CHAPTER XI.

DAYLIGHT BEFORE SUNRISE.

In the last chapter we saw astronomy demonstrating our need of a

revelation from God. In this we shall see how it illustrates and

confirms that revelation. Seen through the telescope, the Bible glows

with celestial splendor. Even its cloudy mysteries are displayed as

clouds of light, and its long misunderstood phrases are resolved, by a

scientific investigation, into galaxies of brilliant truths, proclaiming

to the philosopher that the Book which describes them is as truly the

Word of God as the heavens which it describes are his handiwork.

If, once in a century, a profound practical astronomer is found denying

the inspiration of the Bible, he will either acknowledge, or discover

himself, not familiar with its contents. For the most part, the charges

brought against the Bible, of contradicting the facts of astronomy, are

based upon misstatements and mistakes of its teachings, and so do not

fall within the range of the telescope, or the department of the

observatory. The Sabbath-school teacher, and not the astronomer, is the

proper person to correct such errors. A few months' instruction in the

Bible class of any well-conducted Sabbath-school would save some of our

popular anti-Bible lecturers from the sin of misrepresenting the Word of

God, and the shame of hearing children laugh at their blunders.

A favorite field for the display of their knowledge of science, and

ignorance of the art of reading, by our modern Infidels, is the Bible

account of creation, in the first chapter of Genesis, which is alleged

to be utterly irreconcilable with the known facts of astronomy and

geology. Leaving the latter out of view, for the present, the

astronomical objections may all be arranged under four heads. First:

that the Bible account of the creation of man, only some six or seven

thousand years ago, must be false; because the records of astronomical

observations, taken more than seventeen thousand years ago, by the

Hindoos and Egyptians, are still in existence, and have been verified.

Second: that the light of some of the stars, now shining upon us, and

especially of some of the distant nebulæ, must have left them millions

of years ago, to have traveled over the vast space which separates them

from us, and be visible on our globe now; whereas, the Bible teaches

that the universe was created only some six or seven thousand years ago.

Third: that the Bible represents God as creating the sky a solid

crystal, or metallic sphere, or hemisphere (they are not agreed which),

to which the stars are fastened, and with which they revolve around the

earth; which every school-boy knows to be absurd. Fourth: that the Bible

represents God as creating the sun and moon only two days before Adam,

and as creating light before the sun, which is also held to be absurd.

1. The first of these objections--that the Hindoos and Egyptians made

astronomical observations thousands of years before Adam, and that the

accuracy of these observations has been verified by modern

calculations--_is simply untrue_. No such observations were ever made.

The pretended records of such have been proved, in the case of the

Hindoo astronomy, to be forgeries, and in the case of the Egyptian

records, blunders of the discoverers. There is not an authentic

uninspired astronomical observation extant for two thousand years after

Adam.

The objection, however, is worth noticing, and its history worth

remembering, as a specimen of the way in which ignorant men swallow

impudent falsehoods, if they only seem to contradict the Word of Truth.

When the labors of oriental scholars had made the Vedas and

Shasters--the sacred books of the Hindoos--accessible to European

philosophers, a wonderful shout was raised among Infidels. "Here," it

was said, "is the true chronology. We always knew that man was not a

degenerate creature, fallen from a higher estate, some few thousand

years ago, but that he has existed from eternity, in a constant progress

toward his present lofty position; and now we have the most authentic

records of the most ancient and civilized people in the world--the

people of India--reaching back for millions of years before the Mosaic

cosmogony, and allowing ample time for the development of the noble

savage into the cultivated philosopher. These records have every mark of

truth, giving minute details of events, and histories of successive

lines of princes; and, moreover, record the principal astronomical facts

of the successive periods--eclipses, comets, positions of stars,

etc.--which attest their veracity. Henceforth, the Hebrew records must

hide their heads. Neither as poetry nor history can they pretend to

compare with the Vedas."

The Hindoo Shasters were accordingly, for a time, in high repute, among

people who knew very little about them. Even Dr. Adam Clarke was so far

led away with the spirit of the age, as to pollute his valuable

commentary by the insertion of the _Gitagovinda_, after the Chaldee

Targum on the Song of Solomon; where the curious reader can satisfy

himself as to the scientific value of such Pantheistic dotings. By the

Infidels of Britain and America they were appealed to as standard works

of undoubted authority; and hundreds, who declared that it was

irrational credulity to believe in the Bible, risked their souls on the

faith of the Vedas, _of which they never had read a single sentence_!

Now, when we remember that these veracious chronicles reach back through

_maha yugs_ of 4,320,000 years of mortals, a thousand of which, or

4,320,000,000, make a _kalpa_ or one day of the life of Brahma, while

his night is of the same duration, and his life consists of a hundred

years of such days and nights, about the middle of which period the

little span of our existence is placed; that among the facts of the

history are the records of the seven great continents of the world,

separated by seven rivers, and seven chains of mountains, four hundred

thousand miles high (reaching only to the moon); of the families of

their kings, one of whom had a hundred sons, another only ten thousand,

another sixty thousand, who were born in a pumpkin, nourished in pans of

milk, reduced to ashes by the curse of a sage, and restored to life by

the waters of the Ganges; and that among the astronomical observations,

by which the accuracy of these extraordinary facts is confirmed, are

accounts of deluges, in which the waters not only rose above the tops of

earth's mountains, but above the seven inferior and three superior

worlds, _reaching even to the Pole Star_[218]--we may well wonder at the

faith which could receive all this as so true, that on the strength of

it they rejected the miracles of the Bible as false. Even Voltaire

ridiculed these stories.

But a visionary man, named Baillie, calculated the alleged observations

backward, and found them sufficiently correct to satisfy him that all

the rest of the story was equally true. It never seems to have occurred

to him, that if he could calculate eclipses _backward_, so could the

Hindoos. It is just as easy to calculate an eclipse, or the position of

a planet, backward as forward. If I watch the motion of the hands of a

clock accurately, and find that the little hand moves over the twelfth

of a circle every hour, and the large hand around the circle in the same

time, and that the large hand, now at noon, covers the little one, I

can calculate, that at sixteen minutes and a quarter past three it will

nearly cover it again; but then, it is just as easy to count that the

two hands were covered at sixteen minutes and a quarter before nine that

morning, or that they were exactly in line at 6 A. M. If my clock would

keep going at the same rate for a thousand years, I could predict the

position of the hands at any hour of the twenty-ninth of March, of the

year 2857; but it is evident that the very same calculation applied the

other way would show the position that the hands would have had a

thousand years ago, or five thousand years ago, just as well. And if I

were to allege that my clock was made by Tubal Cain, before the flood,

and for proof of the fact declare, that on the first of January, 3857 B.

C., at 6 o'clock P. M., I had seen the two hands directly in line, and

some wiseacre were to calculate the time, and find that at that hour the

hands ought to have been just in that position, and conclude thence that

I was undoubtedly one of the antediluvians, and the clock no less

certainly a specimen of the craft of the first artificer in brass and

iron, the argument would be precisely parallel to the Infidel's argument

from the Tirvalore Tables, and the astronomy of the Vedas.

But suppose my clock ran a little slow; say half a minute in the month,

or so; or that it was made to keep sidereal time, which differs by a

little from solar time, and that I did not know exactly what the

difference was; it is evident that on a long stretch of some hundreds or

thousands of years, I would get out of my reckoning, and the hands would

not have been in the positions I had calculated. Now, this was just what

happened with the Brahmins and their calculations. The clock of the

heavens keeps a uniform rate of going, but they made a slight mistake in

the counting of it; and so did their Infidel friends. But our modern

astronomers have got the true time, set their clocks, and made their

tables by it; and on applying these tables to the pretended Hindoo

observations, find that they are all wrong, and that no such eclipses as

they allege ever did occur or possibly could have happened in our solar

system.[219] So the Hindoo astronomy is now consigned to the same tomb

with the Hindoo chronology and cosmogony, except when a missionary, on

the banks of the Ganges, exhibits it to the pupils of his English

school, as a specimen of the falsehoods which have formed the swaddling

bands of Pantheism.

Failing in the attempt to substitute Brahminism for Christianity,

Infidels beat a retreat from India, and went down into Egypt for help.

Here they made prodigious discoveries of the scientific and religious

truths believed by the worshipers of dogs and dung beetles, recorded

upon the coffins of holy bulls, and the temples sacred to crows and

crocodiles. The age was favorable for such discoveries.

