Chapter XIX (2)

Once more, this word is applied to the period of Our Lord’s life upon earth, and even to the whole duration of the Christian Church. Sophonias, for example, thus foretells the coming of the kingdom of Christ. “Wherefore expect me, saith the Lord, in the day of my resurrection that is to come, for my judgment is to assemble the Gentiles, and to gather the kingdoms.... From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia shall my suppliants, the children of my dispersed people, bring me an offering. In that _day_ (םךׄר, _yom_) thou shalt not be ashamed for all thy doings, wherein thou hast transgressed against me: for then I will take away out of the midst of thee thy proud boasters, and thou shalt no more be lifted up because of my holy mountain.... Give praise, O daughter of Sion: shout, O Israel: be glad and rejoice with all thy heart, O daughter of Jerusalem. The Lord hath taken away thy judgment, he hath turned away thy enemies: the King of Israel the Lord is in the midst of thee, thou shalt fear evil no more. In that _day_ (םךׄר, _yom_) it shall be said to Jerusalem: Fear not; to Sion: Let not thy hands be weakened. The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty, He will save: He will rejoice over thee with gladness, He will be silent in His love, He will be joyful over thee in praise.”[151]

And Isaias: “Is it not yet a very little while, and Libanon shall be turned into a charmel, and charmel shall be esteemed as a forest? And in that _day_ (םךׄר, _yom_) the deaf shall hear the words of the book, and out of darkness and obscurity the eyes of the blind shall see. And the meek shall increase their joy in the Lord, and the poor men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.”[152] That this passage refers to the time of the Christian Church there can be no doubt; for our Lord himself appeals to it in proof of His divine mission: “Go and relate to John what you have heard and seen. The blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead rise again, the poor have the Gospel preached to them.”[153]

We may trace this use of the word even in the New Testament. Our Lord says, arguing with the Jews: “Abraham your father rejoiced that he might see my _day_: he saw it and was glad.”[154] Saint Paul, too, though writing in the Greek language to the Corinthians, does not hesitate to adopt a passage from Isaias, in which the same meaning is conspicuously brought out: “And we helping do exhort you, that you receive not the grace of God in vain. For he saith: In an accepted time have I heard thee, and in the _day_ of salvation have I helped thee. Behold, now is the _acceptable time_: behold, now is the _day of salvation_.”[155] And finally, Our Divine Lord, in His last touching address to the city of Jerusalem, applies the word _day_ to the season of grace and mercy: “When he drew near, seeing the city, He wept over it, saying: If thou also hadst known, and that in this thy _day_, the things that are to thy peace: but now they are hidden from thy eyes. For the days shall come upon thee; and thy enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and straiten thee on every side.”[156]

So much, then, for the first argument. From the numerous examples we have given it is plain enough that the word word יוֺם (_yom), in Scripture language, was often used for a period of many days, and even many years; nay sometimes for a period of many centuries. If so, Moses was free to use it in this sense. And consequently, as far as the word itself is concerned, it affords no conclusive proof that the Days of Creation were days of twenty-four hours only: we may hold them to belong and indefinite periods of time, without departing in any degree from the established usage of Scripture.

But it is urged--and this is the second argument,--that, whatever may be the meaning of the word word יוֺם (_yom) elsewhere, in the first chapter of Genesis it must mean a day of twenty-four hours. For we are not merely told that there was a First Day, and a Second Day, and a Third Day; but each day is in a manner analyzed by the sacred writer, and its component parts set forth for our instruction. _There was evening and there was morning_, he says, the First Day; _there was evening and there was morning_ the Second Day; _there was evening and there was morning_ the Third Day; and so on. Now if the word were understood of those indefinite periods we have been speaking about, there would be no meaning in this analysis: for it could hardly be maintained that each of those periods had but one evening and one morning like an ordinary day. Furthermore, it is argued that there is a peculiar appropriateness in this phrase, which goes far to confirm the common interpretation. Amongst the Jews it was usual to compute the civil day from sunset to sunset. The civil day began then with the evening. And accordingly Moses, in describing the Days of Creation, puts the evening first, and says: There was evening and there was morning the First Day; there was evening and there was morning the Second Day; and so for the rest.

All this reasoning seems to us unsatisfactory and inconclusive. In the first place, it is not a fact, as would seem to be supposed, that the civil day is made up of evening and morning. The evening and the morning do not make the whole day; they are only certain periods of the day. Neither do they mark the limits of the day: for, though it is quite true that, in the computation of the Jews, the civil day began with the evening, it certainly did not end with the morning. If, then, by the word Day, Moses here meant the civil day of twenty-four hours, how is this clause to be understood, There was evening and there was morning the First Day? It cannot mean that the evening and the morning put together made up the First Day: for this is not a fact. It cannot mean that the evening marked the beginning of the day, and the morning marked its close: for the period included between the evening and the morning is not the day but the night. What does it mean, then?

