present haunts, and that for thousands of years anterior to even their appearance, many of the existing molluscs lived in our seas. That day during which the present creation came into being, and in which God, when He had made the beast of the earth after his kind, and the cattle after their kind,' at length terminated the work by moulding a creature in His own image, to whom He gave dominion over them all, was not a brief period of a few hours' duration, but extended over, mayhap, millenniums of centuries. No blank chaotic gap of death and darkness separated the creation to which man belongs from that of the old extinct elephant, hippopotamus, and hyæna; for familiar animals, such as the red deer, the roe, the fox, the wild cat, and the badger, lived throughout the period which connected their time with our own; and so I have been compelled to hold that the days of creation were not natural but prophetic days, and stretched far back into the bygone eternity." Testimony of the Rocks, p. 10.

Without touching at present on the geologic phenomena, our first question is whether the word "day" as used in the first of Genesis is capable of being understood of a period of indefinite duration. That it sometimes denotes an extended period is true. As in human language, so in Scripture, a prolonged period is often denoted by "day" when used apart from numerals. Thus we speak of "the day of man," and of "the day of God:" the day of Solomon, the day of Nebuchadnezzar, and the like. No one doubts that in such uses of "day," an extended period is denoted. Indeed in the second chapter of Genesis, "day" is used in this general sense, and extended to the whole period of creation. "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. But the case is entirely different when "day," or any other word denoting time is connected with numerals, such as one, two, three: first, second, third, &c. In all such cases "day" is defined and restricted in its application by the numeral appended to it. One day means one day; and six days mean six days; nor is there any departure from this obvious rule from one end of the Scripture to the other.*

* "Our honourable master Saadias," says Aben Ezra, "expounds correctly and well. . . . . Know also that in Holy Scripture days are always days, and never years. Yet it is possible that the word "days" may mean an entire year, since the repetition of the days produces a return of the year, as when it is said in Ex. xiii. 10, from days to days, i.e. from year to year; days meaning a complete year.

Now I scarcely need say, that in the first of Genesis we have not only a regular succession of days marked by conjoined numerals, day one," "second day," "third day," and the like, but we have also the word "day" defined as being evening and morning—" the evening and the morning was day one." Nor is this all as in Genesis, so in Exodus where God Himself speaks from Sinai, we find the seventh day on which God rested, set in contrast with the six preceding days of creation. "Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter

.. for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it." Exodus xx. 9. 11. I have never heard of any one who maintained that the seventh sabbatical day was other than a literal day, and if it be, the question is settled; for language must cease to be a guide, if in the same context the seventh day of a series is to be regarded as a literal day, and the six preceding days of the same series regarded as periods of indefinite duration. Besides, as is well observed by the Essayists, the bare theory that a day means an age or immense geological period might be made to yield some rather strange results. "What becomes of the evening and morning of which each day is said to have consisted? Was each geologic age divided into two long intervals, one all darkness, the other all light? And if so, what became of the plants and trees created in the third day or period, when the evening of the fourth day (the evenings, be it observed, precede the mornings) set in? They must have passed through half a seculum of total darkness, not even cheered by that dim light which the sun, not yet completely manifested, supplied on the morning of the third day. Such an ordeal would have completely destroyed the whole vegetable creation, and yet we find that it survived, and was appointed on the sixth day as the food of men and animals. In fact we need only substitute the word 'period' for 'day' in the Mosaic narrative to make it very apparent that the writer at least had no such meaning, nor could he have conveyed any such meaning to those who first heard his account read." Essays p. 240. We are justified then, I think,

But when the number is stated, as two days, three days, it cannot mean years, but must be days as it stands." For further observation on this subject see," The 1260 days of Antichrist's reign future," as advertised at end.

in rejecting this theory without further remark. If we could believe that each of the six days mentioned in Genesis denoted a period of, perhaps, ten thousand years, and that such period was divided into a night of 5,000 years, and into a day of 5,000 years, and that vegetable and subsequently animal life existed during such nights and such days, we certainly should excel in credulity, but it surely would be the credulity of folly-not of wisdom. Wisdom is only credulous when it knows that God hath spoken.

A third system has been proposed by Archdeacon Pratt. Adopting in part the system of Buckland, so far as to maintain that the first verse of Genesis describes an anterior creation stretching back into ages of unlimited extent, and unconnected with human existence; and maintaining also with Buckland that the six days of the first of Genesis are literal, he endeavours to reconcile his system with the statements of Genesis by regarding the first of Genesis not as speaking of natural things according to their physical realities, but merely according to their appearances. " According to this explanation,” (I quote the words of Archdeacon Pratt) the first chapter of Genesis does not pretend (as has been generally assumed) to be a cosmogony, or an account of the original creation of the material universe. The only cosmogony which it contains, in that sense at least, is confined to the sublime declaration of the first verse, 'In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.' The inspired record thus stepping over an interval of indefinite ages with which man has no direct concern, proceeds at once to narrate the events preparatory to the introduction of man on the scene; employing phraseology strictly faithful to the appearances which would have met the eye of man, could he have been a spectator on the earth of what passed during those six days. . . . . . . The foregoing explanation many have now adopted. It is sufficient for my purpose, if it be a possible explanation, and if it meet the difficulties of the case. That it is possible in itself, is plain from the fact above established, that the Scriptures wisely speak on natural things according to their appearances rather than their physical realities. It meets the difficulties of the case, because all the difficulties hitherto started against this chapter on scientific grounds proceeded on the principle that it is a cosmogony; which this explanation repudiates, and thus disposes of the difficulties. It is therefore an explanation satisfactory to my own mind. I may be tempted to regret that I can gain no certain scientific information from Genesis regarding the process of the original creation; but I