Napoleon and his savans cut out of the ceiling of a temple, at Denderah,

in Egypt, a stone covered with uncouth astronomical, astrological, and

hieroglyphic figures, which they insisted was a representation of the

sky at the time the temple was built; and finding a division made

between the signs of the crab and the lion, and marks for the sun and

moon there, they took it into their heads that the sun must have entered

the Zodiac at that spot, on the year this Zodiac was made; and,

calculating back, found that must be at least seventeen thousand years

ago. Hundreds of thousands visited the wonderful antediluvian monument,

in the National Library, in Paris, where it had been brought; and where

Infidel commentators were never wanting to inform them that this

remarkable stone proved the whole Bible to be a series of lies. A

professor of the University of Breslau published a pamphlet, entitled

_Invincible Proof that the Earth is at least ten times older than is

taught by the Bible_. Scores of such publications followed, and for

forty years Infidel newspapers, magazines, and reviews kept trumpeting

this great refutation of the Bible. From these it descended to the

vulgar, with additions and improvements; and it is now frequently

alleged as proving that "ten thousand years before Adam was born, the

priests of Egypt were carving astronomy on the pyramids." There is

scarcely one of my French or German readers who has not heard of it.

It did not shake the Skeptic's credulity in the least that no two of the

savans were agreed, by some thousands of years, how old it was--that

they could not tell what the Egyptian system of astronomy was--_and that

none of them could read the hieroglyphics which explained it_. Whatever

might be doubtful, of one thing they were all perfectly sure, that it

was far older than the creation. But in 1832 the curious Egyptian

astronomy was studied, and it appeared that the sun and moon were so

placed on the Zodiac to mark the beginning of the year there; and the

dividing line fenced off one half of the sky under the care of the sun,

while the other was placed under the moon's patronage. Then it was

discovered that the positions of the stars were represented by the

pictures of the gods whose names they bore--Jupiter, Saturn, etc.--and

by calculating the places of these pictures back, it was found that this

Zodiac represented their places in the year of our Lord 37; the year of

the birth of Nero, a great temple-builder and repairer. Finally,

Champollion learned to read the hieroglyphics, and the names, surnames,

and titles of the emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero, and Domitian were

found on the temple of Denderah; and on the portico of the temple of

Esneh, which had been declared to be a few thousand years older than

that of Denderah, were found the names of Claudius and Antoninus Pius;

while the whole workmanship and style of building have satisfied all

antiquarians that these buildings were erected during the declining days

of art in the Roman Empire. The Roman title, _autocrat_, engraved on

the Zodiac itself, attests its antiquity to be not quite two thousand,

instead of seventeen thousand years.

But, not satisfied with merely demolishing the batteries of Infidelity,

astronomy has been employed to ascertain the dates of numbers of events

recorded on Egyptian monuments to have happened to one or other of the

Pharaohs, "beloved of Ammon, and brother of the sun," when such a star

was in such a position. Mr. Poole has spent years in gathering such

inscriptions, and in calculating the dates thus furnished. The

astronomer royal, at Greenwich, Mr. Airy, has reviewed the calculations,

and finds them correct. Wilkinson, the great Egyptologist, agrees with

their conclusions. And the result is, that _the astronomical chronology

of the Egyptian monuments sustains the Bible chronology_.[220] Geology

comes forward to confirm the testimony of her elder sister, and assures

us, that the alleged vast antiquity of the Egyptian monuments is

impossible, as it is not more than 5,000 years since the soil of Egypt

first appeared above water, as a muddy morass.[221] The learned Adrian

Balbo thus sums up the whole question: "No monument, either astronomical

or historical, has yet been able to prove the books of Moses false; _but

with them, on the contrary, agree, in the most remarkable manner, the

results obtained by the most learned philologists and the profoundest

geometricians_."[222]

2. To the second objection--that astronomers have discovered stars whose

light must have been millions of years traveling to this earth, and that

consequently these stars must have existed millions of years ago, and

therefore the Bible makes a false declaration when it says the universe

was created only some six or seven thousand years ago--I reply by

asking, _Where does the Bible say so?_

"What," says our objector, "is not that the good old orthodox doctrine

of Christians and commentators? Do they not unanimously denounce

geologists and astronomers as heretics, for asserting the vast antiquity

of the earth?"

We shall see presently that no such unanimity of denunciation has ever

existed, and that some of the most ancient and learned Christian

commentators taught the antiquity of the earth, from the Bible, before

geology was born. But that is not the question before us just now. We

are not asking what the good old orthodox doctrine of Christians, or the

unanimous opinion of commentators may have been; but what is the reading

of the Bible--_What does this Book say?_--not, "What does somebody

think?"

"Well," replies our objector, "does not the Bible say, in the first of

Genesis, that God created the heavens and the earth in six days, and

Adam on the sixth; and are not chronologists agreed that that was not

more than seven thousand years ago, at the very utmost?"

If the Bible had said that God created the heavens and the earth in six

days, and that the end of that period was only seven thousand years ago,

it would by no means follow that the beginning of it was only a few

hours before that; for every Bible reader knows, that the most common

use of the word _day_, in Scripture, is to denote, not a period of

twenty-four hours, but a period of time which may be of various

lengths.[223] In this very narrative (Genesis ii. 5) it is used to

denote the whole period of the six days' work: "In the day the Lord God

made the earth and the heavens." Does it mean just twenty-four hours

there? In the first of Genesis, its duration is defined to consist of

"the evening and the morning." Before our Infidel chronologist finds

out the Bible date of creation, he must be able to tell us _of what

length was the evening which preceded the first morning_, and with it

constituted the first day? God has of set purpose placed

stumbling-blocks for scoffers at the entrance and the exit of the Bible,

as a rebuke to pride and vain curiosity.[224]

The duration of the seventh day is also hidden from man. It is God's

Sabbath, on which he entered when he ceased from the work of creation, a

rest which still continues, and which he invites us to enter into

(Hebrews iv. 1-5) as a preparation for the eternal rest. God's rest day

has already lasted six thousand years, and no man can tell how much

longer it may last. Perhaps his working days were each as long.

But if our objector had read the Bible attentively, he would have seen

that it _does not say that God created the heavens and the earth in six

days_. Before it begins to give any account of the six days' work, it

tells us of a previous state of disorder; and going back beyond that

again, it says: "_In the beginning_, God created the heavens and the

earth." It is as self-evident that this _beginning_ was before the six

days' work, as that the world must have existed before it could be

adjusted to its present form. How long before, the Bible does not say,

nor does the objector pretend to know. It may have been as many millions

of years as he assigns to the stars, or twice as many, for anything he

knows to the contrary. He must have overlooked the first two verses of

the Bible, else he had never made this objection; which is simply a

blunder, arising from incapacity to read a few verses of Scripture

correctly.

But it is replied, "Does not the Bible say, in the fourth commandment,

'In six days the Lord made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all that

in them is,'" etc.? True. But we are speaking just now of a very

different work--the work of _creation_. If any one does not know the

difference between _create_ and _make_, let him turn to his dictionary,

and Webster will inform him that the primary literal meaning of _create_

is, "To produce; to bring into being from nothing; to cause to exist."

The example he gives to illustrate his definition is this verse, "In the

beginning God _created_ the heavens and the earth." But the primary

meaning of _make_ is, "To compel; to constrain;" thence, "to form of

materials;" and he illustrates the generic difference between these two

words by a quotation from Dwight: "God not only _made_, but _created_;

he not only made the work, but the materials." Both words are as good

translations of the Hebrew originals, _bra_, and _oshe_, as can be

given.

If any of my readers has not a dictionary he can satisfy himself

thoroughly as to the different meanings of these two words, and of their

equivalents in the original Hebrew, by looking at their use in his

Bible. Thus, he will find _create_ applied to the creation of the

heavens and the earth, in the beginning, when there could have been no

pre-existent materials to make them from; unless we adopt the Atheistic

absurdity, of the eternity of matter--that is to say, _that the paving

stones made themselves_.[225] Then it is applied to the production of

animal life--verse twenty-one--which is not a product or combination of

any lifeless matter, but a direct and constant resistance to the

chemical and mechanical laws which govern lifeless matter: "God created

great whales, and every living creature that moveth."[226] Next it is

applied to the production of the human race, as a species distinct from

all other living creatures, and not derived from any of them. "God

_created_ man in his own image."[227] It is in like manner applied to

all God's subsequent bestowals of animal life and rational souls, which

are directly bestowed by God, and are not in the power of any creature

to give. "Thou sendest forth thy spirit: they are _created_." "Remember

now thy _Creator_, in the days of thy youth."[228] In all these

instances, the use of the word determines its literal meaning to be what

Webster defines it: "To bring into being from nothing."

