with his fel- 
 low men, speaks of the sun's rising and setting, though he well 
 knows that the motion of the sun is apparent, and not real. The 
 physicist speaks of the dew falling, though he knows that each 
 drop is formed by condensation at the point at which it appears. 
 This peculiarity of the language of Scripture was first pointed out 
 by Galileo, when defending the Copernican system of astronomy 
 against the charge of contradicting the plain testimony of the Word 
 of God, and though controverted for a time, is now accepted as 
 beyond question by all thoughtful men. 
 
 Bearing these facts in mind, turn we now to an examination 
 of the Pentateuchal history of creation. For reasons which will 
 appear in the course of the examination, I shall divide the record 
 into three parts, viz.: (1), The introduction (Gen. i. 1); (2), The 
 history down to the creation of man (Gen. i. 2-25); and (3), The 
 creation of man, male and female (Gen. i. 26-31, and ii. 1-7, 
 18-25). 
 
348 THE PRESBYTERIAN QUARTERLY. 
 
 Part I. — The Introduction. 
 
 I. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." 
 (Gen. i. 1.) 
 
 There is no single word in the Hebrew language equivalent 
 to our English word universe. The phrase, " the heaven and the 
 earth," is the nearest equivalent to it, and is here doubtless used 
 to signify the whole material system of which our earth forms a 
 part ; the sun, the planets and their satellites, and the fixed stars 
 witli all that belongs to them. The eminent Jewish commenta- 
 tors, Aben Ezra and Maimonides, concur with learned christian 
 writers in so understanding it. 
 
 The Hebrew word here rendered "create" does not always 
 mean " to make out of nothing;" indeed, in so far as I know, there 
 is no word in any language which has invariably such a meaning. 
 But that it has that meaning here is evident from the whole sub- 
 sequent context, as well as from the express teaching of Scripture 
 in Heb. xi. 3 : " Through faith we understand that the worlds were 
 framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were 
 not made of things which do appear." 
 
 " In the beginning," i. e., when the heaven and the earth be- 
 gan to exist. Intending to teach the eternity of the Word, John 
 writes, with evident reference to the use of the expression here, 
 "In the beginning was the Word" (Jno. i. 1); L e., when the 
 heaven and the earth began to be, the Word was already in ex- 
 istence. 
 
 II. In this brief introductory declaration, " In the beginning 
 God created the heaven and the earth," we are taught: (1), the 
 existence of God, in refutation of Atheism; (2), the existence of 
 one, and but one, God, in refutation of Polytheism; (3), the crea- 
 tion of matter by God, in refutation of a common postulate of 
 Materialism ; and (4), the existence of God apart from and prior 
 to the universe in all its parts, in refutation of Pantheism. Con- 
 sidering the Scriptures as the word of God, intended to teach the 
 true religion, they contain no weightier sentence than this, and 
 we can conceive of none which would form a more appropriate in- 
 troduction to a sacred history of creation. 
 
 III. The testimony of science, in so far as it is competent to 
 
THE PENTATEUCH AL STORY OF CREATION. 349 
 
 speak at all respecting the matter, is in perfect harmony with this 
 declaration of Moses. On the main point presented, Prof. Huxley 
 writes : 
 
 • ' It appears to me that the scientific investigator is wholly incompetent to say 
 anything at all ahout the first origin of the material universe. The whole power 
 of his organon vanishes when he steps beyond the chain of natural causes and 
 effects."'— Order of Creation, p. 153. 
 
 1. That the universe had a beginning, however, as Moses af- 
 firms, science unequivocally testifies. Prof. Tait writes: 
 
 "All portions of our science," £ e., physics, "and especially that beautiful 
 one, the dissipation of energy, point unanimously to a beginning ; to a state of 
 things incapable of being derived by present laws of tangible matter and its en- 
 ergies from any conceivable previous arrangement. " — Recent Advance in Physiad 
 Science, p. 26. 
 
 And Prof. Langley, speaking of the sun, the great central 
 body of the system to which our earth belongs, writes : 
 
 "We may say, with something like awe at the meaning to which science 
 points, that the whole past of the sun cannot have been over eighteen millions of 
 years, arid its whole future radiation cannot last so much more. Its probable life 
 is covered by about thirty million years." — The Century Magazine for December, 
 1884. 
 
 2. The universe is not the product of chance. Astronomy 
 testifies to a wonderful order pervading the universe, mathemati- 
 cal in its accuracy in so far as the bodies astronomy has to deal 
 with are concerned. Zoology and botany testify to an equally 
 wonderful order prevailing throughout the kingdom of organic 
 nature, a wonderful adaptation of living creatures to their en- 
 vironments, and of the parts and organs of these living creatures 
 to their functions, utterly inconsistent with their being the product 
 of chance. Kespecting the very atoms of which all bodies are be- 
 lieved to be made up, Sir John Herschel remarks : " They possess 
 all the characteristics of manufactured articles." 
 
 Part II. — The History Down to the Creation of Man. 
 
 In his history Moses divides the time occupied by God in his 
 work of creation into days. Before entering upon the particular 
 examination of the portion of the history now before us, let us 
 fix, if we can, the sense in which he uses that word. 
 