Many writers seem to suppose that the evening and the morning are intended by Moses to designate the night and the day;--that is to say, the whole period of darkness and the whole period of light, which put together make up the civil day of twenty-four hours. If the text could be explained in this way, it would fit in, no doubt, much more appropriately with the theory of ordinary days than with the theory of indefinite periods. But the text _cannot_ be explained in this way. The evening is _not_ the whole period of darkness, and the morning is _not_ the whole period of light. No English writer could say, with propriety, that the Day is made up of the evening and the morning. Neither could Moses have meant to say this in the first chapter of Genesis: for the Hebrew words ערב (_Ghereb_) _and_ בקר (_Boker_) which are found in the original text, have a meaning not less fixed and definite than the corresponding words Evening and the Morning in the English language.

To prove the truth of this assertion by an investigation of all the passages in the Hebrew Bible, in which these words are found, would be a tedious and uninteresting task. But it may be easily tested in another way. If the words ערב (_Ghereb_) and בקר (_Boker_) were ever used to mean, not strictly the evening and morning, but the whole period of night and the whole period of day, this fact would surely have become known in the course of time to some of the many eminent and accomplished Hebrew lexicographers. We ask, then, is there one Hebrew lexicon of note which assigns the sense of _night_ to the word ערב (_Ghereb_) and the sense of _day_ to the word בקר (_Boker_). For ourselves, we have searched several of the best of them, and we have not found a single one that even hints at such an explanation.

Perhaps, however, some of our readers might be unwilling to accept the authority of lexicons as conclusive on a point of this kind; seeing that lexicons very often represent but imperfectly the full power of a language. Well, then, there is another process, and a simple one enough, by which they may demonstrate the inaccuracy of our statement, if inaccurate it be. Let them produce any passage from the Hebrew Bible in which the words ערב (_Ghereb_) and בקר (_Boker_) are employed to designate the whole night and the whole day. If they fail to do so,--and as far as we are aware, no such passage has yet been discovered,--then surely we may fairly contend that the interpretation which thus explains the words in the first chapter of Genesis cannot be regarded as certain: nor can the argument founded on that interpretation be received as conclusive.

There is a text in the eighth chapter of the prophet Daniel which might, perhaps, appear at first sight to militate against our opinion. The prophet had a vision in which it was foreshadowed that Antiochus Epiphanes should come and prevail against the Jews, and should profane the temple of God, and should abolish the daily sacrifice. One of the Angels in the vision is heard asking of another, for how long should the daily sacrifice cease, and the sanctuary remain desolate. And the answer is given in these words: “Unto _evening-morning_ (עד ערב בקר, ghad ghereb boker) two thousand three hundred; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.”[157] Now, this is commonly understood to mean that the daily sacrifice should be abolished for two thousand three hundred _days_. And therefore, it would seem that, in this passage, the _evening and morning_ are used to signify the _whole civil day_ of twenty-four hours.

We will not dispute the correctness of the interpretation which is here set forth, although the words of the Angel are explained in a very different sense by many eminent commentators. But we think that the passage, even when understood according to this interpretation, cannot fairly be brought in evidence against us. The evening and the morning do not make up the whole day: but they occur once, and only once, in each day. Therefore a period of many days may be properly signified by noting the recurrence of the evening and morning a certain number of times. And in point of fact, a usage of this kind seems to prevail in most languages. The common word _fortnight_, in English, affords a good illustration. It signifies a period of fourteen nights and days: yet it does not specify the recurrence of fourteen days, but only the recurrence of fourteen nights. Again, the poet says:

“Fair was she to behold, that maiden of seventeen _summers_.”

Nobody would argue from these examples that the word _summer_ means a period of twelve months; or that the word _night_ means a period of twenty-four hours. And so, in the case before us, the recurrence of the evening and morning two thousand three hundred times may be pointed out to mark a period of two thousand three hundred days, although the evening and morning are not the whole day, but only certain parts of the day. Nay, more; we fancy we can see a good reason why the Angel in the vision should single out the evening and the morning for special notice. He had been asked about the profanation of the sanctuary, and the abolition of the daily sacrifice. Now it was in the evening and the morning that the daily sacrifice was wont to be offered. And the Angel seems to answer: The evening and the morning shall return two thousand three hundred times; and there shall be no evening and morning sacrifice: but, after that time, the sanctuary shall be cleansed and sacrifice restored.

So far we have been arguing from the common usage of Scripture that the evening and the morning mentioned in the history of the Creation cannot mean the whole night and the whole day. But there is a special objection against this interpretation from the history of the Creation itself. The fifth verse in the first chapter of Genesis runs thus: “And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning the First Day.” In the first sentence it is recorded that God, having divided the light from the darkness, gave to each its proper name: He called the light, Day; and the darkness, Night. Is it not highly improbable that, after this announcement, the sacred writer would himself, in the very next sentence, employ names altogether different, if he wished to designate the period of light and the period of darkness?