The metaphorical use of the word is equally expressive of its literal

meaning, for it is applied to the production of new dispositions of mind

and soul utterly opposite to those previously existing. "Create in me a

clean heart;" which God thus explains: "A new heart will I give you, and

a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart

out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh."[229] The

Hebrew word _bra_ has as many derivative meanings as our English word

_create_; as we speak of "creating a peer," "long abstinence creating

uneasiness," etc.; but these no more change the primitive idea in the

one case than in the other.

From this word _create_, the Bible very plainly distinguishes the words

_make_ and _form_, using them as the complement of the former, in many

passages which speak of both creation and making. Thus, man was both

created and made. His life and soul are spoken of as a creation; his

body as a formation from the dust; his deputed authority over the earth

also implies a primal creation, and subsequent investiture; and so both

terms are applied to it. So the words _make_ and _form_ are applied to

the production of the bodies of animals from pre-existing materials,

while animal life is ever spoken of as a product of creative power. But,

that we may see that these processes are distinct, and that the words

which express them have distinctive meanings, _the Author of the Bible

takes care to use them both_ in reference to this very work, in such a

way that we can not fail to perceive he intends some distinction, unless

we suppose that he fills the Bible with useless tautologies. For

instance, "On the seventh day, God rested from all his work, which God

_created_ and _made_." "These are the generations of the heavens and the

earth, when they were _created_; in the day the Lord God _made_ the

earth and the heavens." "But now thus saith the Lord that _created_

thee, Jacob, and he that _formed_ thee, O Israel." "For thus saith the

Lord that _created_ the heavens, God himself, that _formed_ the earth,

and _made_ it; he hath established it; he _created_ it not in confusion;

he _formed_ it to be inhabited."[230] In all these passages _creation_

is clearly distinguished from _formation_ and _making_, if the Bible is

not a mass of senseless repetitions. If _create_, and _make_, and

_form_, have all the same meaning, why use them all in the same verse?

These, and many similar passages, show that the Bible teaches the work

of _creation_--calling things into being--to be previous to and distinct

from the work of _making_--forming of materials already created.

Between these two widely different processes--of the original creation

of the universe, and the subsequent preparation of the habitable earth,

by the six days' work--two intervening periods are indicated by

Scripture, both of indefinite length. The first of these is that which

intervened between the original creation and the period of disorder

indicated in the second verse. The second is that disordered period

during which the earth continued without form and void.

That original chaos which some would find in the second verse, never had

any existence, save in the brains of Atheistic philosophers. It is

purely absurd. God never created a chaos. Man never saw it. The

crystals of the smallest grain of sand, the sporules of the humblest

fungus on the rotten tree, the animalculæ in the filthiest pool of mud,

are as orderly in their arrangements, as perfect after their kind, and

as wisely adapted to their station, as the angels before the throne of

God. And as man never saw, so he has no language to describe, a state of

original disorder; for every word he can use implies a previous state of

regularity; as disorder tells of order dissolved; confusion of previous

forms melted together. So the poets who have tried to describe a chaos

have been obliged to represent it as the wreck of a former state.

Both the Bible language and the Bible narrative correspond to the

philosophy and philology of the case; for, by the use of the substantive

verb, in the past tense, implying progressive being, according to the

usual force of the word in Hebrew, we are told literally, "the earth

_became_ without form and void." God did not create it so, but after it

was created, and by a series of revolutions not recorded, it became

disordered and empty. The Holy Spirit takes care to explain this verse,

by quoting it in Jeremiah iv. 23, as the appropriate symbolical

description of the state of a previously existing and regularly

constituted body politic, reduced to confusion by the calamities of war.

Again, he explains both the terms used in it in Isaiah xxxiv. 11, by

using them to describe, not the rude and undigested mass of the heathen

poet, but the wilderness condition of a ravaged country, and the

desolate ruins of once beautiful and populous cities: "He will stretch

out upon it the line of _confusion_, and the stones of _emptiness_." In

both these cases the previous existence of an orderly and populous state

is implied. And finally, we are expressly assured, that the state of

disorder mentioned in the second verse of Genesis i., was not the

original condition of the earth--Isaiah xlv. 18--where the very same

word is used as in Genesis i. 2, "He created it not, _teu_,

_disordered_, in _confusion_." The period of the earth's previous

existence in an orderly state, or that occupied by the revolutions and

catastrophes which disordered its surface, is not recorded in Scripture.

The second period is that of disorder, which must have been of some

duration, more or less, and is plainly implied to have been of

considerable length, in the declaration that "the Spirit of the Lord

moved"--literally, _was brooding_ (a figure taken from the incubation of

fowls)--"upon the face of the waters." But no portion of Scripture gives

any intimation of the length of this period.

If, then, astronomers and geologists assert that the earth was millions,

or hundreds of millions of years in process of preparation for its

present state, by a long series of successive destructions and

renovations, and gradual formations, _there is not one word in the Bible

to contradict that opinion_; but, on the contrary, very many texts which

fully and unequivocally imply its truth. But, as the knowledge of the

exact age of the earth is by no means necessary to any man's present

happiness, or the salvation of his soul, it is nowhere taught in the

Bible. God has given us the stars to teach us astronomy, the earth to

teach us geology, and the Bible to teach us religion, and neither

contradicts the other.

This is no new interpretation evoked to meet the necessities of modern

science. The Jewish Rabbins, and those of the early Christian Fathers

who gave any attention to criticism, are perfectly explicit in

recognizing these distinctions. The doctrine of the creation of the

world only six or seven thousand years ago is a product of monkish

ignorance of the original language of the Bible. But Clement of

Alexandria, Chrysostom, and Gregory Nazianzen, after Justin Martyr,

teach the existence of an indefinite period between the creation and the

formation of all things. Basil and Origen account for the existence of

light before the sun, by alleging that the sun existed, but that the

chaotic atmosphere prevented his rays from being visible till the first

day, and his light till the third.[231] Augustine, in his first homily,

represents the first state of the earth, in Genesis i. 1, as bearing the

same relation to its finished state, that the seed of a tree does to the

trunk, branches, leaves, and fruit. Horsley, Edward King, Jennings,

Baxter, and many others, who wrote during the last two centuries, but

before the period of geological discovery, explained the second verse

substantially as did Bishop Patrick, a hundred and fifty years ago. "How

long all things continued in confusion, we are not told. _It might have

been, for anything that is here revealed, a very great while._"[232]

Some persons, however, have supposed that the chaos of the second verse

succeeded immediately to the creation of the first, and that the six

days' work in like manner followed that instantaneously, or at least

after a very brief interval, because the records of these cycles are

connected by the word _and_, which, they think, precludes the idea of

any lengthened periods or intervals. But the slightest reflection upon

the meaning of the word will show that _and_ can not of itself be any

_measure_ of time, its use being to indicate merely _sequence_ and

_connection_. When used historically, it always implies an interval of

time; for there can be no succession without an interval; but the length

of that interval must be determined from the context, or some other

source. A very cursory perusal of the Bible, either in English or

Hebrew, will show that very often in its brief narratives, the interval

indicated by _and_, and its Hebrew originals, is a very long time. The

descent of Jacob and his children into Egypt is connected with the

record of their deaths, in the very next verse, by this word _and_,

which thus includes nearly the lifetime of a generation. That event,

again, is connected with a change of dynasty in Egypt, and the

oppression and multiplication of the Israelites there, recorded in the

next verse, by the same word, _vau_, _and_; while the period over which

it reaches was over two hundred years.[233] So in the brief record of

the family of Adam, after reciting the birth of Seth, the historian

adds, in the next verse, "And to Seth also was born a son, and he called

his name Enos;" while the interval thus indicated by the word _and_ was

a hundred and five years. The command to build the ark, recorded in the

last verse of the sixth chapter of Genesis, is connected with the

command to enter into it, in the first verse of the seventh chapter, by

this same word _and_, although we know, from the nature of the case,

that the interval required for the construction of such a huge vessel

must have been considerable; and from the third verse of the sixth

chapter, we learn that it was a hundred and twenty years. So the births

and deaths of the antediluvians are connected by this same word _and_,

throughout the fifth chapter of Genesis; while the interval, as we see

from the narrative, was often eight or nine hundred years. The descent

of the Holy Spirit upon Christ, to qualify him for judging the world, is

connected with the actual discharge of that office, in the destruction

of Antichrist by the breath of his mouth, by this word _and_,[234]

although the interval has been over eighteen hundred years. If in the

records of the generations of mortal men, the word _and_ is customarily

employed as a connecting link in the narrations of events separated by

an interval of hundreds of years, it is quite consistent with the

strictest propriety of language to employ it, with an enlargement

proportioned to the duration of the subject of discourse, to connect

intervals of millions, in the narrative of the generations of the

heavens and the earth.

