The conclusion attempted to be established by the preceding mode of reasoning, is not of the kind, nor will it be so satisfactory as, many desiderate. The sacred chronology, according to the common interpretation, remains as it was; and no harmony can thus be established betwixt it and the deductions of geology. Bring down the epochs to thousands instead of millions of years, and still the days of Scripture are not explained. The historical and the scientific accounts of the course of creation are just where they were, the one based on the word of its Author, the other resting on rash or doubtful interpretations of the phenomena of nature. Leave us, says the geologist, to grope our own way: mystical as our records are, we disturb no established truth, and imagination delights to lose itself in the far-distant past. Let not, says the divine, the speculations of a new science—a science of yesterday—be mixed up with more important matters of religion: we are within the sacred precincts of revelation, and our oracles give forth no dubious meanings—no isoteric doctrines for the initiated only.

The marvels of geology certainly are, in every view that can be taken of them, deeply interesting to the mind. The volume of creation, read in the light of its discoveries, is traced back through pages which have been long hid from day; and these now make known to us a story of life and death, of activities and enjoyments, of catastrophes and revolutions, which surpass in wonder the inventions of the mere romance writer, or all that regulated genius can pour “from pictured urn” of her most fascinating lore. But be the time occupied in the elaboration of these records what it may, the records themselves have an actual being, and a language of intelligence indelibly impressed upon them. They are genuine, authentic documents of their author. They may be misinterpreted. Inferences may be deduced from them for which there is no warrant; constructions put upon passages which they will not legitimately bear; or the true key of the volume, in its great leading truths, may not as yet have been found. Still the work is of God, wholly and entirely the writing of his own hand.

Revelation is also His work; and, claiming to be from the same authority as the other, rests its pretensions to be received as an authentic document upon the ground of creation. It gives details, and enters into explanations of the nature and origin of creation; and it declares that the same Divine Being who made the heavens and the earth, has also recorded their history and revealed his will to man. It is by no mere casualty, therefore, or as a matter of indifference, that the Bible commences its narrative by an account of creation. That account is there as the foundation of one of its own claims to belief, testifying to its credibility that it is of God; that He placed it there, not as a skillful writer would do his preface, but because of the fact, that the invisible things of his nature are to be seen and understood by the things which are made.—What is thus declared upon the subject of creation, is likewise liable to misinterpretation. It may not be read aright. But of the account itself there can be no question,—that it is given as a real, as it ever must be regarded a true one, of the Divine operations.

In order, therefore, to arrive at any just conclusions respecting the comparison to be instituted betwixt the geological and the revealed account of creation, we shall first inquire into the kind, as well as amount, of information contained in the Mosaic record. The rendering of the term “day” will then fall to be considered in relation to the order of events indicated in both accounts.

I. The narrative proceeds with a fullness and minuteness of detail, which clearly show a purpose in the writer. Did Moses actually mean to trace the whole of creation in its primordial course and outline? Assuming that he did, the phraseology is pointed and admirably suited to its subject. Admitted into the presence-chamber of the Creator, he sees the instruments with which he works, the rapidity with which he executes, the subserviency of all being to his will, the arrangement and disposition of all things at his pleasure. Knowing, as we now do from the highest authority, what was the work of creation, and whence it originated, the intelligent mind discerns also the suitableness of the description, and the Divine selection of words employed to record it. There is inspiration in the pencil, as well as omnipotence in the hand, which traced out the plan of creation, and brought it into existence. The Cause willed, and the effect immediately was,—in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

Here, betwixt God and his work there are no intermediate agencies,—no pause or rest in the act of coming into being. A material universe is designed, and the substance of it is instantly produced. The inspired historian proves that he was inspired, by the brevity of the history of the event, by the employment of words so perfectly adapted to the nature of the act. He proves farther, that we have here indicated the precise course of creation, and that he meant so to represent it—that the heavens and the earth are of one and the same act—that the physical universe, through all its dominions and remotest spheres, started at one and the same time into being. The sun, moon, and stars were now all formed, as well as our own planet. The stellar systems were everywhere arranged; and the worlds of matter had their places all assigned them through infinite space. This part of the Divine actings must not be confounded with the farther evolution of creation as described in the work of the fourth day, which has reference manifestly to the division of time and the appointment of the seasons, through the revolution of the planetary worlds.