350 THE PRESBYTERIAN QUARTERLY. 
 
 The Imperial Dictionary gives us, as definitions of the English 
 word day : (1), That part of the time of the earth's revolution on its 
 axis in which its surface is presented to the sun ; (2), the whole time 
 or period of one revolution of the earth on its axis, or twenty -four 
 hours, called the natural day ; (3), time specified ; any period of time 
 distinguished from other time ; age. The Hebrew word QV here 
 rendered day, is used in Scripture in all three of these senses. In- 
 stances of its use in the last- mentioned sense we have in Ps. xcv. 
 8-10 : " As in the day of temptation in the wilderness: when your 
 fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my work. Forty years 
 long was I grieved with this generation," — where " the day " was a 
 period of forty years, characterized by Israel's temptation of God ; 
 .and in Zechariah xiii. 1 : " In that day there shall be a fountain 
 opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, 
 for sin and for uncleanness," — where "that day" covers the whole 
 period of the christian dispensation, characterized b} 7 the free offer 
 of salvation made to all men. And in this very account of crea- 
 tion, Moses unquestionably uses it in this sense when he writes : 
 " These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when 
 they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth 
 and the heavens" (Gen. ii. 4), where "the day" covers the whole 
 period occupied by God in his work of creation, the whole age or 
 era of creation, previously spoken of as made up of six days. 
 
 In attempting to determine in which of the two last-mentioned 
 senses, for the record itself excludes the first-mentioned, excepting 
 in verse 5, "And God called the light Day, and the darkness he 
 called Night," Moses uses the word when he writes, " And there 
 was evening and there was morning, one day — a second day," 
 etc., I would ask the reader's attention to the following consid- 
 erations : 
 
 1. If by age or era we mean a portion of time distinguishable 
 from other time by something characteristic of it, and this is the 
 sense in which geologists use these terms when they speak of " the 
 age of mammals," " the carboniferous era," then Moses" days, what- 
 ever may have been their length, were ages or eras in the proper 
 sense of those terms, as every one of them is characterized by some 
 peculiar work. 
 
THE PENTATEUCHAL STORY OF CREATION. 351 
 
 2. Failing to take proper account of the poetical character of 
 David's words, " For he spake and it was done ; he commanded and 
 it stood fast " (Ps. xxxiii. 9), and conceiving of creation as an in- 
 stantaneous act, as the older commentators did, it is not surprising 
 that they, without exception, understood the word day to mean a 
 period of twenty-four hours. But, conceiving of the creation of 
 which Moses tells us as a work, made up of many acts, and extend- 
 ing over six days, whatever the length of those days may have 
 been, and considering the stupendous character of that work — 
 nothing less than the creation of a world — it seems to me more 
 reasonable to understand the days he speaks of to be periods of 
 longer duration than twenty-four hours. 
 
 3. The creation-work of God on the sixth day, as given us in 
 Gen. i. 24-28, was two-fold; (1), causing "the earth to bring forth 
 the living creature after his kind, cattle and creeping thing and 
 beast of the earth after his kind ;" and (2), " making man, male and 
 female, in his own image." In Gen. ii. 7-25, there is a more par- 
 ticular acccount of the last-mentioned of these works; in which 
 we are told, (1), of the making of man, as to his body, out of the 
 dust of the ground, and then breathing into his nostrils the breath 
 of life; (2), of God's planting a garden in Eden, and causing to 
 grow out of the ground every tree that is pleasant to the sight and 
 good for food, and then placing man therein to dress it and keep it; 
 (3), of his entering into a covenant of life with man on condition 
 of perfect obedience; (4), of his bringing every beast of the field 
 and fowl of the air to Adam that he might name them ; and when 
 there was found no " help meet for him " among them all, (5), of 
 his causing a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and as he slept, of his 
 taking one of his ribs which he made a woman, and bringing her 
 to the man, instituting the marriage relation between them. Now, 
 it cannot be denied that all these things might have been done in 
 the latter half of a day of twenty -four hours ; but we get, I think, 
 a far more natural interpretation if we understand the sixth day 
 to have been a longer period than that. • 
 
 4. The seventh day is characterized (1) by God's "resting from 
 all his work which he created and made," and (2) by God's "bless- 
 ing the day and sanctifying it." The rest here spoken of is simply 
 
352 THE PRESBYTERIAN QUARTERLY. 
 
 rest from his work of creation, not rest from all activity ; for his 
 work of providence, i. e., "his preserving and governing all his 
 creatures and all their actions " is as truly a work of God as crea- 
 tion is; and this certainly continues to the present day. Of his 
 work of providence our Lord said, "My Father worketh hitherto, 
 and I work." (John v. 17.) Of God's "blessing the day and 
 sanctifying, hallowing it," I remark, understanding the seventh day 
 to be our present age, beginning with the creation of man and 
 stretching on to the " day of judgment," God has unquestionably 
 blessed and hallowed it, in the only sense in which time can be 
 said to be hallowed, by the greatest of all his works, his work of 
 redemption, and his "holy, wise, and powerful" work of provi- 
 idence subservient thereto. In the fourth commandment, God's 
 example in "hallowing" the seventh day is held up to enforce a 
 similar course of conduct on the part of man. The force and perti- 
 nency of this example do not depend upon the length of the day, 
 but upon its relation to other days. It is not. as the seventh day, 
 but as the seventh day, it furnishes us an example. For man it may 
 well be a period of twenty-four hours, whilst for God, to whom 
 "a thousand years are as one day, and one day as a thousand 
 years," (2 Peter iii. 8,) it is an age or era. 
 
 5. It is worthy of particular remark, that in Moses' history the 
 record of each of the first six days closes with the words, "and 
 there was evening and there was morning, one day — a second day, 
 a third day," etc., whilst in the case of the seventh day there is no 
 such record. From this it would seem that the seventh day had 
 not yet closed when Moses wrote. If the days of creation were 
 days of twenty-four hours, the seventh day must have closed long 
 before that time; but if we understand them to be eras or ages, 
 the seventh of these ages characterized by God's resting from his 
 work of creation, and hallowing the age by his greater work of re- 
 demption, the day has not yet come to a close. That God will 
 eventually resume his work of creation, and John's vision be re- 
 alized, the vision in which he "saw a new heaven and a new earth ; 
 for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away," (Rev. 
 xxi. 1,) I have no doubt; and that God's great work of redemption 
 will have been completed when this shall occur, I think the Scrip- 
 
THE PENTATETJCHAL STORY OF CREATION. 353 
 
 tures clearly teach us. If this be so, then, and not till then, will 
 the seventh day come to a close, and the record be made, "and 
 there was evening and there was morning," a seventh day. 
 