The Bible uniformly attributes the most remote antiquity to the work of

creation. So far from supposing man to be even approximately coeval with

it, the emphatic reproof of human presumption is couched in the

remarkable words, "Where wast thou, when I laid the foundations of the

earth?" In majestic contrast with the frail human race, Moses glances at

the primeval monuments of God's antiquity, as though by them he could

form some faint conceptions even of eternity, and sings, "Before the

mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and

the universe, even from everlasting to everlasting thou art God."[235]

The very word here used, _the beginning_, is in itself an emphatic

refutation of the notion that the work of creation is only some six or

seven thousand years old. Geologists have been unable to invent a

better, and have borrowed from the Bible this very form of speech, to

designate those strata beyond which human knowledge can not

penetrate--_the primary formations_. But, with far greater propriety,

the Holy Spirit uses this word with regard to ages, compared with which

the utmost range of the astronomer's or geologist's reasonings is but as

the tale of yesterday. For this word, in Bible usage, marks the last

promontory on the boundless ocean of eternity; the only positive word by

which we can express the most remote period of past duration. It is not

a date--a point of duration. It is a period--a vast cycle. It has but

one boundary; that where creation rises from its abyss. Created eye has

never seen the other shore. It is that vast period which the Bible

assigns to the manifestations of the Word of God, "whose goings forth

have been of old, from everlasting." Carrying our astonished gaze far

back beyond the era of his creature, man, and ages before the "all

things" that were made by Him, the Bible places this _beginning_ on the

very shore of the eternity of God, when it declares, "_In the beginning_

was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."[236]

Thus, both by the use of the imperfect tense, _was_, denoting continued

existence, and by the connection of this _beginning_ with the eternity

of the Word, does the Bible teach us to dismiss from our thoughts all

narrow views of the period of duration employed in manifesting the glory

of the self-existent Eternal One, and to raise our conceptions to the

highest possible pitch, and then to feel, that far beyond the grasp of

human calculation lies that _beginning_ which includes the years of the

right hand of the Most High, and is even used as one of the names of the

Eternal: "I AM THE BEGINNING _and the Ending, saith the Lord, who is,

and who was, and who is to come_--THE ALMIGHTY."[237]

In another Bible exhibition of the eternity of the Son of God, we are

conducted from that _beginning_, downward, stage by stage, from those

periods of remote antiquity prior to the formation of water, the

upheaval of the mountains, the alluvial deposits, the subsidence of the

existing sea basins, and the adornment of the habitable parts of the

earth, to that comparatively recent event, the existence of the sons of

men. Our ideas of the eternity of the love of Christ are thus enhanced,

by the vastness of the ages which stretch out between the human race and

that beginning when He was, as it were, "The Lamb slain from before the

foundations of the world."

"The Lord possessed me _in the beginning of his way_,

_Before his works of old_.

I was set up from everlasting,

_From the beginning, or ever the earth was_.

When there were no depths, I was brought forth;

When there were no fountains, abounding with water;

Before the mountains were settled,

Before the hills, was I brought forth;

While as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields,

Nor the highest part of the dust of the world

When he prepared the heavens, I was there;

When he described a circle upon the face of the deep;

When he established the clouds above;

When he strengthened the fountains of the deep;

When he gave to the sea his decree,

That the waters should not pass his commandment;

When he appointed the foundations of the earth:

Then was I by him, as one brought up with him;

And I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him:

Rejoicing in the habitable parts of his earth;

And my delights were with the sons of men."[238]

Let the geologist, then, penetrate as deeply as he can into the

profundities of the foundations of the earth, and bring forth the

monuments of their hoary antiquities: we will follow with the most

unfaltering faith, and receive with joy these proofs of his eternal

power and Godhead. Let the astronomer raise his telescope, and reflect

on our astonished eyes the light which flashed from morning stars, on

the day of this earth's first existence, or even the rays which began to

travel from distant suns, millions of years ere the first morning dawned

on our planet: we will place them as jewels in the crown of Him who is

the bright and morning star. They shall shed a sacred luster over the

pages of the Bible, and give new beauties of illustration to its

majestic symbols. But never will geologist penetrate, much less exhaust,

the profundity of its mysteries, nor astronomer attain, much less

explore, the sublimity of that beginning revealed in its pages; for eye

hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man

to conceive, either the antiquity, or the nature, or the duration of the

things which God hath prepared for them that love him. Human science

will never be able to reach the Bible era of creation. It is placed in

an antiquity beyond the power of human calculation, in that sublime

sentence with which it introduces mortals to the Eternal: "_In the

beginning God created the heavens and the earth._"

3. The third objection we have named is equally unfounded. _The Bible

nowhere teaches that the sky is a solid sphere, to which the stars are

fixed, and which revolves with them around the earth._ I know that

Infidels allege that the word _firmament_, in the first chapter of

Genesis, conveys this meaning. It does not. Neither the English word,

nor the Hebrew original, has any such meaning. As to the meaning of the

English word, I adhere to the dictionary. Infidels must not be allowed

to coin uncouth meanings for words, different from the known usage of

the English tongue, for which Webster is undeniable authority. His

definition of _firmament_ is, "The region of the air; the sky, or

heavens. In Scripture, the word denotes an expanse--a wide extent; for

such is the signification of the Hebrew word, coinciding with _regio_,

_region_, and _reach_. The original, therefore, does not convey the

sense of solidity, but of stretching--extension. The great arch or

expanse over our heads, in which are placed the atmosphere and the

clouds, and in which the stars _appear_ to be placed, and are _really_

seen." The word _firmament_, then, conveys no such meaning as the

Infidel alleges, to any man who understands the English tongue.

No Hebrew speaking man or woman ever did, or ever could understand the

original Hebrew word _reqo_ in any other sense than that of _expanse_;

for the verb from which it is formed means to extend, or spread out, as

even the English reader may see, by a few examples of its use, in the

following passages of Scripture; where the English words by which the

verb _reqo_ is expressed, are marked in italics. "Then did I beat them

small as the dust of the earth, and did stamp them as the mire of the

street, and _did spread them abroad_." "The goldsmith _spreadeth it

over_ with gold." "Thus saith the Lord: he that created the heavens, and

stretched them out; he that _spread forth_ the earth." "I am the Lord,

that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone, and

_spreadeth abroad_ the earth by myself." "To him that _stretcheth out_

the earth above the waters." "The censers of these sinners against their

own souls, let them _make them broad_ plates, for a covering for the

altar. _And they were made broad._" "Hast thou with him _spread out_ the

sky;"[239] or, in Humboldt's elegant rendering, "the pure ether,

_spread_ (during the scorching heat of the south wind) as a melted

mirror over the parched desert."[240] We might refer to the opinions of

lexicographers, all unanimous in ascribing the same idea to the word;

but the authorities given above are conclusive. The meaning, then, of

the Hebrew word rendered firmament is so utterly removed from the notion

of compactness, or solidity, or metallic or crystalline spheres, that it

is derived from the very opposite; the fineness or tenuity produced by

processes of expansion. Science has not been able to this day to invent

a better word for the regions of space than the literal rendering of the

original Hebrew word used by Moses--_the expanse_.

The inspired writers of the New Testament, though they found the world

full of all the absurdities of the Greek philosophy, and their Greek

translations of the Bible continually using the word _stereoma_, which

expressed these notions, _never used it_ but once, and then not for the

sky, but for the _steadfastness of faith_ in Christ. Their thus using it

once shows that they were acquainted with the word, and its proper

meaning, and that their disuse of it was intentional; while their disuse

of it, and choice of another word to denote the heavens, proves

decisively that they disapproved of the absurdity which it was

understood to express. Now, whether you account for this fact by

admitting their inspiration, or by alleging that they drew their

language from the Hebrew original, and not from the Greek translation,

it is in either case perfectly conclusive as to the scriptural meaning

of the word. Indeed, it is marvelous how any man who is familiar with

his Bible, and knows that the Scriptures usually describe the sky by

metaphors conveying the very opposite ideas to those of solidity or

permanence--as, "stretched out like a curtain," "spread abroad like a

tent to dwell in," "folded up like a vesture," and the like--should

allow himself to be imposed on by the impudent falsehood of Voltaire,

that the Bible teaches us that the sky is a solid metallic or crystal

hemisphere, supported by pillars.

