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piety do not always synchronize; again, that the spirit of scientific research may be cultivated with some success, and yet it may never open the mind to religious (sacerdotal?) influences, nor induce that mind to regard the phenomena of nature so as to lead from nature to nature's divine Author. And yet, shortly after having said this, it is contended that the mind cannot rightly read the book of nature without reading therein the will of God; and, more than this, that the nearer science approaches towards adequate knowledge of creation, the closer will it approach towards an adequate conception of those particular attributes of love, holiness, mercy, longsuffering, forgiving sin and transgression, that it has been the object of revelation (what revelation?) to make known to man.

If this is so, then what is called supernatural revelation is needless and positively mischievous.

Mr. Christmas asserts that the Bible reveals the astonishing fact, that the entire material universe has been constructed, or conjured up, out of nothing; as if the designing theological first cause had made everything out of no materials, or made those materials out of himself. He says:-

"God made, in the first place, all things out of nothing; "and afterwards, and not till afterwards, did he form those

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things that were seen..... There was but one express act "of creation for this physical world. God created the "heavens and the earth.' And there was also but one act "of creation with regard to the spiritual or intellectual "world. God formed man of the dust of the ground, and "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man "became a living soul.' Here, then, we have Two express "acts of creation - the one the creation of matter, and the "other the creation of spirit."

Then allusion is made to that vexed question, the eternity of matter. The material universe being maintained by ancient philosophers to be the phenomenal effect of eternal existence, and that all matter was but derived, or formed, from matter previously self-existent in another form, Mr. Christmas says:

ENIGMA OF SIX DAYS' CREATION.

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"This question, which occupied the attention of the wisest "minds century after century, and which, indeed, would દ appear by its nature to be removed beyond the power of "observation, so that mankind could come to no certain, "mathematical demonstration the one way or the other, is "settled for us by the word of the divine record. God made "all things out of nothing, by the word of his power;' or, "in other words, by the Son of his love; so that things "which are seen were not made of things which do appear. "This, then, is the comment of the New Testament upon "those words in the Old, In the beginning God CREATED "the heavens and the earth.""

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The argument of the apostle is, that all visible or humanly perceived material phenomena are the effects of what does not now appear. It is by no means a logical inference to draw from the expression, "not made of things which do "(now?) appear," that all things were made out of nothing. The only logical conclusion to be drawn from the apostle's argument is, that visible effects are the operation of invisible and, therefore, unknown causes.

There is not a particle of evidence forthcoming from Genesis to prove that creation means the fabrication or construction of the material universe out of nothing. The only creation alluded to in the Bible is the "procreation" of the Son of God in one of the many millions of the sons of men then living on this planet. It is asking rather too much of secularists to believe that the macrocosmic universe, the stars or suns, planets, and satellites, together with all organized creatures therein living, were conjured, or called up from nothing in the definite period of 144 hours. The creation of man as the Adam or image of the eternal Father is here depicted as a microcosmic symbol of the macrocosmic universe, and this period of 144 hours employed in the formation or gestatory process, is the enigma that priests have bothered their brains in all past time to find the solution of. The answer is given in the seventeenth verse of the twentyfirst chapter of the Revelation to John, where this period of six days formation, or 144 hours' growth, is applied to the

measurement of man himself, that is of man made an angel of light, and this material personality of the man fully born into sonship of the eternal is here designated the "temple" of God.

When the Jews demanded from Jesus a sign of his sonship, he pointed to the traditional seventy-two hours imprisonment of the prophet Jonah in the womb of nature, and told them that he himself would be the same period in the heart of mother earth. Now this time of three days and nights is exactly half of the 144 hours of creation. If theologians can perform the part of Edipus and unriddle this Sphinx, and count the steps on the ladder of immortality, they are bound in self defence to come forward, otherwise the babes and sucklings of erudition will compel them to admit their ignorance.

The Hebrew words employed in Genesis to describe this creation of microcosmic man are " Bara" and " Hasah," and in the twenty-seventh verse they are used conjunctively, denoting a bifold cause that implies a radical difference in the entities themselves so uniting or conjugating.