The condition of the earth as it first came from the hand of its framer is next alluded to. It was “without form and void,” and involved in darkness; that is, the arrangements necessary to constitute a habitable globe, were not completed. There was no diversity of surface—no division into hill and valley, into seas and rivers; the air, the dry land, and the waters, had not yet assumed their respective places. Form was not yet stamped upon the matter of the globe. Consequently it was also void, or without inhabitants. Neither vegetables nor animals were there. They could not exist before these necessary adaptations for life were adjusted. Let the reader note this stage of the work. Marking the precise, definite phraseology of the inspired writer, let him seriously reflect whether he has here before him the first state of the new world, or the shapeless ruined aspect of one of its subsequent geological transformations? None of the elements, he will not fail to observe, have been described as yet existing in separation. The course of creation has not advanced so far; and, if it had done so, no geologist pretends to assert, that at the close of any one of his epochs, the laws of nature were abolished, and all things reverted to their pristine formless condition. With what propriety, then, may it be asked, can an opening be made in this part of the narrative wide enough to embrace, or to have intercalated into it, all the phases of an archaic earth under his numerous formations, and the vast cycles of time in which they had been evolving? The language employed admirably represents what we can well suppose the original physical state of the planet to have been; and that state accords better with the first than with the last, or any of the intermediate series of the geological changes. And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters; and thus gave shape and outline to the planetary mass.

The light was thereupon produced. We are not told whence, nor out of what. Like all the matter of the universe, it started into being at the call of the Creator, suddenly, as its own brilliant flashing emanations over the darkness at this hour. Then came day and night; and this implies, that there came along with them the revolution of the globe and the commencement of motion in the astral universe. The production of a firmament or atmosphere is next alluded to, and in immediate connection with this part of the work, whereby a medium was provided for the diffusion of the light and the play of all that beauty and variety of coloring by which the earth was to be adorned. “And God said, Let there be light: and there was light; and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light day, and the darkness he called night. And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.”

Light, the subtilest and fleetest of all elements, has nearly eluded every effort of man to detect or analyze its essence. It travels swift as thought through infinite space. It spreads its ethereal force over every opposing obstacle. It gives brilliancy to the gem, form to the crystal, color to the flower, health to animal life, and is so indispensable to every existing condition of existing physical nature, that, were the mandate of its creation revoked, we know just as much of its principle as to see in its annihilation a relapse into that state of chaos when all things were without form and void. Not only the beauty of organic structure, but the molecular arrangement of the mineral mountain masses of the earth, would, in all probability, have been an impossible condition of matter without the existence and agency of light. And light, whether glowing in the solar disc, gleaming in remotest stars, or breaking and sparkling in the rain-drop, what revelation has science made of it beyond its properties of luster and activity?—We trace its effects; we discern its influence upon all bodies; but when we would go deeper, and seek to know it essentially and in itself, we can only speak of it as the utterance of Him who said,—Let there be light.

Nor has science made any attempt, at least no successful one, to account for the origin of the atmosphere. Its constituent elements are known. They are every day made the subject of direct experiment. The solution and ascent of water in the air is also a matter of daily visible occurrence. But by what process this great mass of impalpable fluid was brought together, enveloping the entire earth, and suspended as a curtain over our heads, no ingenuity or dexterity of man has been able to determine. There is no evidence by which to explain it upon the principles of natural law, slowly elaborating the materials, and piling them high in the starry vault. The atmosphere, indeed, must ever stand in the original formation, the result of the immediate creative act, brought together in all its volume and vast incredible capacity of receiving and holding in its grasp the gaseous residue of all earthly things. And what of its electricity, its magnetism, the aurora and its streaming meteors,—its thunder, lightning, clouds, and rain,—all, shall we say, the instantaneous effect of the authoritative command? And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters!