Those beautiful figures of sacred poetry in which the universe is

represented as the palace of the Great King, adorned with majestic

"pillars," and "windows of heaven," whence he scatters his gifts among

his expectant subjects in the courts below, have been grossly abused for

the support of this miserable falsehood. We are assured, that so

ignorant was Moses of the true nature of the atmosphere, and of the

origin of rain, that he believed and taught that there was an ocean of

fresh water on _the outside_ of this metal hemisphere, which covered the

earth like a great sugar-kettle, bottom upward, and was supported on

pillars; and at the bottom of the ocean were trap-doors, to let the

rain through; which trap-doors in the metal firmament are to be

understood, when the Bible speaks of the windows of heaven. Now, the

bottom of an ocean is an odd place for windows, and a trap-door is

rather a strange kind of watering-pot; and if Moses put the ocean of

fresh water on the _outside_ of his metal hemisphere, he must have

changed his notions of gravity materially from the time he planned the

brazen hemisphere for the tabernacle, which he turned mouth upward, and

put the water in the _inside_.

While such writers are quite clear about the metal trap-doors and the

ocean, they have not yet fully fathomed the construction and arrangement

of the pillars. Whether the Bible teaches that they are "pillars of

salt," like Lot's wife, or of flesh and blood, like "James, Cephas, and

John," or such "iron pillars and brazen walls" as Jeremiah was against

the house of Israel--whether they consisted of "cloud and fire," like

the pillar Moses describes in the next book as floating in the sky over

the camp of Israel, or are "pillars of smoke," such as ascend out of the

wilderness--whether they are those "pillars of the earth which tremble"

when God shakes it, or "the pillars of heaven which are astonished at

his reproof"--whether they are the pillars of the earth and its

anarchical inhabitants, which Asaph bore up, or are composed of the same

materials as Paul's "pillar and basis of the truth," or the pillars of

victory which Christ erects "in the temple of God"[241]--they have not

yet decided. Whether the Hebrews understood these pillars to be arranged

on the outside of the metal hemisphere, and if so, to imagine any use

for them there; or in the inside, and in that case whether they kept the

sky from falling upon the earth, or only supported the earth from

falling into the sky, these learned men are by no means agreed. Having

trampled the pearl into fragments, their attempts to combine them into

another shape are more amusing than successful; and it is hard to say

which of the seven opinions ascribed to the Bible by Infidel

commentators is least probable. That opinion, however, will, doubtless,

after more vigorous and protracted rooting, be discovered and greedily

swallowed amid grunts of satisfaction; an appropriate reward of such

laborious stupidity.

The absurdities of the Greek philosophers were not drawn from the Bible.

Had the Greeks read the Bible more, they would have preserved the common

sense God gave them a great deal longer, and would not, while professing

themselves to be wise, have become such fools as to adore blocks and

stones, and dream of metal firmaments. But they turned away their ears

from the truth, and were turned unto such fables as Infidels falsely

ascribe to the Bible. A thousand years before the cycles and epicycles

of the Ptolemaic astronomy were invented, and before learned Greeks had

learned to talk nonsense about crystal spheres, and trap-doors in the

bottom of celestial oceans, the writers of the Bible were recording

those conversations of pious philosophers concerning stars, and clouds,

and rain, from which Galileo derived the first hints of the causes of

barometrical phenomena. The origin of rain, its proportion to the amount

of evaporation, and the mode of its distribution by condensation, could

not be propounded by Humboldt himself with more brevity and perspicuity

than they are expressed by the Idumean philosopher: "He maketh small the

drops of water; they pour down rain according to the vapor thereof,

which the clouds do drop and distill upon man abundantly. Also, can any

understand the spreadings of the clouds, or the noise of his

tabernacles?"[242] The cause of this rarefaction of _cold water_ is as

much a mystery to the British Association as it was to Elihu; and even

were all the mysteries of the electrical tension of vapors disclosed,

"the balancings of the clouds" would only be more clearly discovered to

be, as the Bible declares, "the wonderful works of Him who is perfect in

wisdom." But the gravity of the atmosphere, the comparative density of

floating water, and its increased density by discharges of electricity,

were as well known to Job and his friends as they are to the wisest of

our modern philosophers. "He looketh to the ends of the earth, and seeth

under the whole heaven, _to make weight to air, and regulate waters by

measure, in his making a law for the rain, and a path for the lightning

of thunder_."[243] Three thousand years before the theory of the trade

winds was demonstrated, or before Maury had discovered the rotation and

revolutions of the wind-currents, it was written in the Bible, "The wind

goeth toward the south, and turneth about to the north. _And the wind

returneth again, according to his circuits._"[244]

Thousands of years before Newton, Galileo, and Copernicus were born,

Isaiah was writing about the "orbit of the earth," and its

insignificance in the eyes of the Creator of the host of heaven.[245]

Job was conversing with his friends on the inclination of its axis, and

its equilibrium in space: "He spreadeth out the north over the empty

space, and hangeth the earth upon nothing."[246]

So far from entertaining the least idea of the waters of the atmosphere

being contained either on the outside or the inside of a metal or solid

hemisphere, the writers of the Bible never once use, even figuratively,

any expression conveying it. On the contrary, the well-known scriptural

figures for the fountains of the rain, are the soft, elastic, leathern

waterskins of the east, "the bottles of the clouds," or the wide,

flowing shawl or upper garment wherein the people of the east are

accustomed to tie up loose, scattering substances.[247] "He bindeth up

the waters in his thick cloud, and the cloud is not rent under them."

"Who hath bound the waters in a garment;" "As a vesture thou shalt

change them;" or the loose, flowing curtains of a royal pavilion; or the

extended covering of a tent: "his pavilion around him were dark waters,

and thick clouds of the skies;" "the spreadings of the clouds, and the

noise of his tabernacle;" "he spread a cloud for a covering."[248]

Instead of the notion of a single ocean, the "number of the clouds" is

proverbial in the Scriptures[249] for a multitude; and in direct

opposition to the permanence of a vast metallic arch, the chosen emblems

of instability and transitoriness, and of the utmost rapidity of motion,

suitable even for the chariot of Jehovah, are selected from the

heavens.[250]

In short, there is not the slightest vestige of any foundation in

Scripture for the notions long afterward introduced by the Greek

philosophers. Yet Christians, who have read these passages of Scripture

over and over again, allow themselves to give heed to Infidels, who have

not, asserting, without the shadow of proof, that Moses taught

absurdities which were not invented for a thousand years after his

death. The Bible gives hints of many profound scientific truths; it

teaches no absurdities; _and, instead of countenancing the notion that

the sky is a solid metal hemisphere, it teaches, both literally and

figuratively, directly the contrary_.

4. We come now to the fourth objection, _that the Bible represents God

as creating light before the sun_, which is supposed to be an absurdity,

_and as creating the sun, moon, and stars only two days before Adam_.

This is the only astronomical objection to the Bible account of creation

which has any foundation of Scripture statement to rest upon; but we

shall soon see that here, also, Infidels have not done themselves the

justice of reading the Bible with attention.

I have already corrected that confusion of ideas and carelessness of

perusal which confounds the two distinct and different words, _create_

and _make_, so as to make both mean the same thing. God _created_ the

heavens, as well as the earth, _in the beginning_; a period of such

remote antiquity that, in Bible language, it stands next to eternity.

The sun and moon then came into being. Through what changes they passed,

or when they were endowed with the power of giving light to the

universe, the Bible nowhere declares; but on the fourth day, it tells

us, they _were made lights_, or, literally, _light-bearers_, to this

earth. The comparatively insignificant place allotted to the stars, in

the narrative of this earth's formation, corresponds, with the strictest

propriety, to the nature of the discourse; which is not an account of

the system of the universe, but of the process of preparation of this

earth for the abode of man. Compared with the influences of "the two

great light-bearers," those of the stars are very insignificant; since

the sun sheds more light and heat on the earth in one day, than all the

fixed stars have done since the creation of Adam. It is evident, from

the words, that Moses is not speaking either of their original creation,

or of their actual magnitude, but of their appointment and use in

relation to us, when he says, "And God made two great light-bearers (the

greater light-bearer to rule the day, and the lesser light bearer to

rule the night), and the stars. And God set them in the firmament of the

heavens, to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and the

night, and to divide the light from the darkness."

Neither here nor elsewhere does he say they were _created_ at this time,

but in all the subsequent references uses other words, such as

"prepared," "divided," "made," "appropriated," "made for ruling,"

"gave;" a studious omission, which shows that the Author of the Bible

had not forgotten how long it was since he had called them into being.