 For all these reasons, reasons which present themselves on a 
 careful examination of the record, my conclusion is that the word 
 day in Moses' history of creation is to be understood in the sense 
 of an age or era — a long period of time, how long I cannot pre- 
 tend to say, distinguished from other time by something charac- 
 teristic of it. The geologist, giving us the history of creation as 
 he has learned it from the study of the rock-records of the earth, 
 divides that history into eras in no way discrepant with those so 
 distinctly marked in the Pentateuchal story. 
 
 I. Turning now to a particular examination of the portion of 
 Moses' history 1 have designated as Part II., I shall make use of the 
 New Version, as confessedly more accurate than the old. 
 
 1. "And the earth was waste and void; and darkness was upon 
 the face of the deep ; and the Spirit of God moved upon [was brood- 
 ing upon, marginal] the face of the waters. And God said, Let there 
 be light: and there was light. 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 there 
 was evening and there was morning, one day." (Ys. 2-5.) 
 
 We have here the earth — not the universe, but the earth " indi- 
 vidualized," to use the language of science — in a chaotic condition, 
 in darkness, and the Spirit of God brooding upon this chaos, i. e., 
 beginning to evoke organization and life in the mass ; as a fowl, by 
 brooding upon her eggs, accomplishes that result. Then, God is 
 represented as saying, "Let there be light." It is not said that 
 then God made or created light, but that he said, " Let there be 
 light," i. e., let light be, visibly, sensibly. And he "divided the 
 light from the darkness." The introduction of light upon the hith- 
 erto dark surface of the chaotic earth, and that in such a way that 
 day and night should alternate with one another, is the character- 
 istic work of the first day. 
 
 2. "And God said, Let there be a firmament [expanse, margi- 
 nal] in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from 
 the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the wa- 
 
354 THE PRESBYTERIAN QUARTERLY. 
 
 ters which were under the firmament from the waters which were 
 above the firmament; and it was so. And God called the firma- 
 ment heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a 
 second day." (Vs. 6-8.) 
 
 The translation of the Hebrew ^p"l here by the English word 
 firmament is now universally admitted to be an erroneous transla- 
 tion. It is copied from the Septuagint arepecofxa, and the V\i\- 
 g&te Jlrmamentum, both of which words convey the idea of some- 
 thing solid. This is probably one of those errors of translation 
 which must be traced to the mistaken science of the day when the 
 Septuagint and Vulgate versions were made; a science which 
 taught that the heavenly bodies were all fixed in crystal spheres. 
 The proper translation is that given in the margin of the New 
 Version, " expanse." God's separating between the waters on the 
 surface of the earth and those suspended in the upper air, separating 
 the one from the other just as the clouds are separated from the ocean 
 and seas, by a clear expanse, was the characteristic work of the 
 second day. 
 
 3. " And God said. Let the waters under the heaven be gathered 
 together unto one place, and let the dry land appear ; and it was so. 
 And God called the dry land earth ; and the gathering together of 
 the waters called he seas. And God saw that it was good. And 
 God said, Let the earth put forth grass, herb yielding seed, and 
 fruit tree bearing fruit after its kind, wherein is the seed thereof, 
 upon the earth ; and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, 
 herb yielding seed after its kind, and tree bearing fruit, wherein is 
 the seed thereof, after its kind; and God saw that it was good. 
 And there was evening and there was morning, a third day." 
 (Vs. 9-13.) 
 
 The work characteristic of the third day was: (1,) God's caus- 
 ing the dry land to emerge from the waters, which up to this time 
 had covered the whole surface of the earth, and then (2,) causing 
 the earth to put forth grass, herbs, and trees; i. e., plants of the 
 three great classes in which the ancients arranged terrestrial vege- 
 tation. Dr. Clarke, in his comments on this passage, remarks : 
 "Fruit-trees are not to be understood here in the restricted sense 
 in which the term is used among us; it signifies all trees, not only 
 
THE PENTATEUCH AL STORY OF CREATION. 355 
 
 those which bear fruit which may be applied to the use of men 
 and cattle, but also those w r hich had the power of propagating 
 themselves by seed." In Ezekiel xvii. 23, the cedar is mentioned 
 as a fruit-bearing tree. From the fact that God is here repre- 
 sented as addressing his command to the earth — the earth as a 
 whole, and not to some particular part of it — it seems fair to in- 
 fer that this original vegetable covering of the land was an abun- 
 dant one ; the era, an era of luxuriant vegetation. Here, as Prof. 
 Huxley has pointed out, Moses speaks of land-plants alone. Nei- 
 ther here nor elsewhere does he say a word about algae, the vege- 
 tation peculiar to the sea. These may have been made long before 
 this, while the waters yet covered the whole surface of the earth ; 
 and, if geological research should prove that such was the fact, no 
 discrepancy with Moses' history of creation would be established 
 thereby. 
 
 4. "And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the 
 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 the heaven to give light upon the earth ; 
 and it was so. And God made the 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, and to divide the light from the darkness; and 
 God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was 
 morning, a fourth day." (Vs. 14—19.) 
 
 The characteristic work of the fourth day is God's causing the 
 sun, moon and stars to be, i. e., visibly, sensibly to be, in the 
 heavens, and to begin their appointed task of ruling over the day 
 and the night ; causing the change in the seasons, and marking the 
 passage of days and years. Moses does not say that God created 
 the sun, moon and stars on this fourth day. He has already said 
 in verse 1 : " In the beginning God created the heaven and the 
 earth," which, as we have seen, is the record of their creation; 
 but, using the language of common life, which speaks of things 
 as they appear to the senses, he says, "Let there be lights in 
 the firmament of the heaven," i. e., let them now appear, 
 
356 THE PRESBYTERIAN QUARTERLY. 
 
 "and let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and 
 years." 
 