We are not maintaining that the phrase under consideration--“there was evening and there was morning the First Day”--cannot be explained on the hypothesis that the Days of Creation were days of twenty-four hours. But we do contend that it affords no conclusive proof in favor of that hypothesis; because even in that hypothesis the meaning of the phrase is still doubtful and obscure. For ourselves, we candidly confess we can offer no explanation that seems to us, in any system of interpretation, altogether satisfactory. We may be allowed, however, to call attention to an opinion put forward by Saint Augustine, which fits in very appropriately with the doctrine that the Days of Creation were long periods of time. The distinctions of evening and morning, he says, are not to be understood in reference to the rising and setting of the Sun, which, in point of fact, was not created until the Fourth Day; but rather in reference to the works themselves that are recorded to have been produced. In this way the evening will naturally represent the bringing to an end of the work that had been accomplished; and the morning, on the other hand, the coming in of the work that was to be. This opinion was afterward adopted by Saint Eucherius, Bishop of Lyons, who seems almost to borrow the very words of Saint Augustine; and also by Venerable Bede, who says: “What is the evening, but the completion of each work? and the morning, but the beginning of the next?” In the twelfth century we find it again set forth by Saint Hildegarde, who was considered by Saint Bernard, as well as by Pope Eugenius the Third, to have been gifted with the spirit of prophecy.[158] This interpretation, it is true, does not explain the words _evening_ and _morning_ according to their literal signification: but then the metaphorical sense it ascribes to them is both simple and appropriate; more especially if we understand the word Day in the sense of a long and indefinite period. As the morning literally means the break of day, and the evening its decline, the Sacred Writer might, not inaptly, have employed these words to represent metaphorically the opening and the close of the various works which are ascribed to each successive period in the history of the Creation.

It may be observed, moreover, that this explanation seems quite in accord with the etymology of the Hebrew words עֶרֶב (_Ghereb_), and בּקר (_Boker_). The latter is formed from the root בּקֶר (_Bakar_), _to lay open_, and used to signify the morning, because in the morning the light of the sun is, as it were, unveiled, and _laid open_ to the earth. Hence, the word might be applied with much propriety, in a metaphorical sense, to the unfolding of the various works of God, as each new period was, in its turn, ushered in with a new act of Creation. On the other hand, עֶרֶב (_Ghereb_) seems to be derived from ערב (_Gharab_), _to mingle_, and has probably come to signify the evening, as the famous Hebrew scholar, Aben Ezra, suggests, because, in the uncertain light of evening, the forms of external objects lose their distinctness of outline, and become, in a manner, blended together. And so this word might have been employed, not unfitly, to represent the close of each period in the creation, which was marked, as Geologists tell us, by the gradual dying out or extinction of the various forms of life peculiar to that period. Anyhow, in following the opinion of so ancient and so venerable an authority as Saint Augustine, we cannot be charged with unduly straining the Sacred Text to meet the exigencies of modern science.

* * * * *

The next argument is founded on a passage in Exodus, to which we have already had occasion to refer: “Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work. But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: thou shalt do no work on it, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy beast, nor the stranger that is within thy gates. For in six days the Lord made the Heavens and the Earth, and the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the seventh day and sanctified it.”[159] We are to work upon six days, and to rest upon the seventh; _because_ in six days God accomplished all the works of the creation, and rested on the seventh. There can be no mistake as to the meaning of this commandment. The six days on which it is lawful to labor are, beyond all doubt, six days in the common sense of the word; six days of twenty-four hours each: and the seventh day, on which it is forbidden to work, is a day of the same kind. But the example of God’s labor and God’s rest is set forth, in the text, as the pattern after which this law of the Sabbath was framed. And therefore, the six days in which God furnished and embellished the earth must have been likewise six days of twenty-four hours each. This argument is regarded by many writers as decisive.

To us, on the contrary, it seems by no means necessary to understand the days on which God labored and rested, in precisely the same sense as the days on which it is enjoined that we should labor and rest. The examples of God is, no doubt, represented in the Sacred Text as the reason for the Jewish Sabbath: “Six days shalt thou labor, and rest upon the seventh; _for_ in six days the Lord made the Heavens and the Earth, and rested on the seventh.” But, suppose for a moment that the days of creation were long periods of time, will not the significance of this reason remain unchanged? As God, in the great work of the creation, labored for six successive periods, and then rested for a seventh, so shall you likewise do all your work during six of those successive periods into which your time is divided, and rest upon the seventh.