We every day see the conversion of water into steam, and steam into air; and the air, like the ocean, receiving every substance into itself. But, nevertheless, it is not inferred that there is any augmentation to the volume of the atmosphere, any increase or essential change upon its original mass. Without the existence of this fluid, the earth would have been no suitable place for any of its living inhabitants, vegetable or animal. Therefore was it created; therefore does the account of its creation stand in the order in which we find it in the Mosaic narrative; and, therefore, from this very circumstance, are we not warranted to infer that we have before us a description of the actual genesis of things—that it is not a remodeling or transformation of the old, but the veritable course under which all creation was at first brought into being, form, and parts, that the inspired writer intends to record?

We cannot refuse, by parity of reasoning, to conclude the same as to the immediately succeeding act in the Divine operations. The arrangement of the surface of the earth was now to be effected; and, just as one portion of the waters was lifted and expanded into air, so, in consequence of a different proportion in the elements, and evolution of new principles, the seas were formed and gathered into the depressions occasioned by the raising up of the dry land, its consolidation into rocks and mountains. This is the starting point of geology. The science can get no deeper. It begins all its researches, and builds all its calculations, upon that crystalline crust which is termed primary, which is co-extensive with the superficial area of the globe, which is found in every region, and beneath which no explorations have anywhere been made. And wherefore not assume this as an immediate formation, as a direct preparatory arrangement, like the seas and atmosphere, for the life that was just to be provided with a habitation upon it? A beginning for organic bodies is demonstrable upon geological evidence. The lowest fossiliferous rocks have been reached, and everywhere they are found to maintain the same relative position. The inference, therefore, is legitimate, nay, probable, that the primary formations of geologists constituted the first dry land, as herein described; and that Time, calculated according to the operations of natural mechanical laws, can enter in no way into our speculations as to their origin. “And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together in one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.”

The course of creation proceeds. “And God called the dry land earth, and the gathering together of the waters called he seas.” The globe was thus divided into land and ocean. An atmosphere embraces the whole, tempering the heat and cold of the one, receiving the exhalations of the other, and both prepared for the ministrations required of them. The dry earth is represented as being first the seat of organic life. The new and bare surface is covered with herbage. The grasses, shrubs, and trees all start into being, prepared each for the diffusion and continuance of their kind, by yielding seed and fruit. And then commenced on the theater of our globe the successive evolution of the principle of life, subtile, active, prolific, in all the boundless prodigality of nature, and mysterious still as the essence and fount of all-creative Being.

At this part of the narrative it is generally supposed, according to the common reading, that there is a retrograde step, as it were, introduced. The day and night have been made to precede the creation of the sun and moon; and now to supply the deficiency we are told of the appointment of these luminaries in the heavens “to give light upon the earth.” But three days and three nights have already revolved. Doubtless they have, but not without light, for light has been created; and not without a provision for the night, for the light has been divided from the darkness. The earth has been revolving upon its own axis; that occasioned the succession of day and night then as now. Another motion is communicated, whereby it revolves in its orbit and circles round the sun; that causes the variety of the seasons, and the divisions of the year. The luminous matter diffused through space, and equally shining upon all bodies, has been assembled into the great central orbs, to be the dispensers each of light and heat to their respective systems; and upon these arrangements being established, both days and nights, seasons and years, are all dependent upon, as they all arise from, the revolution of the planets round the central luminary. “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 for years.”

“And God made two great lights; he made the stars also.” The original does not bear out the sense of there being in these instances an act of creation; neither does the English term itself always imply that meaning. Light-bearers, or the depositories of illumination, is the true rendering of the Hebrew. The Septuagint translators have used similar relative terms, and in our own language the expression “made” often signifies fashioned, formed, used, constrained. And so the phrase here refers not to the creation, but to the uses of bodies already described as being in existence, and created along with all matter in the beginning. But now they are invested with new properties, are arranged so as to perform new functions, and stand in relations each to each, at the bidding of Him who brought them into being. Next to the summoning of the universe into existence, this was the most stupendous act of Divine power, and we know as much of the one as of the other. Some of the properties of matter we are acquainted with. The laws of motion we can define in some measure, and calculate also their effects. But whence the one, and how the arbitrary appointment of the other, through all the infinite diversity of systems and spheres—precise, harmonious, and orderly—baffles all the ingenuity of science to determine. Mark, too, the order of the introduction of this new class of facts, just in the due course and regulation of nature. When life is mentioned, and the earth is clothed with verdure, the seasons begin their round, and the divinely-instructed historian acquaints us with the cause. “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.”