 5. "And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly 
 [swarm with swarms, marginal] the moving creature that hath life, 
 and let fowl fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. 
 And God created the great sea-monsters, and every living creature 
 that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their 
 kinds, and every winged fowl after its kind ; and God saw that it 
 •was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and mul- 
 tiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the 
 earth. And there was evening and there was morning, a fifth day." 
 (Vs. 20-23.) 
 
 The Hebrew P)fy, here rendered fowl, means literally "flyers," 
 and is of much wider signification than our English word fowl, 
 and includes insects, e. g., the locust, and flying mammals, e. g., 
 the bat. (Lev. xi. 19, 20.) Moses does not say that God first 
 created these sea-creatures and flyers on this fifth day. Indeed, 
 his language, " Let the waters swarm with swarms 1 ' of them, would 
 suggest the idea that they were first created long before. What 
 he does say, and all that he says when his language is strictly con- 
 strued, is that on this fifth day there was a wonderful development 
 of this portion of the animal kingdom. Should geological research 
 establish the fact, as I think it has already done, that there 
 were fishes and flyers long before this, there would be no discre- 
 pancy between Moses' account and geology established thereby. 
 What Moses affirms respecting the fifth day is, that the character- 
 istic feature of the creation-work of the day was a grand develop- 
 ment of these classes of creatures ; that the era was, emphatically, 
 the era of great sea-monsters and flyers. 
 
 6. "And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living crea- 
 ture after its kind, cattle and creeping thing, and beast of the earth 
 after its kind ; and it was so. And God made the beast of the 
 earth after its kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything 
 that creepeth upon the ground after its kind ; and God saw that 
 it was good" (vs. 24, 25). Then follows an account of the crea- 
 tion of man, a work of this sixth day also. 
 
 When Moses writes, "And God said, Let the earth bring forth 
 
THE PENTATEUCHAL STORY OF CREATION. 357 
 
 the living creature after its kind, cattle and creeping thing, and 
 beast of the earth after its kind," for reasons already given in 
 studying the record of God's work on the third and fifth days, I 
 understand him to teach simply that the sixth day was character- 
 ized by a special development of the classes of cattle, creeping 
 things and wild beasts. The "creeping things" here mentioned 
 are not reptiles, as the English reader would naturally suppose, 
 but, "as they are grouped with the larger herbiverous cattle and 
 the larger beasts of prey, it is probable that the term refers to the 
 class of smaller land animals whose bodies are brought by means of 
 short legs into close proximity to the earth." — Bush on Genesis. 
 In Leviticus xi. 29, the weasel and the mouse are particularly 
 mentioned as creeping things. If so, the three classes of animals 
 here spoken of were all mammals, and this first part of the sixth 
 day was, in the language of science, the age of mammals ; and this 
 Moses tells us immediately preceded the creation of man. 
 
 II. All these facts, thus stated by Moses, properly belong to a 
 sacred history of creation ; and the importance of the religious 
 lessons they teach is abundantly illustrated in the subsequent his- 
 tory of our race. With the mass of mankind, idolatry is the form 
 of false religion which has most widely supplanted the true. 
 
 1. In its earliest, purest condition, idolatry took the form of 
 a worship of the heavenly bodies, especially of the sun and moon. 
 To guard man against such idolatry as this, Moses tell us that all 
 these heavenly bodies are the work of God's hands, and have been 
 set by him in the heavens to give light upon the earth, to effect 
 the change in the seasons and to mark the passage of time, not to 
 be worshipped. Like man himself they are all God's creatures; 
 man's ministers, not his lords. 
 
 2. A grosser form of idolatry, which has always succeeded 
 the purer, is that in which man takes as his gods sea-monsters and 
 birds of the air and beasts of the field. The crocodile, the ibis 
 and the ox were all worshipped by the Egyptians, the most highly 
 civilized nation on the face of the earth in Moses' day. 
 
 3. A still lower form of idolatry is that reproved by Isaiah 
 in his words: "He heweth him down cedars, and taketh the 
 cypress and the oak He burnetii part thereof in the fire ; 
 
358 THE PRESBYTERIAN QUARTERLY. 
 
 with part thereof he eateth flesh ; he roasteth roast, and is satis- 
 fied; yea, he warmeth himself and saith, Aha, I am warm, I have 
 seen the fire. And the residue thereof he maketh a god, even his 
 graven image. He falleth down unto it, and prayeth unto it, and 
 saith, Deliver me, for thon art my god." (Isa. xliv. 16, 10.) All 
 this must have been known unto the God of Moses whose revela- 
 tion this history of creation is; and intending it to furnish a refu- 
 tation of idolatry in all its forms, it tells of God's creation of the 
 cedar, the cypress and the oak; the sea-monsters, the birds and the 
 beasts; and further, it tells us that when God made man in his 
 own image, he gave him "dominion over the fish of the sea, 
 and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that 
 moveth upon the earth." God made man their master, not them 
 his. 
 
 A further religious use of this narrative is well expressed in 
 the words of Hon. Mr. Gladstone : 
 
 ' ' For the Adaniic race, recent on the earth, and young in facilities, it has a 
 natural and highly moral purpose in conveying to their minds a lively sense of the 
 wise and loving care with which the Almighty Father, who demanded much at their 
 hands, had beforehand given them much, in the providential adaptation of the 
 world to be their dwelling-place, and of the created orders to their use and rule." 
 ■ — Order of Creation, p. 83. 
 