The first word "Bara" is used in a sense denoting masculine procreative, and the second one "Hasah" that of feminine formative or conceptive energy. Here is plainly that bifold cause, both active and passive, that is the duality of two primary, uncreated, unbegotten, infinite, absolute, and unconditioned entities, whose conjugal union generates the triads, and so on to innumerable multiplicity of relations, not by creation, or conjuration of everything out of nothing, but by generation, that is procreation and formation in one naturalization.

For when it is said that Adam and Eve, as male and female, were made in the image or likeness of deity, it necessarily makes these Two, in their union of husband and wife in ONE anointed witness, to be the true symbol of the eternal union of the great primary, uncreated, self-existent parents.

There is nothing in Genesis to support Mr. Christmas' othesis of Two creations or fabrications, one of matter, the other of spirit. There is nothing of the preter or

THE SERPENT SEDUCER.

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contra natural in the narrative. It is simply a record of facts conveyed in mythological symbolism, and was probably at one time set to music and rehearsed as an oratorio; there is nothing new under the sun, for the great circle of existence and its phenomenal revelations end where they began.

In these opening scenes in the drama of the great tragedy of the fall of the first angels, or children of Deity, upon earth, there cannot be a doubt but that the same flux of natural process in time, order, and sequence of cause and effect obtained in their case as was antecedently at work in other worlds.

When Mr. Christmas, in his lectures, comes to speak of what he calls the fall of man from his original righteousness, or theological state of holiness, he insists upon the literal meanings of the oriental parables, such as trees, &c.; and with reference to the serpent, who is said to have indoctrinated the woman Eve with theology of good and evil, the lecturer observes:

"The word rendered serpent here is not the term usually "rendered serpent, but one of a very peculiar character, and "concerning the interpretation of which no divines have ever been satisfied."

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"Now it has been said that as the serpent is not a SUBTLE animal, never could go save on its belly, and does not now "eat dust, the curse could not have been pronounced upon

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any creature of the serpent tribe, but that something else "must have been meant, some animal more exalted in the "scale of creation; that inasmuch as we consider the reptile "class as occupying a very low place therein, some creature

enjoying a much higher rank, gifted with greater powers, "and in whose case the assumption of the power of speech. "would not appear so wonderful, must have been intended "by the original word, which is nachasch, and which is here "rendered serpent. Nay, this has taken so great a hold

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upon some minds, that one of the most learned commen"tators, Dr. Adam Clarke, has expended a great deal of "labour and pains to prove that so far from being a serpent

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"at all, it was rather an animal of the monkey kind, and he "tells us that it may probably have been that kind of "monkey which we call the orang outang, or perhaps the chimpanzee. We apprehend it is quite sufficient to reply "that no animals of this class do go on their belly at this day, or literally or metaphorically eat dust, so that the curse at "all events is totally inapplicable to them."

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The lecturer then records his decided opinion, from study of antiquity, traditions, and mythologies, that the creature nachasch was actually one of the reptilian class, acting as the agent of Satan, or the great impersonation of an evil spirit. To sustain this hypothesis, the rabbinical absurdity of winged or flying serpents, is introduced as being an actual fact, in order to show that deprivation of their wings reduced them to the miserable condition of crawling on their bellies.

This is only half of the curse, the remainder of it, "and "dust shall thou eat all the days of thy life," bothers the lecturer, and he says that it requires a little further examination, because "dust" is not the serpent's meat. But instead of looking for some other intelligent or subtle creature whose natural history would supply the conditions required, he rejects this view of the case in favour of another mode of applying the curse to the reptilian class, and continues his argument thus:

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"Dust shall thou eat' is one of the best known, and frequently employed of oriental idioms—a form of speech "with which all who have read the commonest of oriental "tales must be familiar.

"To eat dust or dirt denotes being humiliated, cast down "from a high position, and placed in one of humiliation. "Indeed so common is it, that we have almost introduced it "in a familiar way into our own language. We cannot "refer to any oriental history without meeting some such "expression as this, What dirt have I eaten?' that is to "say, what humiliation have I been subjected to? It is frequently said, 'I will make him eat dirt.' I will subject "him to some humiliating penance. If, then, this be an "ancient orientalism, if it be of such constant occurrence

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