In support of this view, we may observe that the Jews were commanded to abstain from work, not only every seventh _day_, but also every seventh _year_. “Six years thou shalt sow thy ground, and shalt gather the corn thereof; but the seventh year thou shalt let it alone, and suffer it to rest, that the poor of thy people may eat, and whatsoever shall be left, let the beasts of the field eat it: in like manner shalt thou do with thy vineyard and thy oliveyard. Six days shalt thou work: the seventh day thou shalt cease, that thy ox and thy ass may rest; and the son of thy handmaid and the stranger may be refreshed.”[160] And in another place we read: “When you shall have entered into the land which I will give you, observe the rest of the Sabbath to the Lord. Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and shalt gather the fruits thereof; but in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath to the land, of the resting of the Lord; thou shalt not sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard. What the ground shall bring forth of itself thou shalt not reap: neither shalt thou gather the grapes of the first fruits as a vintage; for it is a year of rest to the land: But they shall be unto you for meat; to thee, and to thy man-servant, and to thy maid-servant, and to thy hireling, and to the strangers that sojourn with thee, to thy beasts of burden, and to thy cattle, all things that grow shall be for meat.”[161] The seventh year, then, according to Divine command, was a year of rest among the Jews, just as the seventh day was a day of rest; and it is evident that the one precept, no less than the other, was founded on the great example of God’s rest when He had finished the work of Creation. We are satisfied, therefore, that whatever may have been the length of those six days in which God labored, and of the seventh day on which He rested, His example might still be properly set forth as the model on which the law of the Sabbath was founded.

It is urged, however, that in this passage of Exodus, we have the same word יוֺם (_yom_) applied in the very same context to the six days of the Creation and to the six days of the week; and it can hardly be supposed that the inspired writer would pass thus suddenly from one meaning of the word to another, and a very different meaning, without giving any intimation to his readers of such a transition. If this argument is a good one, we can only say that it completely oversets the opinion of those against whom we are contending. In the fifth verse of the first chapter of Genesis we read: “And God called the _light_ _Day_, and the _darkness_ he called _Night_. And there was evening and there was morning the first _Day_.” Now, those who reject the theory of long periods, maintain that by the word Day in the latter part of this verse, is meant the whole civil day of twenty-four hours; while it is plain that, in the earlier part of the verse, the same word Day is emphatically applied to only a part of that period--that is, to the time of light as distinguished from the time of darkness. Therefore, they are themselves, in fact, upholding an interpretation which supposes the inspired writer to pass from one meaning of the word Day to another, without any intimation of a change of meaning.

But we do not want to shrink from dealing with this argument on its merits. The principle on which it is founded seems to us unsound and inconsistent with the evidence of the Sacred Books themselves. It is quite a common thing, we contend, in Scripture, for the writer to pass from one meaning of a word to another without any explicit indication of such a transition, when, as in the case before us, the two senses, though different, are analogous: the one being, as it were, the figure, or the symbol, or the pattern, of the other. A few examples will make this clear. In the Second Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians, we read as follows: “For the charity of Christ presseth us: judging this, that if one _died_ for all, then all were _dead_; and Christ _died_ for all.”[162] Here, when it is said that “all were _dead_,” the meaning is, that all men were _dead spiritually_ by sin; whereas, in the clause immediately preceding, and in the clause immediately following, the same word is used in its literal sense for the death of Christ upon the cross. And yet the Apostle, though he thus passed from the literal to the metaphorical sense of the word, and then back again from the metaphorical sense to the literal, gives no express indication of these transitions.

Again, in the Gospel, when a certain man, being called by our Lord, said: “Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father,” Jesus reproved him in these words: “Let the _dead_ bury their _dead_; but go thou and preach the kingdom of God.”[163] There is some difference of opinion amongst commentators as to the exact meaning of this phrase. But whatever interpretation be adopted, it seems evident from the context that the _dead to be buried_ were those who were literally dead; whereas, the _dead_ who were to _bury them_ were manifestly _not_ those who were literally dead, but those who were dead in some analogous or metaphorical sense. Another example occurs in the twentieth chapter of Saint John. Christ says to His Apostles: “I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”[164] When He says, “I ascend to my Father,” the meaning is, “to Him who has begotten me from all eternity.” When He adds, “and your Father,” the meaning is, “to Him who has _adopted_ you for His children.” Here, then, the word Father is first used in the sense of a natural father, and immediately after in the sense of a father by adoption, without any explicit declaration of a change in meaning.

The Epistle of Saint Paul to the Romans furnishes an instance in which the transition from one meaning to another occurs in the case of the word Day itself: “The night is passed, and the _day_ is at hand. Let us, therefore, cast off the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light. Let us walk honestly as in the _day_.”[165] The word Day, in the earlier part of this passage, is used by Saint Paul for the Day of Eternity which is to follow the darkness of this life; while, in the next sentence, it means clearly the period of light between sunrise and sunset. Another illustration of the same kind occurs in the first Epistle to the Thessalonians. “But you, brethren, are not in darkness that that _day_ should overtake you as a thief; for you are all the children of light and the children of the _day_.”[166] No one familiar with the language of Scripture can doubt that the first _day_ here is the Day of Judgment; and it is quite plain that the second _day_ is _not_ the Day of Judgment.