 Calling to mind the principle already laid down, that the Scrip- 
 tures, being inspired of God, often use "' words and phrases which, 
 without suggesting puzzling enigmas, yet contain in themselves 
 ample space for the demands of growing human knowledge," let 
 the reader turn to Moses' record of God's work on the third day ; 
 his calling forth from the earth a wonderfully abundant vegeta- 
 tion — the carboniferous era of the geologist, as we must regard 
 it — and he will see how appropriate such a record is to a sacred 
 history of creation, if such record is intended to awaken in man 
 gratitude to God his Creator. How clearly God's fatherly care 
 for man appears in the fact that long ages before man was ready 
 to use it, he laid up in the bowels of the earth the immense de- 
 posits of coal, now first beginning to be utilized, and so important 
 a factor in our modern civilization. 
 
 III. Turn we now to an examination of the question, Is there 
 any discrepancy between the statements of this sacred history of 
 
THE PENTATEUCIIAL STORY OF CREATION. 
 
 359 
 
 creation, and the secular or profane history which the geologist 
 has learned from his study of the "rock-records" of the earth? 
 
 This second part of the Mosaic record covers the same ground 
 with geology. Both relate events belonging to the same period 
 of the earth's history ; though, because of the different purposes 
 with which they have been written, not necessarily all the same 
 events. In general, the two records are obviously in harmony. 
 More especially is this the case in so far as organic nature is con- 
 cerned; and it is just here that geological science is most certain 
 of its facts and most thoroughly established in its propositions. 
 But, passing from this general to a more particular examination 
 of the Mosaic record, I ask the reader's attention to the following 
 facts, viz. : 
 
 1 . After stating that " in the beginning God created the heaven 
 and the earth," Moses tells us, in verse 2, that " the earth was waste 
 and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep." This 
 chaotic condition was that of the earth when God began the work 
 described in the subsequent portions of this history. Whether it I 
 was its condition when first brought into being, or long ages inter- \ 
 vened between "the beginning" of verse 1, and the condition of 
 things described in verse 2, Moses does not tell us. Basil, Origen, J 
 Theodoret and Augustine believed that ages come in between, 
 verses 1 and 2, of which Moses says not a word. Should the neb- 
 ular hypothesis, now in favor with many scientists, come to be es- 
 tablished as scientific truth, there would be nothing in this at vari- 
 ance with Moses' history. The period which this hypothesis covers 
 would be the period which comes in between verses 1 and 2. In 
 verse 2, Moses begins with the earth completely " individualized," 
 and no longer a part of any nebula. 
 
 2. The word chaos has long been in use among geologists, but 
 with a very indefinite meaning. Kecent discoveries, embodied in 
 what is popularly styled "the New Astronomy," now, for the first 
 time, enable us to understand what the true nature of chaos is. 
 The sun and moon are bodies belonging to the same system with 
 our earth, and the spectroscope has disclosed to us the fact that the 
 sun, at least, is made up very much of the same elementary sub- 
 stances as the earth; and further, by means of the spectroscope 
 and improved telescope, we learn that the sun is now in a condition 
 
360 THE PRESBYTERIAN QUARTERLY. 
 
 of chaos through the operation of intense heat. The earth bears 
 many unmistakable marks of having once been in the condition in 
 which the sun now is. And the moon also, according to the " New 
 Astronomy," was once in this same condition. The sun, because 
 of its immense mass — more than a million of times that of the 
 earth — has thus far cooled comparatively little, although constantly 
 radiating its heat into space. The moon, many thousand times 
 smaller than the earth, has become completely solidified by cool- 
 ing; whilst the earth, intermediate in mass between the sun and 
 moon, occupies an intermediate position in temperature also. Tak- 
 ing now the present chaotic condition of the sun as the type of 
 what was once the condition of the earth, we can attach a definite 
 meaning to the word chaos as used by the geologist. 
 
 3. According to the " New Astronomy," the sun consists of (1,) a 
 solid or quasi-solid central mass, intensely heated, but kept in a solid 
 state by the immense pressure of its atmosphere ; (2,) an atmosphere, 
 many thousands of miles in thickness, composed largely of vapor- 
 ized iron, zinc, calcium and other metals. This atmosphere is com- 
 monly spoken of as the sun's photosphere, because the immediate 
 source of the light it sends to the earth ; and (3,) what is called the 
 chromosphere, a kind of second atmosphere, consisting entirely of 
 free hydrogen, thousands of miles in thickness, and often shooting 
 out mountain masses on its surface to an immense distance. All 
 this has been learned by direct observation. These are facts of 
 science, and not mere hypotheses. Through spectroscopic analysis 
 I know that vaporized iron enters largely into the composition of 
 the sun's atmosphere, as certainly as I do, through ordinary chem- 
 ical analysis, that oxygen enters into the composition of the atmos- 
 phere of the earth. 
 
 4. Starting with the earth in the condition in which the sun now 
 is, what must be the series of changes it will undergo as it cools ? 
 according to the well ascertained physical laws which govern all 
 such cooling bodies? The first effect of cooling would be the pre- 
 cipitation of the vaporized metals and other heavy bodies upon its 
 solid surface, and this in the condition of oxides, where the metal 
 had such an affinity for oxygen, as iron and calcium have ; and 
 then, the disappearance of the chromosphere, through the combi- 
 nation of its hydrogen with oxygen in the formation of water. At 
 
THE PENTATEDCHAL STOKV OF CREATION. 361 
 
 first, this water would be in the condition of vapor; and our earth 
 would present the appearance of a solid sphere wrapped in an im- 
 mense cloud of watery vapor. This, if I mistake not, was just the 
 condition of our earth when Moses resumes his narrative in the 
 words, "And the earth was waste and void," i. e., without living 
 plant or animal of any kind upon it, "and darkness was upon the 
 face of the deep." (1.) As the cooling proceeded, the dense mass- 
 of vapor would thin out, so that it would be possible for light from 
 the sun to penetrate to the more solid mass; and, in consequence 
 of the revolution of the earth upon its axis, along with the entrance 
 of light would come the alternation of day and night, as Moses 
 describes it in verses 4, 5. (2.) To this would succeed, as the cool- 
 ing went on, a condensation of a portion of the watery vapor in a 
 liquid form upon the surface of the solid central mass, and a sepa- 
 ration between it and the portion which would still remain sus- 
 pended above it, just such a separation as now exists, and as Moses 
 describes in verses 6-8. (3.) Then, as the cooling proceeded yet 
 further, because of the contraction of the solidified crust of the 
 earth, more rapidly than of the heated mass within, that crust 
 would be rent and upheaved, so that the land would emerge from 
 beneath the waters, and a division between the dry land and the 
 sea would be effected. (See verses 9, 10.) After this, and not 
 until then, would the sun, moon and stars appear in the heavens, 
 and begin their work of distinctly marking the passage of days 
 and years, as stated in verses 14-19. 
 