The waters are now replenished with their stores of animal life, and by the same act of creation the air receives its stock of winged tribes. Then follows, as the work of another distinct period of time, the introduction of the terrestrial races—the living creature after his kind—the cattle—and creeping thing—and beast of the earth after his kind. The description here is general. The orders, genera, and species are not named. Still the catalogue is large and amply descriptive. The various types of organic structure are alluded to, and each term or epithet of the quadruple list is elastic enough to embrace one and all the diversified families of the most methodical naturalist. “And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, each after his kind.”

Such is the account, the order, and course of creation, as set forth in the inspired record. The description of the various generative acts is simple, distinctive, and consonant with the energies of the Will by which they are performed. The whole narrative is one of many, within the compass of the sacred volume, in which a strict adherence to the letter leads to a sound interpretation. The wisdom of man will be confounded when it tries to fathom the methods and devices of the divine Artificer in originating his works. His safety will often be in distrusting his own understanding, in not magnifying overmuch the ingenuity of his own speculations, and in sometimes believing that even science will be exalted by approximating to, rather than by departing from, the literalities of Scripture.

II. Compare now the epochs of geology with the days of Scripture, and there will be observed at least a remarkable coincidence between them. The fossiliferous systems of the one are nearly the same in number with the descriptive paragraphs in the other. The order in the creation of organized bodies, the progression of life upon the earth, are also wonderfully striking in the records of both. The lowest of our fossiliferous deposits contain the impressions of plants—these stand at the beginning of the Mosaic list. The same groups, and the whole of the next in succession, are characterized by the prevailing abundance of marine tribes—the waters, according to the sacred narrative, then received their command, and multiplied abundantly the moving creature that hath life. Vegetables and animals, still of the waters, continue to increase during the carboniferous era, when a new system succeeds, and in this the foot-prints of birds are distinctly traced—so it was in the same order of succession that the winged fowl is sent forth into the open firmament of heaven. The Lias and Oolite formations immediately follow, filled with monsters of the deep, saurians and flying lizards,—the text speaks of the “great whales” of the period, as distinguished among the productions of the waters. The Wealden Chalk, and Tertiaries are replete with all kinds of reptiles, mammals, and quadrupeds—the horse, urus, and other forms of cattle—and so, in like manner, the last in the Mosaic list, as the highest in the geological strata, are the types of every beast, cattle, and creeping thing.

Now, can this running parallel be accidental or intended? Did the writer of the one record know anything of the contents of the other? Does the course of creation, as detailed in the strata of the earth, follow as a necessary consequence from the nature of things? or as the arbitrary appointment of Him who made them? Would plants, fishes, reptiles, fowl, mammals, all emerge in this precise order of succession, by any known law of organic structure? Or could not the first and last, or any of the intermediate kinds, have been at once, and as adaptively, brought together in one and the same period of time? Was the writer of the Genesis acquainted with the rich exuberant flora of the carboniferous age? and was it meant as a true exposition of its history that there were as yet no beasts or quadrupeds upon the earth to enjoy it? And knowing of it, as well as of all the other superficial arrangements,—the upheaval of the crust, the rise of mountains, the alternate shifting of sea and land,—does he describe the progress of organic creation precisely as it occurred, and as the changes of the planet became adaptive?

The series of creative acts terminates in the introduction of Man upon the stage of terrestrial being. “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and 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.”