Our next example, and one most appropriate to our purpose, is taken from the prophet Amos: “And it shall come to pass in that _day_, saith the Lord God, that I will make the sun go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear _day_.”[167] This prophecy is commonly referred by the Fathers to the time of our Lord, when the earth was darkened in the clear day on the occasion of His crucifixion; but some eminent authorities, with Saint Jerome at their head, explain it of the Captivity in Babylon. Either interpretation will suit our argument. The sacred writer first employs the word Day for a long period of time, and afterward proceeds to use it in its more ordinary sense, without giving his readers any express intimation of such a transition.

We hope it is now pretty clear that neither the reason assigned for the institution of the Sabbath Day, nor the particular form of words in which that ordinance is set forth, offers any insurmountable obstacle to the opinion we are defending. And this is quite enough for our purpose. For we would again remind our readers that we are not attempting to prove from the Sacred Text that this opinion _must_ be true, but only that it _may_ be true. Our object has been sufficiently attained if we have succeeded in showing that the hypothesis which makes the Days of Creation long periods, is not inconsistent with the language of Scripture.

We are tempted, however, in the case of this objection, to go somewhat further than the scope of our argument strictly demands. The text we have just been discussing brings before us, in fact, a consideration of great weight in favor of the system of long periods. “In six days the Lord made the Heavens and the Earth and the sea, and all that in them is, and rested on the seventh day.” Now, what was this Seventh Day on which God rested? Was it a common day of twenty-four hours? or was it not rather a long and undefined period of time? Saint Augustine answers plainly enough: “The seventh day,” he says, “is without an evening, and has no setting.” And Venerable Bede, asking why the sacred writer had assigned no evening to the seventh day, gives this answer: “Because it has no end, and is shut in by no limit.”[168]

The common sentiment of Theologians, as far as we know, seems to point in the same direction. They tell us that God is said to have rested, inasmuch as He ceased from the creation of new species; and they hold that since the close of the Sixth Day no new species have been brought into existence. But whether this be true or not, it would be very difficult, we think, to point out any sense in which God can be said to have rested after the work of the Six Days, and in which He is not resting at the present moment. If so, the day of His rest is still going on; and it is not a period of twenty-four hours only, but a period of many thousand years. Now, if the Seventh Day on which God rested is a period of many thousand years, are we not fully justified in supposing that the Six Days on which He formed and furnished the Heavens and the Earth were likewise periods of many ages?

_CHAPTER XXI._

APPLICATION OF THE SECOND HYPOTHESIS TO THE MOSAIC HISTORY OF CREATION--CONCLUSION.

_Summary of the argument--Striking coincidence between the
order of creation as set forth in the narrative of Moses
and in the records of Geology--Comparison illustrated
and developed--Scheme of adjustment between the periods
of Geology and the days of Genesis--Tabular view of this
scheme--Objections considered--It is not to be regarded as an
established theory, but as an admissible hypothesis--Either
the first hypothesis or the second is sufficient to meet the
demands of Geology as regards the antiquity of the earth--Not
necessary to suppose that the sacred writer was made acquainted
with the long ages of geological time--He simply records
faithfully that which was committed to his charge--The
Mosaic history of creation stands alone, without rivals or
competitors._

The results at which we have arrived by the long, and we fear tedious, line of argument pursued in the last Chapter, may be briefly summed up. First, many illustrious Fathers of the Church--Saint Augustine, Origen, Clement of Alexandria, Saint Athanasius, and others--plainly declared against the opinion that the Days of Creation were days in the ordinary sense of the word; and, therefore, it is a mistake to suppose that this opinion is supported by the unanimous voice of Christian tradition. Secondly, the word Day is frequently used in Scripture for a long period of time, and sometimes for a period of indefinite duration. Thirdly, there is nothing in the language of Moses that forbids us to explain the word according to this sense, in the first chapter of Genesis. And fourthly, there is, at least, one grave consideration, derived from Holy Scripture itself, which distinctly points to such an interpretation. The Six Days of Creation are contrasted with the Seventh Day of God’s rest; and this Seventh Day of God’s rest is unquestionably a long period of undefined duration. From all this it is obvious to conclude, that we may fairly adopt this mode of interpreting the Mosaic Days, if it will assist us in reconciling the received conclusions of science with the truths of Revelation.

Now, there is a striking resemblance, in some important respects, between the order of Creation as exhibited in the successive days of the Sacred Record, and the order of Creation as manifested in the successive periods of Geological time. Three days are specially marked out by the Inspired Historian as distinguished by the creation of vegetable and animal life--the Third, the Fifth, and the Sixth. On the Third Day were created plants and trees; on the Fifth, reptiles, fish, and birds; on the Sixth, cattle, and the beasts of the earth, and, toward the end, man himself. Geologists, on the other hand, not influenced in the least degree by the Scripture narrative, but guided chiefly by the remains of animal and vegetable life which are preserved in the Crust of the Earth, have established three leading divisions of Geological time; the Palæozoic, or first age of organic life, the Mesozoic, or second great age of organic life, and the Kainozoic, or third great age of organic life. Here, no doubt, is a remarkable coincidence.

