from the beginning of one evening, to the beginning of another evening. This first evening may be considered as the termination of the indefinite time which followed the primeval creation announced in the first verse, and as the commencement of the first of the six succeeding days, in which the earth was to be fitted up, and peopled in a manner fit for the reception of mankind. We have, in this second verse, a distinct mention of earth and waters, as already existing, and involved in darkness. Their condition also is described as a state of confusion and emptiness, (tohu bohu,) words which are usually interpreted by the vague and indefinite Greek term chaos, and which may be geologically considered as designating the wreck and ruins of a former world. At this intermediate point of time, the preceding undefined geological periods had terminated a new series of events commenced, and the work of the first morning of this new creation was the calling forth of light from a temporary darkness, which had overspread the ruins of the ancient earth."-Bridgewater Treatise on Geology, vol i. p. 20-26. In assuming this theory, the circumstances of the second verse seem to have come unexpectedly upon Dr Buckland in a somewhat similar manner as is related of John Kemble. This ingenious actor frequently indulged his fancy with shaping out new readings of Shakespeare, and made innovations on his own parts, sometimes without duly attending to their bearings on the general import of the play. In the character of Romeo, he fancied that, when about to purchase the poison, the utmost secrecy was intended by the author, and one night he accordingly stole gently to the door of the laboratory, and, instead of his usual sonorous exclamation, softly whispered, "What, ho, apothecary!" The apothecary, true to his part, entered, demanding, "Who calls so loud?" to the utter consternation of the tragedian, and the no small amusement of the house. The Doctor, in the passage of his Bridgewater Treatise just quoted, comes out at once with his favourite emendation of the text of Moses, but immediately perceiving some incongruity in the verse that follows, he hurries on a destruction of his world, puts out the lights from his growing vegetables and sporting mastodons, and throws over all a 66 temporary darkness." Truly, ᎥᏝ Moses is to be twisted and turned thus, we shall have sad work of it. NOTE, p. 84. FIGURATIVE INTERPRETATIONS OF MOSES. The Rev. B. Powell, Professor of Geometry, Oxford, in his sermon on Revelation and Science, has the following remarks :— "The sacred writers convey their doctrines through the medium of history, of fiction, of poetry, or of arguments, as well as direct precept. Their subject may involve incidental references to the facts of the natural world, and these they would, of course, present under that aspect in which they were commonly contemplated by the persons they were addressing. Their allusion would have failed in being a channel of communication, had they been led to depart from such a mode of representation. They might refer either to the sensible appearances of nature, or to the traditional belief respecting its mode of organization, or its subsequent revolutions. If we look at the actual case of the writings of Moses, it is surely, in every way, the most probable supposition that tradition had preserved some legendary memorials of primeval events, and that the origin of the world had been recorded in a poetical cosmogony. As introductory to the revelation of the law, Moses then put a RELIGIOUS APPLICATION upon such memorials for the stronger sanction of the enactments of that law to the Israelites, and adopted them for the illustration of religious truths, and as the vehicles of moral instruction to the chosen people." "The whole representation which Moses has given of the creation of the world," says Dr Knapp, "is as simple as possible, and such as doubtless was perfectly intelligible to those who lived in that infant age of the world, and is still so to men in common life. In the Bible, God speaks with men after the manner of men, and not in a language which is beyond the comprehension of most of them, as the learned would fain make it to be. Well, indeed, is it for the great mass of mankind, that the learned were not consulted respecting the manner in which the Bible should be written. "The general subject of this passage is indicated in the first verse of Genesis. This is then enlarged upon in the following verses, not to gratify the curiosity of scientific men, but to meet the wants of those who lived in the age in which it was written, and of common men in all ages. This amplification is entirely simple and popular; and the work of creation is here represented as a six days' work. It is to be considered as a picture in which God appears as a human workman, who accomplishes what he undertakes only by piecemeal, and on each successive day lays out and performs a separate portion of his business. By such a representation the nction of the creation is made easy to every mind; and common people seeing it so distinctly portrayed, can form some distinct conceptions concerning it, and read or hear the account of it with interest. "If we would form a clear and distinct notion of this whole description of the creation, we must conceive of six separate pictures, in which this great work is represented in each successive stage of its progress towards completion; and as the performance of the painter, though it must have natural truth as its foundation, must not be considered or judged of as a delineation of mathematical or scientific accuracy, so neither must this pictorial representation of the creation be regarded as literally and exactly true. 66 The hypothesis of modern naturalists respecting the material of our globe, can neither be confirmed nor refuted from the writings of Moses. Which of all those which have been suggested is true, whether that of Whiston, who supposes the earth to be formed from a comet that of Leibnitz, who makes it a sun burnt out -that of Buffon, according to whom all the heavenly bodies are fragments, broken off from the body of the sun by the concussion of a comet-or that of Wideburg, who supposes the earth to have been originally a spot on the sun-must be determined on other grounds than the testimony of Moses. "All these learned speculations and inquiries respecting the material of the earth, &c. lie beyond the object and sphere of Moses; and any of these hypotheses of the naturalist may be adopted or rejected, the Mosaic geogony notwithstanding."-Knapp's Lectures on Christian Theology, vol. i. pp. 355, 356, and 360. NOTE XI. p. 86. THE FIRST FOUR DAYS OF CREATION. Some more acute and more industrious still, COWPER. To those who will form cosmogonies, and think it a pity to lose the new discoveries in nebular astronomy, without applying them to some useful purpose, it may be suggested that the chaotic state of the earth alluded to in the second verse of Genesis, and the four first days of creation, may have occurred while the earth and our planetary system were yet in a nebulous state, and dependent upon and revolving round some other greater centre. That as yet the earth and the other planets did not revolve round the sun; but along with a slow orbital movement common to the whole, the earth also performed a revolution round its axis, correspondent to the measurement of a day and night, but of a much greater length than that of the days subsequently established. That, in this period, land, and ocean, and the atmosphere were formed; and towards the close of it, when the earth was fully prepared, the creation of vegetables took place. Immediately on this occurrence, the planetary system, as it at present exists, became established,the sun became the centre of attraction, of light and heat, the moon had her circuit assigned her round the earth, and the other planets theirs round the central luminary. On the fifth morning that dawned on the now green earth, animals were created, and on the sixth day, man. Previous to the third day it had not rained, but a dew or vapour went up from the earth. Supposing that the primary mountains were elevated by igneous actions, the whole surface of the newly formed dry land must have been in a heated state, and from Mr Daniel's exposition of the condition of the atmosphere under an unequal elevation of temperature, this universal vapour is precisely what was to be looked for. One cannot but feel pleased with such coincidences, even though we are not assured of the facts on which they are built; and thus Mr Daniel expresses himself: 66 In the Mosaical account of the creation, the question has been asked, How is it that light is said to have been created in the first day, and day and night to have succeeded each other when the sun is described as not having been produced till the fourth day. The sceptic presumptuously replies, This is a palpable contradiction, and the history that propounds it must be false. But |