Here both narratives are completely at one as to man’s place in the course as well as system of creation. No fragment of his race has been detected in any of the rocky strata of the earth. Every other organic thing, of every class, and order, and tribe, has its representative in one or other of the geological epochs. Man stands apart and alone in the geology as in the history. No mere link in the chain of organic existence, not a being of mere earthy mold, but fashioned in the image of his Maker, and fitted to explore, to understand, and to exercise dominion over the works of his creation. How much, again, in all this last and highest evolution of creative might, is the conclusion confirmed, and arrived at from so many converging lines, that the sacred record was intended to embody an actual account of the creation of our globe, in its various primordial arrangements as well as in all its consecutive events, until its majestic close in the human epoch? For, looking back and comparing the whole narrative with the facts of geology, is it not highly probable that we have in that account distinctly shadowed forth the progressive researches of the science, the great physical truths of creation, as symbolized in the rocks? The brilliant vista through millions of untold ages, and upon scenes supposed to be unnoticed and unrecorded, vanishes indeed at the admission of this principle of interpretation. But a more consistent view of the world’s history—of the comparative longevity of its successive tribes—of the various changes and alterations which its surface has undergone—and a less violence far to the obvious import of the sacred text—form no unpleasing substitutes on which, amidst such lures to doubt, bewilderment, and error, faith and reason will equally incline to repose.

III. The conclusions which have been, or which may be, deduced from a comparative examination of geology and the Mosaic record, fall to be noticed.

1. In order to preserve the literal rendering of the six days of creation, it is maintained that the Mosaic record takes no account whatever of any of the geological formations described. After the intimation, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth; and the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep”—the close of the epochs, with all their complement of strata and fossils, was accomplished; and then, as descriptive of the era of man, with all his living cotemporaries, and the several days with the works therein accomplished, the new order of events referred to in the text commences with the declaration, “and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” The discoveries of geology are thus all cast back upon unrecorded anterior periods, and with regard to which the sacred record is silent; while of the new series of events, in precisely the same order of succession and enlarged amount of normal organic being, there is a defined literal account. This may be regarded as the generally received interpretation among the leading geologists as well as of a large class of eminent divines. It was early and eagerly adopted by Dr. Chalmers. The proof of its soundness is made to hinge upon certain ingenious criticisms regarding the terms bara, asah, yatzan, which in the common version of the Hebrew text are translated created, made, formed. According to the new rendering, wherever any of these words occur in any of the verses after the second, they are to be restricted to the simple act of fashioning, arranging, and constructing new bodies out of pre-existing matter. Hence, all the initial and secondary actings noticed in the narrative are in this manner clearly distinguishable. It is farther argued, that all the secondary class of arrangements are distinctively pointed to, and separated from the primordial, by the formula of expression, “and God said,” which is introduced at the commencement of each of the six days, but not prefixed to the initial creative act of all matter in the beginning.

Now, against this mode of argument it may be objected that much of it does not bear upon the question at issue. The discrepancy is one more of things than of words. It is the physical solution, rather than the critical, that is the important matter of inquiry; and this no mere verbal emendations of the text will altogether and consistently help out. Observe the character of the acts spoken of after the second verse and introduction of the expression, “and God said;”—the calling light into being, the separation of the darkness, the division of day and night, the formation of an atmosphere, the fixed position of the firmament above and the waters beneath, and the separation of the dry land. These are the acts of the first and second days. But what of them before this? These elements and their arrangement were all required, and must have all existed, during the epochs recorded in geology. That is admitted. The light needed no renewal after any geological transposition of the land and sea. The revolutions of the heavenly bodies would be equally unaffected, and days, seasons, and years would remain and proceed in the same order of succession. The firmament and atmosphere would continue to occupy their relative positions. And so, according to the usus loquendi and legitimate import of all the terms employed in the text, we are reading of things that were neither in being nor in operation before, but which now for the first time are represented as being summoned into existence. We are equally unprepared for the admission made by some of the friends of revelation, that Moses knew not the full amount and nature of the knowledge conveyed in his narrative, just as “he was not aware of the profound spiritual meaning of much of the ritual which he was employed to institute. It was an obscure text, which awaited the Divine commentary of the christian dispensation.”[16] There is no analogy between the subjects. The law was confessedly a preparatory, incompleted dispensation. The order of creation as traced by Moses embraces substantively everything which creation contains—the elements, disposition, and collocation of its parts—and that he saw not through the whole of a future, unfulfilled plan, furnishes no good ground for the assumption that he was ignorant of or purposely passes over the history of millions of years of the very subject on which he was inspired to write, and on which he was to build his whole system of theism and of grace. This mode of interpretation, beside, assumes a hiatus in the text for which there is no just warrant, either in the verbal structure of the narrative, or in the physical character and order of the events described. It has always appeared to us to proceed upon principles of explication which violate all the canons of a pure and severe criticism, which indulgently gives way to new and gratuitously assumed difficulties, and which would leave nothing in any writing except what the reader chooses to find in it.