_The Bible, then, does not say that God created the sun and stars only

two days before Adam._

Another correction of careless Bible reading is necessary, that we may

be satisfied about what the Bible _does not say_, ere we begin to defend

what it does say. The Bible does not say, nor lead us to believe, that

the darkness spoken of in the second verse of the first of Genesis had

existed from eternity. Darkness is not eternal; it requires the exercise

of creative power for its production. Light is the eternal dwelling of

the Word of God.[251] The darkness which brooded over our earth, at the

period of its formation, is very plainly described in the Bible as a

temporary phenomenon, incident to, and necessary for, the birth of

ocean. It is confined by the adverb of time, _when_, to the period of

condensation, upheaval, and subsidence, occupied by the birth of that

gigantic infant, "_when_ it burst forth as though it had issued from the

womb; _when_ I made the cloud a garment for it, and thick darkness a

swaddling band for it, and broke up for it my decreed place, and set

bars and doors."[252] The sun may have shone for millions of years

before upon the earth, or might have been shining with all his

brilliance at that very time, while not a single ray penetrated the

thick darkness of the vapors in which earth was clothed. But whether or

not, darkness must, from its very nature, be limited, both in space and

time. To speak of infinite and eternal darkness is as unscriptural as it

is absurd. The source of light is Uncreated and Eternal.[253]

Further--if my readers are not tired with these perpetual corrections of

careless reading and mistaken meaning--the light called into existence

in the third verse of the first chapter of Genesis is as evidently a

different word from _the two lights_ spoken of in the fourteenth verse,

as the singular is different from the plural; and the thing signified by

it is as distinct from the things spoken of in the fourteenth verse, as

the abstract is from the concrete; as, when I say of the first, "light

travels 195,000 miles per second," but mean a totally distinct subject

when I say, "Extinguish the lights." The Hebrew words are even more

palpably different, the word for _light_, in the third verse, being

_aur_, while the words for _the lights_, in the fourth day's work, are

_maurt_ and _at emaur_; words as distinct in shape and sense as our

English words, _light_ and _the lighthouses_.

The locality of the light of the third verse is, moreover, wholly

different from that of the light-bearers of the fourteenth verse. That

was placed on earth--these in heaven. It was of the earth alone the

writer was speaking, in the second verse; the earth alone is the subject

of the following verses. It was the darkness of earth that needed to be

illuminated; but there is not the remotest hint, in any portion of

Scripture, that any other planet or star was shrouded in gloom at this

time. But, on the contrary, we are most distinctly informed that the

wonders which God was performing in this world at that very time were

distinctly visible amid the cheerful illumination of other orbs, "when

the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for

joy,"[254] as this earth emerged from its temporary darkness. It was not

from the light of heaven, but out of this darkness of earth, that God,

who still draws the lightning's flash from the black thunder-cloud,

commanded the light to shine.[255] And it was upon this earth, and not

throughout the universe, that it produced alternate day and night. To

extend this command for the illumination of the darkened earth, so as to

mean the production of light in general, and the lighting of the most

distant telescopic, and even invisible stars--which are neither

specified in the command itself, nor by any necessity of language or

Scripture implied in it, but, on the contrary, excluded, by the express

Scripture declarations of the pre-existence of light, and of morning

stars--is an outrage alike against all canons of criticism, laws of

grammar, and dictates of common sense. The command, "Let there be

light," had respect to this earth only.

The Bible does represent this earth as illuminated at a time when the

sun was not visible from its surface--perhaps not visible at all. Now,

if any one will undertake to scoff at the Bible for speaking of light

without sunshine, or of the sun shining upon a dark earth--as Infidels

abundantly do--we demand that he tell us, What is light, and how is it

connected with the sun? If he can not, let him cease to scoff at matters

too high for him.

If he can tell us, he knows that the retardation of Encke's comet, which

every year falls nearer and nearer the sun, has discovered the existence

of an attenuated ether in the expanse or firmament; and that the

experiments of Arago on the polarization of light have finally

demonstrated that our sensation of light is exerted by a series of

vibrations or undulations of this fluid,[256] he will then be able to

perceive the propriety with which the Author of light and of the Bible

speaks, not of _creating_ light, as if it were a material substance, but

of _forming_ or commanding its display. And he will be better able to

comprehend the beauty and scientific propriety with which he selected

the active participle of the verb _to flow_, as the name for the

undulations of this fluid; for the primary meaning of the Hebrew verb

_ar_ is, _to flow_, or, when used as a noun, _a flood_. "It shall be

cast out and drowned, as by the _flood_ of Egypt."[257] And of the like

import are the nouns, _iar_ and _aur_, formed from it. "Who is this that

covereth up like a _flood_, whose waters are moved like the

rivers?"[258] The philosopher, even though he be a skeptic, will cease

to mock the Bible when he reads there, that 6000 years ago its Author

termed light _the flowing--the undulation_. "In the words of the 'Son of

God,' and the 'Son of Man,' no less than in his works, with all their

adaptation to the circumstances of the times and persons to whom they

were originally delivered, are things inexplicable--concealed germs of

an infinite development, reserved for future ages to unfold."[259] To

the man of learning and reflection, this progressive fullness, and

unfathomable depth of the Scripture, is a most conclusive proof that it

was dictated by Him in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and

knowledge.

But the ignorant scoffers--the great majority--will mock on, and speak

evil of the things they know not. Their mockery is founded on two

assumptions, which they believe to be irrefutable; that the sun is the

only possible source of light to the earth; and that it is impossible

for the sun to exist without illuminating the earth. Unless they can

_prove_ both of these assumptions to be true, they can not prove the

Bible account of creation to be false, nor even show it to be

impossible. Neither of these assumptions can possibly be proved true;

for none of them can explore the universe, to discover the sources of

light, nor put the sun through every possible experiment, to discover

that his light is an inseparable quality. The only thing Infidels can

truly allege against the Bible account of the origin of light is, _their

ignorance of the process_. The argument is simply this: "God could not

cause light without sunshine, _because I don't know how he did it_. Nor

_can I understand_ how the sun shone on a dark earth; therefore, it is

impossible."

These arguments from ignorance need no other answer than the questions,

Do you know how the sun shines at all? Is your ignorance the measure of

God's wisdom?

But I shall demonstrate the utter falsehood of both these assumptions,

by showing the actual existence of many sources of light besides the

sun, and the perfect possibility of the existence of the sun without

sunshine, and of sunshine without any light reaching the earth. Thus,

both the alleged _impossibilities_ upon which the argument against the

truth of the Bible is based will be removed, and the gross ignorance of

natural science displayed by professedly scientific scoffers at the

Bible exposed.

Light, so far from being solely derived from the sun, exists in, and can

be educed from, almost any known substance. Even children are familiar

with the light produced by the friction of two pieces of quartz; and no

one needs to be informed how light may be produced by the combustion of

inflammable substances. But the number of these substances is far

greater than is generally supposed, and light can be produced by

processes to which we do not generally apply the idea of burning.

Resins, wool, silks, wood, and all kinds of earths and alkalies, are

capable of emitting light in suitable electrical conditions; so that

the surface of our earth may have been a source of light in past ages,

as it even now is,[260] near the poles and the equator, flashing its

Aurora Borealis and Aurora Australis, and sending out its belts of

Zodiacal light,[261] far into the surrounding darkness.

Schubert, quoted by Kurtz, says: "May not that polar light, which is

called the Aurora of the North, be the last glittering light of a

departed age of the world, in which the earth was inclosed in an expanse

of aerial fluid, from which, through the agency of electric magnetic

forces, streamed forth an incomparably greater degree of light,

accompanied with animating warmth, almost in a similar mode to what

still occurs in the luminous atmosphere of our sun?"