resist the temptation, remembering the great object for which the Scripture was given-to tell man of his origin and fall, and to draw his mind to his Creator and Redeemer. Scripture was not designed to teach us natural philosophy, and it is vain to attempt to make a cosmogony out of its statements. The Almighty declares Himself the originator of all things, but He condescends not to describe the process or the laws by which He worked. All this He leaves for reason to decipher from the phenomena which His world displays." (Essays p. 235.)

Such is the statement of Archdeacon Pratt. "We venture to think" (writes the Essayist) "that the world at large will continue to consider the account in the first chapter of Genesis to be a cosmogony. But as it is here admitted that it does not describe physical realities, but only outward appearances, that is, gives a description false in fact, and one which can teach us no scientific truth whatever, it seems to matter little what we call it. If its description of the events of the six days which it comprises be merely one of appearances and not of realities, it can teach us nothing regarding them." (Essays p. 235.)

Can we take exception to this comment of the Essayist? I think not. All the objections which have been already urged against the theory of Dr. Buckland bear with equal force against that of Archdeacon Pratt. When Genesis tells me that light and the firmament, and the sun, moon and stars, were made on certain days which it specifies, am I to understand it, not as meaning that these things were really made at that time, but merely that they appeared to be made-that in reality they existed ages and ages previously? If such a principle be adopted, I do not see how it could be proved that Adam was created on the sixth day! If the sun which is said to have been made on the fourth day was not then really made but only seemed to be made, why may it not be said that Adam who is said to have been made on the sixth day, was not then really made, but only appeared to be made? Historic verities vanish before a principle like this; and the result would be a system of universal Docetism. That the object of the Bible is not to make us philosophers is most evident. It is true, likewise, that when Scripture has occasion to allude to certain ordinary occurrences familiar to the thoughts and eyes of men, and is not professing to give precise and definite didactic explanations-in such cases, it adopts, as might be expected, the popular expressions conventionally in use amongst men, and shuns the

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parade of philosophic accuracy. Men speak, and the Scripture speaks of the sun rising, setting, and the like; and who would not marvel to hear these well-known expressions pedantically supplanted by others of technical correctness? But such cases have no resemblance to the present. The first of Genesis is a chapter in which man and his mode of contemplating, or beholding, or naming things, has emphatically no place: it is a chapter peculiarly devoted to God and the almighty operations of His hand-the avowed object of the chapter being to teach us how and in what order God called all existing things, ourselves among the number, out of non-existence into being. If strict historical veracity is not to be expected when God undertakes to describe the facts of His own creative agency, when is it to be expected? If we adopt a principle like this, we may as well abandon ourselves at once to an universal Docetism, and say that the Scripture always deals with appearances-not with facts. I must say so, if I could once bring myself to believe that the terms, "came into being," "create," "make," used in the first of Genesis, denote appearances merely, not reality-that light, for example, appeared to be brought into being on the first day, but that really it was brought into being myriads of centuries before.

The Essayists do not notice the system of Dr. Pye Smith, probably because they deemed it unworthy of their regard. It is thus commented on by Hugh Miller "The scheme of reconciliation adopted by the late Dr. Pye Smith, though, save in one particular, identical, as I have said, with that of Dr. Chalmers, is made, in virtue of its single point of difference, to steer clear of the difficulty. Both schemes exhibit the creation recorded in Genesis as an event which took place about six thousand years ago; both describe it as begun and completed in six natural days; and both represent it as cut off from a previously existing creation by a chaotic period of death and darkness. But while, according to the scheme of Chalmers, both the Biblical creation and the previous period of death are represented as co-extensive with the globe, they are represented, according to that of Dr. Smith, as limited and local. They may have extended, it is said, over only a few provinces of Central Asia, in which, when all was life and light in other parts of the globe, there reigned for a time only death and darkness amid the welterings of a chaotic sea; which, at the Divine command, was penetrated by light, and occupied by dry land, and ultimately, ere the end of the creative week, became a centre in which certain plants and animals, and finally man himself, were created. And this scheme, by leaving to the geologist in this country and elsewhere, save mayhap in some unknown Asiatic district, his unbroken series, certainly does not conflict with the facts educed by geologic discovery. It virtually removes Scripture altogether out of the field. I must confess, however, that on this, and on some other accounts, it has failed to satisfy me..... ... I am disposed,