2. The principle of interpreting the days in Genesis as periods of indefinite time, and within which the several geological formations were successively evolved. They who adopt this hypothesis can plausibly argue that the order of creative acts as revealed in the sacred record, harmonizes in a very remarkable manner with the course of creation as detailed in the researches of geology. Hereby a comparison can be distinctly instituted, and a parallelism observed betwixt the peculiar work of each day and the leading phenomena displayed in the earth’s crust—from the first appearance of dry land, when organic bodies had not been as yet created, and the primary rocks in which none have been detected—up through the silurian, devonian, and carboniferous series, in all which plants and marine organisms only are found—and onward until we reach the tertiary strata, where, in succession, the revealed order of animal life is so remarkably coincident. The details of the science are not indeed to be all, and minutely, read in the narrative. But the main truths and the leading dogmata are there; and if any departure from the literal rendering of the text can be permitted, so as to fit in and adjust the geological phenomena, it may be justly contended that there is less of violence and straining by the substitution of periods for days, than by casting aside the whole genetic description as having no bearing whatever upon the primary cosmogony of the globe. Then the various events, it may be farther argued, as recorded in the text—the creation of light—the formation of a firmament—the division of day and night—the appointment of seasons and years—the gathering together of the waters, and the elevation of the dry land—are all so described and placed in such juxta-position as can only be applicable to primary creative acts, to things which were not before, and which now for the first time were brought into being and condition.

The abettor of this view and mode of reconciliation will likewise avail himself, in defense of its being an orthodox interpretation, of the latitude of meaning ascribed to the term “day,” in the Scriptures themselves. Even in the second chapter of the Divine word, and applied to the very subject in question—the order of creation—he finds the term to be used in an indefinite sense: “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, and every plant of the field.” The solemn announcement at the close of this world’s drama will not fail also to be adverted to—“in the last days perilous times shall come”—wherein periods of longer or shorter duration are implied as existing in the midst of days. Frequently too there occur the expressions: the day of grace—the day of salvation—the day of the Lord—the day of trial—the day of redemption—terms all of unlimited import and not to be defined by the planetary diurnal calendar, but to be determined by the arrangements of a dispensation in which man is viewed as a moral accountable being, and not by any necessities in which his physical condition and the world he inhabits are concerned. Thus by adopting this hypothesis, which assumes the entire narrative as a consecutive description of the order of creation, every day as bearing the initiative of its own class of phenomena, the plan and quality of the Divine works as all delineated and shadowed out, the progressive succession of the whole organic and inorganic historically described, and the phenomena, and the terms descriptive of them, are asserted to be in their proper places, and in harmony each with each.

3. There is another mode of defending the text in consistency with the general facts of the science, by assuming that the course of creation indicated through the epochs was in all its characteristic features reproduced, and substantially represented in the cosmogonic period of the Mosaic account. We have noticed from time to time, in the different stages of our description, in what the analogies consisted. In the earliest, as well as in the last, organic fossil types, there is the most perfect identity with all the vegetable and animal forms described in the narrative. The order of their reappearance is likewise similar. Moses, it is here supposed, saw the casting of the same molds, the agency of the same hand, and the “day” to be successively the period for the reproduction of the work.

Read now consecutively the whole account, and observe how the Historian passes in review the entire series of the Divine acts, and runs over again the great master-keys of this harmonious system. He is present, so to speak, when, in the beginning, the matter of the heaven and the earth was created. He witnesses the arrangement of the parts, which before were without form and void. He hears the command,—Let there be light. And now, as the mighty structure expands in vision before the eye of his mind, the firmament and the waters and the dry land separating and drawing off to their respective places, he introduces a record of the period within which the several operations were effected. How long is that period? Just the division of time with which he was acquainted, and which he knew was amply sufficient for the completion of all the operations in question. The acts are successive. The will that performed them is omnipotent. Everything followed in its order and in the time that all creative power commanded it to be. Hence the days, with regard to all the initial acts, both of creation and arrangement, were literally of the duration assigned in the text. After the introduction of organic life on the third day, geology speaks definitively as to the successive order of the kinds and families of the structural forms created. But it gives no sign, and can give none, as to the portion of time required for their creation. It may have been an instant or a day,—a week or a period. The revealed account speaks positively upon the point; and shows how, at the bidding of the Divine will, the various elements—the water, the earth, the air—were replenished with their respective tribes in the old as in the new world, and under all the phases and epochs of their being.