Again, the metallic bases of all the earths are highly inflammable. A

brilliant flame can be produced by the combustion of water. All the

metals can be made to flash forth lightnings, under suitable electric

and magnetic excitements. The crystals of several rocks give out light

during the process of crystallization. Thousands of miles of the earth's

surface must once have presented the lurid glow of a vast furnace full

of igneous rocks. Even now, the copper color of the moon during an

ellipse shows us that the earth is a source of light.[262] The mountains

on the surface of Venus and the moon, and the continents and oceans of

Mars, attest the existence of upheaval and subsidence, and of volcanic

fires, capable of producing such phenomena, and of course of sources of

light in those planets, such as exist on the earth. We know, then, most

certainly, that there are many other bodies capable of producing light

besides the sun. That God could command the light to shine out of

darkness, and convert the very ocean into a magnificent illumination,

the following facts clearly prove. "Capt. Bonnycastle, coming up the

Gulf of St. Lawrence, on the seventh of September, 1826, was roused by

the mate of the vessel, in great alarm, from an unusual appearance. It

was a starlight night, when suddenly the sky became overcast, in the

direction of the high land of Cornwallis County, _and an instantaneous

and intensely vivid light, resembling the Aurora, shot out of the

hitherto gloomy and dark sea_, on the lee bow, which was so brilliant

that it lighted everything distinctly, even to the mast-head. The light

spread over the whole sea, between the two shores, and the waves, which

before had been tranquil, now began to be agitated. Capt. Bonnycastle

describes the scene as that of _a blazing sheet of awful and most

brilliant light_. A long and vivid line of light, superior in brightness

to the parts of the sea not immediately near the vessel, showed the base

of the high, frowning, and dark land abreast; the sky became lowering,

and more intensely obscure. Long tortuous lines of light showed immense

numbers of large fish, darting about as if in consternation. The topsail

yard and mizzen boom were lighted by the glare, as if gas-lights had

been burning directly below them; and until just before daybreak, at

four o'clock, the most minute objects were distinctly visible."[263]

The other assumption, that the sun could not possibly have existed

without giving light to the earth, is contradicted by the most familiar

facts. The earth and each of the planets might have been, and most

probably were, surrounded by a dense atmosphere, through which the sun's

rays could not penetrate. It is not at all necessary to prove that such

was the fact. I am only concerned to prove the _possibility_; for the

Infidel's objection is founded on the presumed _impossibility_ of the

coexistence of a dark earth and a shining sun. Any person who has ever

been in Pittsburg, Glasgow, or the manufacturing districts of England,

and has seen how the smoke of even a hundred factory chimneys will

shroud the heavens, can easily comprehend how a similar discharge, on a

larger scale, from the thousands of primeval volcanoes,[264] would cover

the earth with the pall of darkness. By the eruption of a single

volcano, in the island of Sumbawa, in 1815, the air was filled with

ashes, from Java to Celebes, darkening an area of more than 200,000

square miles; and the darkness was so profound in Java, three hundred

miles distant from the volcano, that nothing equal to it was ever

witnessed in the darkest night.[265] Those who have witnessed the fogs

raised on the Banks of Newfoundland, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and in

the Bay of San Francisco, by the mingling of currents of water of

slightly different temperatures, can be at no loss to conceive the

density of the vapors produced by the boiling of the sea around and over

the multitude of volcanoes[266] which have produced the countless

_atolls_ of the Pacific, and by the vast upheavals of thousands of miles

of heated rocks of the primary formations into the beds of primeval

oceans. While such processes were in progress, it was impossible but

that darkness should be upon the face of the deep.[267] Even now, a

slight change of atmospheric density and temperature would vail the

earth with darkness. We see this substantially done every time that God

"covereth the light with clouds, and commandeth it not to shine by the

cloud that cometh betwixt," although the sun continues to shine with all

his usual splendor. To understand how there may be a day without

sunshine, we need only conceive the whole earth temporarily enveloped

in the vapors of the unastronomical atmosphere of Peru, thus described

by Humboldt:

"A thick mist obscures the firmament in this region for many months,

during the period called _tiempo de la garua_. Not a planet--not the

most brilliant stars of the southern hemisphere--are visible. It is

frequently almost impossible to distinguish the position of the moon.

If, by chance, the outline of the sun's disc be visible during the day,

it appears devoid of rays, as if seen through colored glasses. According

to what modern geology has taught us to conjecture concerning the

ancient history of our atmosphere, its primitive condition in respect to

its mixture and density _must have been unfavorable to the transmission

of light_. When we consider the numerous processes which, in the primary

world, may have led to the separation of the solids, fluids, and gases

around the earth's surface, the thought involuntarily arises, _how

narrowly the human race escaped being surrounded with an untransparent

atmosphere_, which, though not greatly prejudicial to some classes of

vegetation, would yet have completely vailed the whole of the starry

canopy. All knowledge of the structure of the universe could then have

been withheld from the inquiring spirit of man."[268] The sun, then, may

have shone with all his brilliancy, for thousands of years, and a single

ray never have penetrated the darkness upon the face of the deep.

But we will go further, and show that so far from light being an

essential property of suns, it is a very variable attribute, and that in

several cases suns have ceased, and others begun, to shine, before our

eyes.

The fixed stars are self-luminous bodies, similar to our sun, only

immensely distant from us. Their numbers, magnitudes, and places, are

known and recorded. But new stars have frequently flashed into view,

where none were previously seen to exist; and others have gradually

grown dim and disappeared, without changing their place; and a few which

had disappeared have reappeared in the same spot they formerly occupied;

while others have changed their color since the era of astronomical

observation. In short, there is no permanence in the heavens, any more

than on the earth; but a perpetual progress and change is the destiny of

suns and stars, of which the most conspicuous indication is the

variability of their powers of giving light, of which I shall transcribe

a few instances.

"On the eleventh of November, 1572, as the illustrious Danish

astronomer, Tycho, was walking through the fields, he was astonished to

observe a new star in the constellation Cassiopea, beaming with a

radiance quite unwonted in that part of the heavens. Suspecting some

delusion about his eyes, he went to a group of peasants, to ascertain if

they saw it, and found them gazing at it with as much astonishment as

himself. He went to his instrument, and fixed its place, from which it

never after appeared to deviate. For some time it increased in

brightness--greatly surpassed Sirius in luster, and even Jupiter. It was

seen by good eyes in the daytime; a thing which happens only to Venus,

under very favorable circumstances; and at night it pierced through

clouds which obscured the rest of the stars. After reaching its fullest

brightness, it again diminished, passed through all degrees of visible

magnitude, assuming in succession the hues of a dying conflagration, and

then finally disappeared." "It is impossible to imagine anything more

tremendous than a conflagration that could be visible at such a

distance."[269]

Astronomers now recognize a class of such _Temporary Stars_, which have

appeared from time to time in different parts of the heavens, blazing

forth with extraordinary luster, and after remaining awhile, apparently

immovable, have died away, and left no trace.[270] Twenty-one of such

appearances of new suns are on record.[271]

Still further, many familiar suns have ceased to shine. "On a careful

re-examination of the heavens, _many stars are found to be

missing_."[272] "There are many well authenticated cases of the

disappearance of old stars, whose places had been fixed with a degree of

certainty not to be doubted. In October, 1781, Sir William Herschel

observed a star, No. 55 in Flamstead's Catalogue, in the constellation

Hercules. In 1790 the same star was observed by the same astronomer, but

since that time no search has been able to detect it. The stars 80 and

81 of the same catalogue, both of the fourth magnitude, have likewise

disappeared. In May, 1828, Sir John Herschel missed the star No. 42, in

the constellation Virgo, which has never since been seen. Examples might

be multiplied, but it is unnecessary."[273]

The demonstration of the variableness of the light-giving power of suns

is completed by the phenomena of the class called _Variable Stars_;

though the best astronomers are now agreed that _variability, and not

uniformity_, in the emission of light, is the general character of the

stars.[274] But the variations which occur before our eyes impress us

more deeply than those which require centuries for their completion. Sir

John Herschel has observed, and graphically described, one such instance

of variation of light.

"The star Eta Argus has always hitherto been regarded as a star of the

second magnitude; and I never had reason to regard it as variable. In

November, 1837, _I saw it, as usual_. Judge of my surprise to find, on

the sixteenth of December, that _it had suddenly become a star of the

first magnitude_, and almost equal to Rigel. It continued to increase.

Rigel is now not to be compared with it. It exceeds Arcturus, and is

very near equal to Alpha Centauri, being, at the moment I write, the

fourth star in the heavens, in the order of brightness."[275] It has

since passed through several variations of luster. Humboldt gives a

catalogue of twenty-four of such stars whose variations have been

recorded.

