Studies in the Scriptures

VARIOUS BEGINNINGS.—THE EARTH WAS.—A CREATIVE WEEK FOR ITS ORDERING.—THE LENGTH OF THE EPOCH-DAYS.-PROF. DANA'S AD MISSION OF Unwarranted SPECULATIONS BY SCIENTISTS.— PERSISTENCY OF SPECIES REFUTES EVOLUTION THEORY.-MR. DARWIN'S PIGEONS.-A THEORY OF COSMOGONY.—LOYAL TESTIMONIES OF PROFS. SILLIMAN AND DANA.-THE FIRST CREATIVE EPOCHDAY. THE SECOND DITTO.-THE THIRD DITTO,- THE FOURTH DITTO.—THE FIFTH DITTO.—THE SIXTH DITTO.-MAN, THE LORD OF EARTH, CREATED IN THE DAWNING OF THE SEVENTH EPOCH.SUMMARY OF "MEETING PLACE OF GEOLOGY AND HISTORY," BY SIR J. W. DAWSON, LL. D., F. R. S.-THE SEVENTH EPOCH-DAY 03 THE CREATIVE WEEK.—ITS Length.—ITS REST.-ITS OBJECT AND RESULT.-THE GRAND JUBILEE, CELESTIAL AND TERRESTRIAL, DUE AT ITS CLOSE.

MAN

ANY are Jehovah's agents, and innumerable his agencies, connected with one and another feature of his creation; but back of them all is his own creative wisdom and power. He alone is the Creator, and, as the Scriptures affirm, "All his work is per fect." He may permit evil angels and evil men to pervert and misuse his perfect work; but he assures us that evil shall not for long be permitted to work blight and injury; and that eventually, when he shall restrain and destroy evil, we shall discern that he permitted it only to test, to prove, to refine, to polish and to make his own holiness, gracious character and plan the more resplendent in the sight of all of his intelligent creatures.

When in Genesis we read, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth," we are to remember that this beginning relates not to the universe, but merely to our planet. Then it was that "the morning stars sang together" and all the angelic cons of God

"shouted for joy"—when the Lord laid the foundations of the earth and "made the cloud the garment thereof, and thick darkness its swaddling band." (Job 38: 4-11.) But a still earlier beginning is mentioned in the Bible; a beginning before the creation of those angelic sons of God; as we read:-"In the beginning was the Word [Logos], and the Logos was with the God and the Logos was a God: the same was in the beginning with the God. All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made." (John 1:1-3.) (See DAWN V., Chap. 3.) Since Jehovah himself is from everlasting to everlasting, he had no beginning: the "Only Begotten" has the high distinction above all others of being "The beginning of the creation of God"-"first born of every creature." (Rev. 3:14; Col. 1:15.) Other beginnings came in turn as the various angelic orders were one by one created; and these beginnings were in the past, so that their hosts could shout for joy when our earth's creations, related in Genesis, had their beginning.

Examining the Genesis expressions critically, we discern that a distinction is made between the creation of the heaven and the earth (verse 1) and the subsequent regulations, or ordering of these, and the further creations of vegetable and animal life. It is these subsequent operations that are described as the divine work of six epochal days. Verse 2 tells us that in the very beginning of the first day of that creative week the earth wasthough without form (order), and void (empty)—waste, empty and dark. This important item should be distinctly noted. If recognized, it at once corroborates the testimony of geology thus far; and, as we shall be obliged to dispute the deductions of geologists on some points, it is well that we promptly acknowledge and dismiss whatever does not need to be contended for in defense of the Bible. The Bible does not say how long a period elapsed between the beginning when God created the heaven and the earth, and the beginning of the creative week used in perfecting it for man: nor do geologists

agree amongst themselves as to the period of this interval—a few extremists indulge in wild speculations of millions of years.

Coming, then, to the creative period-the ordering of affairs in our heaven and earth in preparation of the Paradise of God for man's everlasting home we note that these "days" are nowhere declared to be twentyfour-hour days; and, hence, we are not obliged thus to limit them. We find in the Bible that the word day stands for epoch, or period. The fact that it is most frequently used in reference to a twenty-four-hour period matters nothing, so long as we have the record of "the day of temptation in the wilderness forty years" (Psa. 95: 8-10), and sometimes a "day" or "time" representing a year period (Num. 14: 33, 34; Ezek. 4: 1-8), and also the Apostle's statement,—“A day with the Lord is as a thousand years.' (2 Pet. 3:8.) Most assuredly these epoch-days were not sun days; for the record is that the sun was not visible until the fourth day, the fourth epoch.

We believe our readers will agree that although the length of these epoch-days is not indicated, we will be justified in assuming that they were uniform periods, because of their close identity as members of the one. creative week. Hence, if we can gain reasonable proof: of the length of one of these days, we will be fully justified in assuming that the others were of the same duration. We do, then, find satisfactory evidence that one of these creative "days" was a period of seven thousand years and, hence, that the entire creative week would be 7,000 X 749,000 years. And although this period is infinitesimal when compared with some geological guesses, it is, we believe, quite reasonably ample for the work represented as being accomplished therein,—the ordering and filling of the earth, which already "was" in existence, but "without form (order), and void (empty).”

Prof. Dana, commenting on the data from which, scientists draw their conjectures, and the method of reckoning employed by them, says:

"In calculations of elapsed time from the thickness of formations there is always great uncertainty, arising from the dependence of this thickness on a progressing subsidence [regular sinking of the land]. In estimates made from alluvial deposits [soil deposited from water], when the data are based on the thickness of the accumulations in a given number of years say the last 2,000 years-this source of doubt affects the whole calculation from its foundation and renders it almost, if not quite, worthless. When the estimate is based on the amount of detritus [fine scourings] discharged by a stream it is of more value; but even here there is a source of great doubt."

Let us examine the matter from the standpoint of the Bible, as believing it to be the divine revelation, and fully persuaded that whatever discrepancies may be found between the Bible testimony and the guesses of geologists are the errors of the latter, whose philosophies have not yet reached a thoroughly scientific basis or development.

Nor is it necessary to suppose that the writer of Genesis knew all about the matter he records,-the length of these days and their precise results. We accept the Genesis account as a part of the great divine revelation-the Bible-and find its sublime statement in few sentences most remarkably corroborated by most critical scientific researches. On the contrary, none of the "religious books" of the heathen contain anything but absurd statements on this subject.

There is a grandeur of simplicity in that opening statement of revelation,-"In the beginning God created.' It answers the first inquiry of reason-Whence came I, and to whom am I responsible? It is unfortunate indeed that some of the brightest minds of our brigh day have been turned from this thought of an intelligen Creator to the recognition of a blind force operating under a law of evolution and survival of the fittest. And, alas! this theory has not only found general accept. · ance in the highest institutions of learning, but is grad aally being incorporated into the text-books of our com mon schools.

True, only a few are yet so bold as totally to deny

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