The inspired narrative, it may be alleged, according to this view, is not only consistent with itself, but becomes a sublime illustrative introduction to the book of revelation. The matter of the heaven and the earth was the effect of a single command. The separation of its elements was the instantaneous effect of another.—Upon the creation of light, a division is given to time, and the morning and the evening hours were established. The arrangements of the second day followed, and were all completed in the period assigned. So with the remanent days and their respective included operations. The eye of the historian sees nothing intervening betwixt the cause and the effect; his mind is fixed upon the action, not the manner of its accomplishment; and knowing the whole to be the result of the same power and the arrangement of the same providence, he combines in one cycle or week the entire series of events, one day of which unto the Eternal is as a thousand, and a thousand, but as one day. The work all accomplished, the immediately revolving period of time was established as the Sabbath of the Lord. Having made man in his own image, with knowledge to apprehend and adore the author of his being, the divine Architect rested; he ceased from any farther acts of creation; nothing of any material existence, nor of any living thing, has been added to his works since the completion of the six days, and so the rest has continued and will continue to the end of time—a Sabbath hallowed by the structure of the globe and the beneficence of the Creator.

These are some of the methods by which the geologist aims in bringing the conclusions of his science within the scope of the Mosaic record, and in freeing his speculations from all their incumbrances and responsibilities. There is still a great deal to be accomplished, even with all these approximations, toward a right and full and literal comparison with the sacred text. There is indeed no real conflict between the discoveries of geology and the declarations of the divine oracles; and, with so many doors of retreat from or avenues of approach into the inviting fields of its research, no friend of the truth need be afraid of an excursion through the most intricate depths of creation’s works. Meanwhile, the metaphysicians have all been driven from the field, with all their untenable dogmas about the eternity of matter. Geologists repudiate the doctrine, and their science refutes it. But there is such a thing as others rashly rushing to conclusions, wherever they can see tendencies or leanings to countenance their impious materialism. In this direction, many think that geology, however falsely, wholly inclines. And even now it is better, infinitely better, to rest with unhesitating confidence in the received interpretation of Scripture than be borne away by sweeping generalizations, built most certainly somewhere upon loose conflicting elements of calculation. Countless millions of years are, we admit, as nothing in the records of eternity—of no account with the Everlasting of days. Nevertheless, if the time can be reduced, as unquestionably there are data for the reduction, the epochs and the days approximate all the closer; the speculations of the science are brought into better keeping with the dicta of revelation; farther discoveries will lead to farther adjustments; until what was done for the interests of the one by detecting the miscalculations of Hindoo astronomy, will again be effected for the other by scanning more intelligibly the geological horoscope.—And thus removing every ground of suspicion or offense, will serve to bring this interesting branch of knowledge from the outer court of the Gentiles to the innermost shrine of the Temple of truth.

The father of the Inductive Philosophy thus expresses his views: “In the works of creation, we behold a twofold emanation of the Divine virtue; of which the one relates to its power, the other to its wisdom. The former is especially observed in the creating the material mass; the latter, in the disposing the beauty of its form. This being established, it is to be remarked, that there is nothing in the history of creation to invalidate the fact, that the mass and substance of heaven and earth was created, confusa, undistinguishable, in one moment of time; but that the six days were assigned for disposing and adjusting it.”[17] This was emitted at a time when geology was in its nonage; the strata of the earth and their singular fossil contents were as yet unexplored;—still it is the oracular voice of one who had looked through the physical universe with the glance of science and of genius, and who knew and sought it only in relation to the Creator and his Word.