But it would be still more remarkable if we could recognize, in the three epochs of Geology, the same general characteristics of organic life as we find ascribed by Moses to the three successive days of the Bible narrative. And so we may, it is said, if we will only take the pains to examine for ourselves the organic remains of these geological epochs as they lie dispersed through the Crust of the Earth, or even as they are to be found collected and arranged for exhibition in our museums. The first great age of Geology is eminently distinguished for its plants and trees; the second, for its huge reptiles and great sea-monsters; the third, for its vast herds of noble quadrupeds. Nay, to complete the harmony between the two Records, as man is represented by the Inspired Writer to have been created toward the close of the last day, so, toward the close of the last Geological age, the remains of man and of his works are found, for the first time, laid by in the archives of the Earth.

Such is the coincidence which some ingenious writers fancy they can trace between the history that is set forth in the written Word of God, and the history that is so curiously inscribed upon His works. Our readers, perhaps, will not be unwilling to consider it a little more in detail. We read in the first chapter of Genesis, that on the Third Day God said: “Let the earth bring forth the green herb, and such as may seed, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit after its kind, which may have seed in itself upon the earth. And it was so done. And the earth brought forth the green herb, and such as yieldeth seed according to its kind, and the tree that beareth fruit, having seed each one according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.”[169] Let us now turn to the Carboniferous Period of Geology, which occupies a large space in the great Palæozoic age. All writers agree that it was specially marked by a gorgeous and luxuriant vegetation: and as we contemplate the multitudinous remains of plants and trees which have been gathered so abundantly in our coal measures, and ranged with such striking effect along the walls of our museums, we can scarcely help thinking that we have before us a practical commentary on the text of Moses. The gifted Hugh Miller, who is universally allowed to have been one of the most practical and experienced Geologists of the modern school, gives a very picturesque and graphic sketch of the Carboniferous flora. “In no other age,” he says, “did the world ever witness such a flora: the youth of the earth was peculiarly a green and umbrageous youth,--a youth of dusk and tangled forests,--of huge pines and stately araucarians,--of the reed-like calamite, the tall tree-fern, the sculptured sigillaria, and the hirsute lepidodendron. Wherever dry land, or shallow lake or running stream appeared, from where Melville Island now spreads out its ice-wastes under the star of the pole, to where the arid plains of Australia lie solitary beneath the bright cross of the south, a rank and luxuriant herbage cumbered every footbreadth of the dank and steaming soil; and even to distant planets our earth must have shown, through the enveloping cloud, with a green and delicate ray.”[170] Such an age as this might well be described in history as the age in which the earth brought forth the green herb, and the fruit-tree yielding seed according to its kind.

Again, the work of the Fifth Day is thus described in the Sacred Narrative:--“God also said: Let the waters bring forth the creeping creature having life, and the fowl that may fly over the earth under the firmament of Heaven. And God created the great whales, and every living and moving creature which the waters brought forth, according to their kinds, and every winged fowl according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.”[171] And in this case, as in the former, we may find the counterpart of the Bible story in the records of Geology. “The secondary age of the geologist,” says the eminent writer from whom we have already quoted, “possessed, like the earlier one, its herbs and plants, but they were of a greatly less luxuriant and conspicuous character than their predecessors, and no longer formed the prominent trait or feature of the creation to which they belong. The period had also its corals, its crustaceans, its molluscs, its fishes, and, in some one or two exceptional instances, its dwarf mammals. But the grand existences of the age,--the existences in which it excelled every other creation, earlier or later,--were its huge creeping things,--its enormous monsters of the deep,--and, as shown by the impressions of their footprints stamped upon the rocks, its gigantic birds. It was peculiarly the age of egg-bearing animals, winged and wingless. Its wonderful _whales_, not however as now, of the mammalian, but of the reptilian class--ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, and cetiosaurs--must have tempested the deep; its creeping lizards and crocodiles, such as the teleosaurus megalosaurus, and iguanodon,--creatures some of which more than rival the existing elephant in height, and greatly more than rivalled him in bulk,--must have crowded the plains, or haunted by myriads the rivers of the period; and we know that the foot-prints of, at least, one of its many birds, are fully twice the size of those made by the horse or camel. We are thus prepared to demonstrate that the second period of the geologist was peculiarly and characteristically a period of whale-like reptiles of the sea, of enormous creeping reptiles of the land, and of numerous birds, some of them of gigantic size.”[172]