 5. Of organic nature, Moses tells us, that there was, first, a 
 great outburst of vegetable life on the earth, a gigantic growth of 
 land plants; and that this gigantic vegetation followed immediately 
 upon, and was in part cotemporary with, the separation of land and 
 water; for so I understand his representing these two works as 
 both occurring on the same creative day. Then, second, that God 
 caused the waters to swarm with swarms of sea monsters, and the 
 air with birds (flyers); and, after this of an outburst of mammal 
 life upon the land, "of cattle, and wild beasts and creeping things." 
 Now, what are these three eras in the creation of organic nature 
 but " the carboniferous era," the age of gigantic sauria and mon- 
 strous birds (flyers), including the pterodactyles, and the age of 
 mammals, of the geologist. In Moses' record these ages are the 
 
 2 
 
362 THE PRESBYTERIAN QUARTERLY. 
 
 same in number, and they occur in the same order they do in the 
 record of geology. 
 
 6. On one point which the Mosaic record decides definitely, 
 geology does not give so decided an answer, viz.: that the car- 
 boniferous era preceded the distinct appearance of the sun in the 
 heavens. And yet, all that geology does say is favorable to Moses' 
 decision. The leading classes of plants which make up the mass 
 of the coal of the carboniferous era are mosses, ferns and gigantic 
 lepidodendra, plants which to-day flourish in a damp atmosphere 
 and in the shade, and are dwarfed, if not killed, by direct sunshine. 
 And in addition to this, the numerous seams of coal, separated by 
 seams of slate, and even sandstone, in these older coal-fields, tell 
 of frequent subsidence and emergence of the land during their 
 formation : just the condition of things we would expect to find, 
 when the land was being separated from the water. 
 
 7. That the warm waters of the primeval ocean, before the 
 land emerged, contained algse (sea- weeds), and some of the lower 
 forms of animals, e. g., the eozoon, polyps and radiates, is, I think, 
 pretty clearly established. That there were certain kinds of fish 
 in the sea, and flyers such as insects in the air, before and through- 
 out the carboniferous era, I have no doubt. But in all this I see 
 nothing at variance with the Mosaic record. Of the creation of 
 all these creatures we are told in Genesis ii. 1, and yet more defi- 
 nitely in Exodus xx. 11; "In six days the Lord made heaven and 
 earth, the sea and all that in them is," but of the exact time of 
 their creation we are told nothing. In a history of creation writ- 
 ten for the purpose with which Moses wrote, why should he mention 
 them? In so brief a history, how could he mention them? That 
 sauria, and birds and mammals — air-breathing animals — could not 
 have lived upon the land, or in the air, before the gigantic vegeta- 
 tion of the carboniferous era had purified the atmosphere by de- 
 composing the vast quantity of carbonic acid it must have con- 
 tained, fixing its carbon, and giving back its oxygen, no scientist 
 will question; and this all that Moses' history fairly implies. 
 
 Part III. — The Creation of Man, Male and Female. 
 " And the Lord said, Let us make man in our image, after our 
 likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and 
 
THE PENTATEUCHAL STORY OF CREATION. 363 
 
 over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, 
 and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. And 
 God created man in his own image, in the image of God created 
 he him ; male and female created he them. And God blessed 
 them; and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and re- 
 plenish the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish 
 of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living 
 thing that moveth upon the earth. . . . And God saw everything 
 that he had made, and behold it was very good. And there was 
 evening and there was morning, the sixth day." (Gen. i. 26-31.) 
 Such is the general account which Moses gives us of the creation 
 of man. In chapter ii., as a part of the sad story of the introduc- 
 tion of sin into our world, he gives us certain other particulars, in 
 his words, "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the 
 ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man 
 became a living soul [literally, a creature of life or living crea- 
 ture.] . . . And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon 
 the man, and he slept ; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up 
 the flesh instead thereof ; and the rib which the Lord God took 
 from the man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. 
 And the man said, This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my 
 flesh ; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. 
 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall 
 cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh." (Gen. ii. 
 7, 21-24.) 
 
 I. That this portion of the Mosaic record is to be understood 
 as neither parable nor myth, but a piece of plain history, a record 
 of facts, is placed beyond all doubt by the way in which it is sub- 
 sequently referred to in the Scriptures. Thus, Paul writes : " For 
 the man is not of the woman ; but the woman of the man. Neither 
 was the man created for the woman ; but the woman for the man." 
 (1 Cor. xi. 8, 9.) And our Lord says, " Have ye not read, that he 
 which made them in the beginning made them male and female, 
 and said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and 
 shall cleave to his wife ; and they twain shall be one flesh ? Where- 
 fore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God 
 hath joined together, let not man put asunder." (Matt. xix. 5, 6.) 
 In this historv of the creation of man the following particulars 
 
364 THE PRESBYTERIAN QUARTERLY. 
 
 are clearly set forth, viz.: (1,) That man was the last made of 
 God's creatures, his making finishing the work of creation in so 
 far as our earth is concerned. (2,) That he was made in the very 
 "image and likeness of God," and to him was given "dominion 
 over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over 
 every living thing that moveth upon the earth." (3,) That, de- 
 parting from the course pursued in the case of the lower animals, 
 God made but one human pair. In the language of Moses — and 
 in this the language of Scripture is the language of science — God 
 made " man, male and female," thus securing for man, in all com- 
 ing time, a perfect race-unity. (4,) That God made man and 
 woman separately; the man first, as to his body, "of the dust of 
 the ground ; " the woman afterwards, as to her body, from the rib 
 of the man; that thus there might be established between them a 
 peculiarly intimate relation, expressed by Adam in his words, 
 "This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh." 
 
