Chapter II

THE NEPTUNIAN THEORY WAS FIRST BROUGHT TO LIGHT IN THE BOOK OF JOB, DATED IN THE STARS. EPIDRAMATIC ORATORIO 55

Orient the place for such a poem 57

First question established 58

The indictment against piety amended 59

The prologue ended with Satan confounded 59

These persons all representative characters 60

Starting the drama of history. Piety endures the trials of all ages 61

Job rewarded on the field. Flood passed 64

Surrounded by universal idolatry 65

Certain chapters Messianic 66

Resurrection reached 68

The enemies boast of the secular arm of law 69

The Reformation reached 70

The voice of space 72

Dead organic matter, as fossils, speaking 73

An explanation of the story of Joshua’s miracle. The three friends silenced. Secular education personified 75

True loyal prayer, against unsupported illegal faith, and prayer without faith 77

The Copernican system seen by Job, with the sedimentary nature of granite 79

The rotundity of Earth with the inside water 81

The birth-place of ancient icebergs 83

The telegraph seen and dated 84

Description of certain fossils 85

The grand future of the church of the living God 86

CHAPTER III.

ALL THE SCRIPTURE REFERENCES TO COSMOLOGY ARE IN HARMONY WITH THE BOOK OF JOB. EARTH STANDING IN WATER. FLOOD CAUSED BY OVERFLOW OF THE SEA. ONCE IN A RING OF GASES. ABOVE THE WATERS 87

Moses gained his first ideas of Creation here 88

Power born in the hand of God 88

Gravitation accounts only for centripetal power 89

A steam world born but not yet swaddled 92

It is swaddled in gathering and condensing 93

Tracing gases into rock 95

To what days the Mosaic time is unadapted 96

What the Mosaic days of creation do mean 96

General and Special Providence 99

CHAPTER IV.

THE SIX DAYS OF MOSES FULL OF SCIENTIFIC SUGGESTIONS SHOWING THE WORK OF GOD TO THE END OF TIME 100

SECTION 1.

The work of the first day 101

Meaning of deep 102

Figures of speech. A ring of waters in fluid gases first called firmament 103

These days are not literal 104

SECTION 2.

The work of the second day 105

Meaning of create. Must be read in the light of scientific facts 107

Moses’ point of observation. First firmament tangible 107

Moses, in vision, confined to the history of our globe. The history of other planets not given 109

SECTION 3.

The work of the third day. The steam world commences to liquify 110

The scientific problem of a probable pole-changing solved 112

One end only in sunshine 112

Why it did not rain on the earth 113

The cause of the first chilled climate. When it turned to torrid 115

SECTION 4.

The account of the fourth day in figure of metonymy 116

Recent coal periods 119

SECTION 5.

The work of the fifth day. Contrasts are found in the sea, diatoms begin in the Gneiss rock 121

The whale of the Miocene is the contrasting animal, as morning 122

The order of the existence of animals by Moses agrees with facts 123

Science and the Bible claim substantially the same thing in reference to Special Providence 125

SECTION 6.

The work of the sixth day. Beasts are the evening. Man is the morning 127

Our race sprang from Adam 128

The cleansing of the air was essential to the introduction of man 129

Recent volcanoes argue the correctness of the Mosaic account 130

We have not even yet reached the climax of good breathing 132