Once more, it is written that, on the Sixth Day, “God said: Let the earth bring forth the living creature in its kind, cattle and creeping things, and beasts of the earth, according to their kinds. And it was so done. And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds, and cattle and every thing that creepeth on the earth after its kind. And God saw that it was good.”[173] And again Geology seems to confirm the truth of the Inspired narrative, and to fill up the details of the picture. “The Tertiary period,” continues Hugh Miller, “had also its prominent class of existences. Its flora seems to have been no more conspicuous than that of the present time; its reptiles occupy a very subordinate place; but its beasts of the field were by far the most wonderfully developed, both in size and numbers, that ever appeared upon the earth. Its mammoths and its mastodons, its rhinoceri and its hippopotami, its enormous dimotherium and colossal megatherium, greatly more than equalled in bulk the greatest mammals of the present time, and vastly exceeded them in number. The remains of one of its elephants (Elephas primigenius) are still so abundant amid the frozen wastes of Siberia, that what have been not inappropriately termed ‘ivory quarries’ have been wrought among their bones for more than a hundred years. Even in our own country, of which, as I have already shown, this elephant was for long ages a native, so abundant are the skeletons and tusks, that there is scarcely a local museum in the kingdom that has not its specimens, dug out of the Pleistocene deposits of the neighborhood. And with this ancient elephant there were meetly associated in Britain, as on the northern continents generally all around the globe, many other mammals of corresponding magnitude. ‘Grand indeed,’ says an English naturalist, ‘was the fauna of the British islands in those early days. Tigers as large again as the biggest Asiatic species lurked in the ancient thickets; elephants nearly twice the size of the largest individuals that now exist in Africa or Ceylon roamed in herds: at least two species of the rhinoceros forced their way through the primeval forests; and the lakes and rivers were tenanted by hippopotami as bulky, and with as great tusks, as those of Africa.’ The massive cave-bear and large cave-hyæna belong to the same formidable group, with at least two species of great oxen, with a horse of smaller size, and an elk that stood ten feet four inches in height. Truly this Tertiary age--this third and last of the geologic periods--was peculiarly the age of great ‘beasts of the earth after their kind, and of cattle after their kind.’”[174]

We shall be told, perhaps, that there are Six Days assigned to the work of creation in the Mosaic narrative, and that we have accounted but for three. Let it be remembered, however, that Geology does not profess to give a complete history of our Globe. It can set before us those events only which have left their impress indelibly stamped upon the rocks that compose the Crust of the Earth. These events Geologists have attempted to reduce to the order of a chronological system; and in prosecuting this task they have been guided almost exclusively by the evidence of Organic Remains. Hence it was not to be expected that, in Geological Chronology, we should find a Period specially set apart as the Period in which Light was made; or another as the Period in which the Firmament was spread out over the Earth; or a Third as the Period in which the sun and moon and stars shone forth in the expanse of Heaven. Such phenomena had, indeed, a very important influence on the physical condition of our globe. But they must occupy a very secondary place, if indeed they are distinctly chronicled at all in the records of Geology. It is the formation of rocks and the embedding therein of Fossil Remains that constitute the main study of the Geologist, and that guide him in the distribution of Geological time.

Furthermore, we would observe that the scheme of Chronology which Geologists put before us, affords abundant room for each and all of the Mosaic Days. Let it be assumed for a moment that the Carboniferous Period corresponds with the Third Day of the Sacred narrative. The earlier Periods of the Palæozoic Age will then fit in with the First and Second Days of Scripture; and the Permian, which intervenes between the Carboniferous Period and the Secondary Age, may be supposed to correspond with the Fourth Day of Scripture. This adjustment between the Mosaic Days and the Periods of Geology will probably be made more intelligible to the general reader by the Table that appears on the following page.

The reader must not think it amiss, in this distribution of the Mosaic Days, that four out of six are crowded together into one Geological Age, while each of the other two has an entire Age assigned to itself. If the Days of Creation were indefinite periods, there is no incongruity in supposing that one may have corresponded to a longer, another to a shorter interval in the history of our planet. But, in truth, our scheme of distribution does not of necessity imply that the Mosaic Days were periods of unequal length. Geologists do not pretend that there is even a remote approximation to equality between the several divisions of Geological time. The three great Epochs are distinguished from each other by reason of the very marked difference in the character of their Fossil Remains. And the multiplication of Periods in each Epoch seems to depend rather upon the degree of completeness with which the strata of that Age have been examined, than upon any conjecture as to the probable length of its duration. Thus, for example, Sir Charles Lyell thinks that, as far as the present condition of Science affords the means of forming an opinion, almost any one of the Periods in the Palæozoic Age was as long as all the Periods of the Tertiary Age taken together.[175]

But there is another and a more serious objection against our hypothesis. It has been observed more than once that the periods of Geology are out of harmony with the Days of Genesis, even as regards the history of Organic life. According to the Scripture narrative no Organic life appeared upon the Earth previous to the Third Day. Now the Third Day of Scripture corresponds, in our scheme, with the Carboniferous Period of Geology. And yet there is abundant evidence in the Fossil Remains of the Devonian, the Silurian, and the Cambrian Formations, that Organic life--both plants and animals--prevailed upon the Earth for many ages before the Carboniferous Period began. Nay, it is now commonly held, since the discovery of the famous _Eozoon Canadense_, the oldest known Fossil, that life already existed during the deposition of the Laurentian Rocks, the earliest of all the Stratified Formations. Furthermore, in the Mosaic account, Fish are represented as having been created only on the Fifth Day, which we have fitted in with the Secondary Age of Geology: whereas in the Geological Record we find Fish as early as the Silurian Period, which is far back in the Primary Age. These considerations, and divers others of a like nature, have been regarded by some eminent writers as altogether fatal to the hypothesis for which we are contending.