 II. Do these facts properly belong to a sacred history of crea- 
 tion ? In attempting to answer this question, I would ask the 
 reader to notice (1,) That, without the account which Moses gives 
 us of man's creation "in the image and likeness" of God, we 
 could not understand the Scripture explanation of the great pro- 
 blem which confronts us the moment we turn to the study of 
 man's present condition and his present relation to God his Crea- 
 tor; a problem expressed by Rousseau in his words, "Our human- 
 ity is deeply tainted with some sore and irrecoverable disease." 
 (2,) The unity of the human race is a fundamental fact in the phil- 
 osophy of the plan of salvation made known to us in Paul's words, 
 "As by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to con- 
 demnation, even so, by the righteousness of one, the free gift came 
 upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's dis- 
 obedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one 
 shall many be made righteous." (Rom. v. 18-19.) (3,) " Marriage 
 was ordained for the mutual help of husband and wife ; for the 
 increase of mankind with a legitimate issue, and of the church 
 with a holy seed ; and for preventing uncleanness." {Confession 
 of Faith, Chap, xxiv.) And one of the precepts of the moral law, 
 as written by the finger of God upon tables of stone, is a prohibi- 
 tion of all disregard of its sacred obligations. Hence the church 
 
THE PENTATEUCHAL STORY OF CREATION. 365 
 
 has always recognized the religious character of marriage. A re- 
 cord, then, of the fact that in the creation of man and woman God 
 gave a solemn sanction to the marriage relation, is an appropriate 
 part of a sacred history of creation. 
 
 III. What has science to say on these several points presented 
 in this portion of the Mosaic record % 
 
 1. As to man's being the last made of God's creatures, "The 
 evidence of geology has always been that among all the creatures 
 which have in succession been formed to live upon the earth and 
 enjoy it, man is the latest born. This great fact is still the fun- 
 damental truth in the history of creation. ... So far as we yet 
 know, no new form of life has been created since the highest form 
 was made." — Argyll's Primeval Man, p. 113. 
 
 It is further worthy of remark that Moses makes the outburst 
 of mammal life upon the earth and the creation of man two sepa- 
 rate works of creation wrought on the same (the sixth) day. In- 
 terpreting this as I have interpreted a similar record of the work 
 on the third day, it would indicate that these two works were in 
 part cotemporary, i. e., in the language of geology, that the 
 closing portion of the age of mammals overlapped the earlier part 
 of the age of man. On this point Dr. Southall writes : 
 
 " The mammoth was in Siberia down to the inauguration of that cold climate 
 characteristic of that region. This was after the glacial period in Europe, probably 
 at the close of the glacial period in Sweden and Scotland. When France and Eng- 
 land were occupied by the cave-man, Siberia was enjoying, at least the middle and 
 southern portion of it, a comparatively temperate climate, and was inhabited by a 
 bronze-using people, who were skilful workers in that metal ; the mammoth, the 
 rhinoceros, and the megaceros ranging in its forests." — Recent Origin of Man, p. 518. 
 
 2. Moses tells us that man was made "in the image and like- 
 ness" of God, and to him was given "dominion over the fish of 
 the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing 
 that moveth upon the earth." On this point Prof. Dana writes : 
 
 ' ' In the appearance of man, the system of life, in progress through the ages, 
 reached its completion, and the animal structure its highest perfection. Another 
 higher is not within the range of our conception. For the vertebrate type, which 
 began during the paleozoic, in the prone or horizontal fish, becomes erect in man, 
 and thus completes, as Agassiz has observed, the possible changes in the series to 
 its last term. An erect body and an erect forehead admit of no step beyond. But 
 besides this, man's whole structure declares his intellectual and spiritual nature. 
 His forelimbs are not organs of locomotion, as they are in all other mammalians ; 
 
366 THE PRESBYTERIAN QUARTERLY. 
 
 they have passed from the locomotive to the cephalic series, being made to subserve 
 the purposes of the head ; and this transfer is in accordance with a grand law of 
 nature, which is the basis of grade and development. The cephalization of the 
 animal has been the goal of all progress; and in man we mark its highest possible 
 triumph." — Dana's Geology, p. 578. 
 
 3. The unity of the human race, long and keenly debated, 
 must now be considered a settled matter in science. Prof. Hux- 
 ley writes: 
 
 ' ' I cannot see any good ground, or even any tenable sort of evidence, for be- 
 lieving that there is more than one species of man." — Origin of Species, Lecture V. 
 
 And the Duke of Argyll : 
 
 ' ' On this point, therefore, of the unity of man's origin, those who bow to the 
 authority of the most ancient and most venerable traditions, and those who accept 
 the most popular of modern scientific theories, are found standing on common 
 ground and accepting the same result. "— Unity of Nature, p. 399. 
 
