timately construed on any hypothesis that seems to make it possible to suppose them not at war with the dogmas of geology.

So much for the relation of their theory to the inspired narrative of the first day's creation. Instead of bringing them into harmony, they have only shown that they are in the most palpable and irremediable antagonism.

We proceed to the history of the second day.

"And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament, from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so. And God called the firmament heaven and the evening and the morning were the second day," v. 6–8.

This great act was the creation of the atmosphere. The firmament or expanse of the sky is the air. The event is described as it would have appeared to a spectator near the surface of the earth. As there was no atmosphere before, there was no general illumination of the space around the ocean, such as now takes place when the sun shines; but only such rays would have entered the eye of a spectator, as descended directly from the sun, or were reflected from the water, and no points of the surface of the ocean could have been visible, except those from which rays were

directly reflected to the eye. To one looking on in any direction above the water, except immediately towards the sun, or a planet or star, the space would have appeared dark. The creation of the atmosphere, therefore, must have seemed, to a beholder, like the extension of a luminous expanse or arch overhead which instantly rendered the whole face of the deep, within the sphere of the eye, visible. A division of the waters followed as a natural consequence. The heat of the sun occasioning evaporation in a form lighter than the atmosphere, the vapor ascended in an invisible shape, probably, till it reached a height at which it was condensed, and assumed the form of clouds. That it was the atmosphere that was created, not a mere elevation of water in the form of mists or clouds, is seen also from the fact that God called the firmament heaven, which is the name of the upper regions of the air in which the clouds float, not of the clouds themselves; that it was the expanse in which the sun, moon, and stars seem to be, which is immediately above the clouds (v. 14, 15), and in which the fowls fly, which is below them (v. 20); and from the fact that it remained there permanently, not like the vapors and clouds that drift away, or fall in rain, and often wholly disappear. The supposition that it was anything less than the creation of the atmosphere; that it was a mere conversion of water into mist, and elevation of it into space at a distance from the abyss

beneath, divests it of its character as a creative act, and reduces it to the level of an ordinary operation of nature. Besides, if the atmosphere had been created along with the earth and ocean, it would be inexplicable that some evaporation had not immediately taken place, and mists and clouds become in a measure diffused through the sky.

This great work was thus one of the most important in the series of creations, and was essential as a condition of those that followed. Air is necessary to vegetable and animal life, not only on the land, but beneath the ocean, which it pervades, and forms, it is estimated, one-fortieth part of its bulk. As it is the means of the illumination that is diffused by the sunlight over the surface of the earth, it is the instrument by which objects become visible, and display their forms and colors. Without it, even on the supposition that it were not necessary to our life, we could gain no idea by the eye of the shapes of things, and the beautiful hues by which they are adorned.

How, now, is this creation of the atmosphere on the second day to be reconciled with the geological theory, which asserts that the earth had existed through innumerable ages before, and been the scene of animal and vegetable life, and assumes, thereby, that it had been invested with an atmosphere? If that theory be true, that atmosphere, like the light which illuminated it, must have been annihilated:

and geologists, therefore, in order to verify their theory, must, on their own principles, produce proofs of that annihilation, and by the chemical and mechanical forces which they regard as the only agents that produce geological effects. What, then, are the explanations which they present of this stupendous catastrophe? Not a syllable is uttered by them on the subject! Not the slightest indication appears in their pages that they are aware that such an obstacle exists in the way of their theories! The supposition of a vast interval between the creation of heaven and earth announced in the first verse, and the wreck and submergence of the world, which they hold to be announced in the second, they regard as all that is necessary to the conciliation of their theory with the remaining narrative of the creation.* But that is a

"There are two methods of conciliation, each of which will obviously remove every appearance of discrepance between the record of Genesis and our assumed geological periods. We may either, with Faber, consider the days as themselves, by a common figure of language, indicating such periods, or we may suppose an interval between the first and second verses of that record."-Christian Observer, May, 1834.

"A very unhappy conflict has been sometimes occasioned by comparing those results of geology which relate to periods left wholly undefined in the Scriptural narrative, with the successive works of creation which are in that narrative distinctly marked. If we take the first verse of Genesis as affirming the eternal superintendence of God over all the prior conditions of the world, from the epoch of its original creation until he saw fit to give it its present character, and to call into being its present races of man, animals, and plants, and

total mistake. They can no more assume the annihilation of an atmosphere at that imagined wreck of the world, without demonstrating its occurrence from the present condition of the earth, and by the forces of chemistry, fire, and water, than they can assume that wreck, and the extinction of light, which they treat as contemporaneous with it, without proof, and in contravention of the principles of their science. Here then is another stupendous postulate on which they tacitly proceed, that presents an insuperable obstacle to the reconciliation of their system with the Mosaic record. For how are they to demonstrate that such an annihilation of the air, as their scheme implies, took place, and through the agency of those

compare this with geological inferences relating to periods anterior to man, we shall find two conclusions inevitable: first, that there is no word in the Scriptural narrative which limits in any way the infcrences, or even the speculations of geology, with reference to these periods; secondly, that nothing can ever be learned about these periods by human labor, except in the way of geological induction. This is sufficient for the purpose of the present inquiry, which relates to races of animals and plants, not only anterior to man, but even to the elevation of most parts of our continents from beneath the waters of the ocean."-Phillips's Guide to Geol, p. 63.

“This alleged disagreement is chiefly chronological. Moses represents the work of creation as completed in the space of six days, whereas the geologist asserts that the formation of the crust of the globe, with its numerous groups of extinct animals and plants, after the original production of the matter of the globe, must have occupied immense periods of time, whose duration we cannot estimate. Other minor discrepances between the two records are supposed to exist."-Hitchcock's Geology and Revelation, p. 17.