+--------------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| DAYS. | PERIODS. | EPOCHS. |
| | | |
| DAY OF GOD’S REST. | RECENT. | HISTORIC AGE. |
+--------------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| | POST-PLIOCENE. | |
| SIXTH MOSAIC DAY. | PLIOCENE. | TERTIARY |
| | MIOCENE. | OR |
| | EOCENE. | KAINOZOIC AGE. |
+--------------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| | CRETACEOUS. | SECONDARY |
| FIFTH MOSAIC DAY. | JURASSIC. | OR |
| | TRIASSIC. | MESOZOIC AGE. |
+--------------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| FOURTH MOSAIC DAY. | PERMIAN. | |
| THIRD MOSAIC DAY. | CARBONIFEROUS. | PRIMARY |
| | { DEVONIAN. | OR |
| FIRST AND SECOND | { SILURIAN. | PALÆOZOIC AGE. |
| MOSAIC DAYS. | { CAMBRIAN. | |
| | { LAURENTIAN. | |
+--------------------+-----------------+-----------------+

To us, however, it appears that such points of discrepancy involve no contradiction between the two Records. The Sacred Writer tells us, no doubt, that on the Third Day God created plants and trees: but he does not say, either expressly or otherwise, that previous to the Third Day the Earth was devoid of vegetation. Again, we read that reptiles, fish, and birds were created on the Fifth Day. But there is nothing in the language of the Inspired narrative from which it can be inferred that these several classes of animal life may not have been represented before that time, by many and various species: though probably, it was only on the Fifth Day that they were developed in such vast numbers, and assumed such gigantic proportions, as to become the most conspicuous objects of creation.

The first chapter of Genesis is but a brief summary of an inconceivably vast series of events. It is nothing more than a rapid sketch, exhibiting, as it were, to the eye the prominent features in the history of Creation. Moreover, we should remember that it was written with a specific end in view. The purpose of the Sacred Writer was plainly to impress upon the Hebrew people, naturally prone to idolatry, the existence of One Supreme Being, who has made all things. Hence we should naturally expect that, amid the boundless variety of God’s works, he would make choice of those that were most calculated to strike the mind with wonder and awe, and to bring home to a rude and uncultivated race of men the Almighty Power and Supreme Dominion of the Great Creator. Now the Zoophytes, and Graptolites, and Trilobites, of the Devonian and Silurian Periods, however curious and interesting they may be to men of science, would have had but little significance for the Jewish people. Let us suppose that these more humble forms of animal life had, in fact, existed during the First and Second Days of the Mosaic narrative, and where is the wonder that the Inspired Historian, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, should pass them by in silence, and choose rather to commemorate the more striking and impressive facts, that, at the bidding of God, Light shone forth from the midst of darkness, and the blue firmament of Heaven was expanded above the waste of waters?

We say, then, that events which are simply left unrecorded by the Sacred Writer are not, on that account, untrue:[176] that he describes to us, not all the works of Creation, which would have been an endless task, but only the more conspicuous objects in each successive stage; and that he sketches them, most probably, as they would have appeared to the eye of a human observer, if a human observer at the time had existed on the Earth. If this view be admitted, then it is not inconsistent with the Scripture narrative to suppose that plants may have existed before the Third Day, and fish before the Fifth. Each Day in its turn would have been rendered conspicuous to an observing spectator by those events which are recorded by Moses. But each Day, too, would have witnessed many other events, unnoticed by Moses, of which the memorials have been preserved, even to our time, in the Crust of the Earth.

We should observe, however, that though this scheme of adapting the Periods of Geology to the Days of Moses, may be defended as a legitimate hypothesis, it cannot be upheld as an established truth. The geological records that have hitherto been brought to light represent but the merest fragment of the Earth’s past history. Each year that passes over our heads is adding largely to the store of facts already accumulated. And it needs but little reflection to perceive that an hypothesis may be quite consistent with the knowledge we possess to-day, and yet may be found altogether inconsistent with the knowledge we shall possess to-morrow. We must be content, therefore, to suspend our judgment, and to await the progress of events. It may be that future discoveries shall bring to light new points of harmony between the Days of Genesis and the Periods of Geology; it may be they shall demonstrate that no such harmony exists. For us it is enough to have shown that this hypothesis is consistent, on the one hand, with the story of Genesis--on the other, with the actual discoveries of Geology; and, therefore, that it may be adopted, in the present condition of our knowledge, as a legitimate means of reconciling the established conclusions of that science with the truths of Revelation.

* * * * *