 4. On the remaining point, viz. : God's making woman from 
 the rib of man, and instituting the marriage relation, geology, 
 from the nature of the case, can say nothing. The sacredness of 
 the marriage relation, and so of the family, all history declares to 
 be fundamental to civilization in its highest form, and with equal 
 distinctness declares polygamy to be fatal to national prosperity. 
 The marriage relation, such as Moses describes as instituted of 
 God, is unknown among savages. It is only among the most 
 highly civilized nations, and as the result of that civilization, that 
 woman has recovered the rank and station which, according to 
 Moses, God gave her in the beginning. These facts furnish a 
 good and sufficient reason for departure from the common order 
 of creation in the case of woman. Certainly the story is a very 
 strange invention, if it be an invention, on the part of a " semi- 
 barbarous Hebrew," as Prof. Huxley would have us believe that 
 Moses was. In the circumstances of the case, " the invention is 
 more incredible than the fact." 
 
 Conclusion. 
 1. I have now gone through with the history of creation given 
 us in the opening portion of the Book of Genesis, continually 
 bearing in mind the nature of that history as sacred, and not secu- 
 lar or profane ; and guided in my interpretation of the record by 
 the principle recognized by jurists as well as critics, that all docu- 
 
THE PENTATEUCH AL STORY OF CREATION. 367 
 
 rnents must be interpreted with an especial reference to the object 
 with which they have been written. A disregard of this plain 
 principle of interpretation, if I mistake not, has given rise to much 
 of the apparent discrepancy between Genesis and geology, which 
 has perplexed christian scientists, and given occasion for such cavil- 
 ling remarks, as that of Prof. Huxley, quoted at the opening of 
 this article. 
 
 2. Respecting some of the facts stated by Moses, science has 
 nothing to say, and this for the good and sufficient reason that 
 they are beyond its purview — e. g., the original creation of matter, 
 and the peculiar manner in which woman was made. Of many 
 of the facts ascertained by science, Moses says nothing for a simi- 
 lar reason; e. g., the time at which organic life first appeared upon 
 the earth, and the creation of the lower orders of plants and ani- 
 mals. This is just what, in the circumstances of the case, we have 
 a right to expect; just what we find to be true of the Bible story 
 throughout. In the Scripture story of Adam, we are told of his 
 creation, his probation in Eden, and his fall — all events which must 
 have occurred during the first years, possibly the first year, of 
 his life ; but of the remainder of that life of nine hundred and 
 thirty years nothing is said. Of the first eighty years of Moses' 
 life the Scriptures tell us of nothing except the wondrous provi- 
 dence which in his early infancy placed him in the household of 
 Pharaoh, and then of his flight from Egypt when forty years of 
 age. Of the histories of Egypt and Babylon and Rome the Scrip- 
 tures tell us something, where those histories touch upon the his- 
 tory of redemption, and what they do tell us is being confirmed 
 in a most remarkable manner by modern research ; but of all the 
 remainder of the histories of those empires they have nothing to 
 say. Because of this, no reasonable man imagines any discrepancy 
 between the Bible history and the histories of Manetho or Berosus 
 or Livy. 
 
 3. In the Pentateuchal story of creation certain facts are stated, 
 viz.: (1), the creation by God, in the beginning, of the heaven and 
 the earth; (2), the chaotic condition of the earth when God began 
 the work of evoking order and organization; (3), the entrance of 
 light, and the succession of day and night before the sun could be 
 seen; (4), the separation of the waters under the heavens from 
 
«5t>8 THE PRESBY'I ERIAN QUARTERLY. 
 
 those above it ; (5), the emergence of the land from beneath the 
 surface of the waters ; (6), a gigantic outburst of vegetation upon 
 the land ; (7), the distinct appearance of the sun, moon and stars, 
 the unveiling of nature's great clock by which the passage of time 
 has been noted ever since; 8), an era of gigantic sea-monsters 
 and birds (flyers) ; (9), an era of gigantic mammals ; followed 
 immediately by, (10), the creation of man, male and female, as 
 the last and crowning work of creation ; and then, (11), God's rest 
 from his work of creation, a rest which continues to the present 
 day. This is, in substance, all that Moses says, and it. is all that it 
 was appropriate for him to say in a sacred history of creation, all 
 that it was possible for him to say in so brief a history as that he 
 lias given us. Science, especially geology, has made rapid and 
 substantial progress in the last fifty years, and in our day for the 
 first time is competent to testify on some of the points mentioned 
 above ; and now that its " tongue is unloosed," its testimony distinctly 
 confirms the Pentateuchal story as summarized above in every 
 particular ; and I would ask the readers especially to notice that 
 it is not geological theory, bat well ascertained geological facts, 
 which confirm the statements of fact made by Moses. 
 
 4. On the one point which yet remains for consideration, viz. : 
 the claim which the Pentateuchal story of creation makes to be a 
 revelation from God, I cannot do better than quote the words of 
 Hon. Win. E. Gladstone : 
 
 ' ' How canie Moses ... to possess knowledge which natural science has only 
 within the present century for the first time dug out of the bowels of the earth ? 
 It is surely impossible to avoid the conclusion, first, that either he was gifted with 
 faculties passing all human experieu'v, or else his knowledge was divine. The first 
 branch of the alternative is truly nominal and unreal. We know the sphere within 
 which human inquiry toils. We know the heights to which the intuitions of genius 
 may soar. We know that in certain cases genius anticipates science ; as Homer, for 
 example, in his account of the conflict of the four winds in the sea-storm. But 
 even in these anticipations, marvellous and, so to speak, imperial as they are, genius 
 cannot escape from an inexorable law. It must have materials of sense and expe- 
 rience to work with, and a pou sto from which to take its flight ; and genius can 
 no more tell, apart from some at least of the results attained by inquiry, what are 
 the contents of the crust of the earth, than it could square the circle or annihilate 
 a fact. So stands a plea for a revelation of truth from God, a plea only to be met 
 by questioning its possibility, that is, ... . by suggesting that a being able to make 
 man is unable to communicate with the creature he has made." — Order of Creation, 
 
 Geo. D. Armstrong. 
 
syrocuse, N. Y. 
 Stockton, Colif. 
 
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