"A strange field of speculation is opened by this phenomenon. Here we

have a star fitfully variable to an astonishing extent, and whose

fluctuations are spread over centuries, apparently in no settled period,

and with no regularity of progression. What origin can we ascribe to

these sudden flashes and relapses? What conclusions are we to draw as to

the comfort or habitability of a system depending for its supply of

light and heat on such an uncertain source? Speculations of this kind

can hardly be termed visionary, when we consider that, from what has

been before said, we are compelled to admit a community of nature

between the fixed stars and our own sun; and when we reflect, that

geology testifies to the fact of extensive changes having taken place,

at epochs of the most remote antiquity, in the climate and temperature

of our globe; changes difficult to reconcile with the operation of

secondary causes, such as a different distribution of sea and land, but

which would find an easy and natural explanation in a slow variation of

the supply of light and heat afforded by the sun himself."[276] "I can

not otherwise understand alterations of heat and cold so extensive as at

one period to have clothed high northern latitudes with a more than

tropical luxuriance of vegetation, and at another to have buried vast

tracts of Europe, now enjoying a genial climate, and smiling with

fertility, under a glacier crust of enormous thickness. Such changes

seem to point to causes more powerful than the mere local distribution

of land and water can well be supposed to have been. In the slow secular

variations of our supply of light and heat from the sun, _which, in the

immensity of time, may have gone to any extent, and succeeded each other

in any order, without violating the analogy of sidereal phenomena which

we know to have taken place_, we have a cause, not indeed established as

a fact, but readily admissible as something beyond a bare possibility,

fully adequate to the utmost requirements of geology. A change of half a

magnitude on the luster of our sun, regarded as a fixed star, spread

over successive geological epochs--now progressive, now receding, now

stationary--_is what no astronomer would now hesitate to admit as a

perfectly reasonable and not improbable supposition_."[277]

The most eminent astronomers are perfectly unanimous in their deductions

from these facts. They regard _variability as the general characteristic

of suns and stars, our own sun not exempted_. "We are led," says

Humboldt, "by analogy to infer, that as the fixed stars _universally_

have not merely an apparent, but a real motion of their own, so their

surfaces or luminous atmospheres are generally subject to those changes

(in their "light process") which recur, in the great majority, in

extremely long, and therefore unmeasured, and probably undeterminable

periods, or which, in a few, recur without being periodical, as it were,

by a sudden revolution, either for a longer or a shorter time." And he

asks, _Why should our sun differ from other suns?_

In reference to the extinction of suns, he says: "What we no longer see

is not necessarily annihilated. It is merely the transition of matter

into new forms--into combinations which are subject to new processes.

Dark cosmical bodies may, by a renewed process of light, again become

luminous."[278]

In confirmation of the fact adduced in support of this view, by La

Place, "that those stars which have become invisible, after having

surpassed Jupiter in brilliancy, have not changed their place during the

time they continued visible," he adds, "The luminous process has simply

ceased." Bessel asserts[279] that, "_No reason exists for considering

luminosity an essential property of these bodies._" And Nichol sums up

the matter in the following emphatic words: "No more is light _inherent_

in the sun than in Tycho's vanished star; and with it and other orbs, a

time may come when, through the consent of all the powers of nature, he

shall cease to be required to shine. _The womb which contains the future

is that which bore the past._"[280]

Here, then we behold astronomy presenting to our observation facts and

processes so similar to those which revelation presents to our faith,

that all those men who are most profoundly versed in her lore, reasoning

solely from the facts of science, and without any reference to the

Bible, unanimously conclude that there was such a state of darkness and

confusion before our era, as the Bible declares--that its causes were

most probably such as the Bible implies--and that the sudden

illuminating of dark bodies, and their extinction, and even

re-illumination, are facts so perfectly well authenticated as matters of

observation in regard to other suns, that no reasonable man can hesitate

to believe any credible assurance that our sun has passed through such a

process. With what feelings, then, are we to regard men who, in

defiance of the most common facts, and in contradiction to the

demonstrations of science, blaspheme the God of truth as a teacher of

falsehood, because he speaks of light distinct from that of the sun?

Surely, such men are those whom he describes as "having the

understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, through

the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their hearts.

In whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them that

believe not."[281]

These facts, of the sudden kindling of stars, their gradual passage

through all the hues of a dying conflagration, and their final

extinction, and present blackness of darkness, are facts of fearful omen

to the enemies of God. They are the original threatenings of Heaven,

whence the fearful language of Bible warning is derived. They attest its

truth, and illustrate its import.

The favorite theory of the unbeliever is the uniformity of nature.

"Where," says he, "is the promise of Christ's coming to judgment; for

since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were since

the beginning of the world?" But the telescope dispels the illusion,

exhibits the course of nature as a succession of catastrophes, displays

the conflagration of other worlds, and the extinction of their suns,

before our eyes, and asks, _Why should our sun differ from other suns?_

It is not the preacher, but the philosopher, who has turned prophet,

when--looking back on the period when the Siberian elephant and

rhinoceros were frozen amid their native jungle, and icebergs visited

the plains of India--he proclaims, "_The womb that bore the past

contains the future._"

The threatenings of God's Word are invested with a mantle of terrible

literality by the facts we have been contemplating. Raised at the day of

resurrection, in these bodies, and with these senses, and this

capability of rejoicing in the light, and shuddering and pining amid

outward gloom, physical darkness will be the terrible prison of those

who chose darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. The

Father of Lights shall withdraw his blessed influences from the hearts,

the dwellings, the eyes, of those who say to him, "Depart from us, for

we desire not the knowledge of thy ways." The sun shall cease to vivify

God's corn, and wine, and oil, which ungodly men consume upon their

lusts. The moon shall cease to shine upon the robber's toil, and the

stars to illumine the adulterer's path. The light of heaven shall cease

to gild the field of carnage, where men perform the work of hell. In the

very midst of your worldliness and business, unbeliever, when you are in

all the engrossment of buying and selling, and planting and building,

and marrying and giving in marriage, without warning or expectation,

"the sun shall go down at noon, and the stars shall be darkened in the

clear day." As in the warning and example given to the enemies of the

Lord in Egypt, thick darkness, that may be felt, shall wind its

inevitable chains around you, preventing your escape from the judgment

of the great day, and giving you a fearful foretaste of that "blackness

of darkness for ever" of which you are now forewarned in the Word of

Truth.

"The sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light,

And the stars shall fall from the heavens,

And the powers of the heavens shall be shaken;

And then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in the heavens,

And then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn;

And they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven,

With power and great glory."

"Cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness;

There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

"Hear ye, and give ear; be not proud,

For the Lord hath spoken.

Give glory to the Lord, your God,

Before he cause darkness,

And before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains;

And while ye look for light,

He turn it into the shadow of death,

And make it gross darkness."

"I am the light of the world;

He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness,

But shall have the light of life."[282]

FOOTNOTES:

[218] Duff's India, 127.

[219] Somerville's Connection of the Physical Sciences, p. 83.

[220] Poole's Horæ Egyptiacæ.

[221] Henri L'Egypte Pharonique.

[222] Atlas Ethnographique, Eth. I.

[223] See Cruden's Concordance, Art. _Day_.

[224] Dan., chap. xii. 10. Job, chap. xxxviii. 4. Col., chap. ii. 18.

[225] Chap. I. _Did the World Make Itself?_

[226] Genesis, chap. i. 21.

[227] Genesis, chap. i. 27.

[228] Psalm civ. 30. Eccl., chap. xii. 1.

[229] Psalm li. 10. Ezekiel, chap. xxxvi. 26.

[230] Genesis, chap. ii. 1-5. Isaiah, chap. xliii. 1-7; chap. xlv. 1, 2.

[231] Wiseman's Lectures on the Connection of Science and Revealed

Religion, 1-297.

[232] Commentary on Genesis, i. 2.

[233] Exodus, chap. i. 5, 8.

[234] Isaiah, chap. xi. 3, 4.

[235] Psalm xc.

[236] John, chap. i. 1.

[237] Revelation, chap. i. 8.

[238] Proverbs, chap. viii. 22.

[239] Samuel, chap. xxii. 43. Isaiah, chap. xl. 19; chap. xliv. 24;

chap. xlii. 5. Psalm cxxxvi. 6. Numbers, chap. xvii. 38. Job, chap.

xxxvii. 18.

[240] Cosmos v. 2, p. 60.

[241] Genesis, chap. xix. 26. Exodus, chap. xiii. 20; chap. xxxiii. 10.

Jeremiah, chap. i. 18. Galatians, chap. ii. 7. Song, chap. iii. 6. Job,

chap. ix. 6; chap. xxvi. 11. Psalm lxxv. 3. 1 Timothy, chap. iii. 15.

Revelation, chap. iii. 12.

[242] Job, chap. xxxvi. 27.

[243] Job, chap. xxviii. 24--literal reading.

[244] Ecclesiastes, chap. i. 6.

[245] Isaiah, chap. xl.

[246] Job, chap. xxvi. 7.

[247] Ruth, chap. iii. 15.

[248] Job, chap. xxxviii. 37; chap. xxvi. 8; chap. xxxviii. 9; chap.

xxxvi. 29. Psalm cv. 39; lxxvii. 17.

[249] Isaiah, chap. xliv. 22. Jeremiah, chap. iv. 13. Job, chap.

xxxviii. 37. Proverbs, chap. xxx. 4.

[250] Ecclesiastes, chap. xi. 4. Psalm civ. 3. Matthew, chap. xxix. 30.

[251] Isaiah, chap. xlv. 7. 1 John, chap. i. 5. Daniel, chap. ii. 22. 1

Timothy, chap. vi. 16.

[252] Job, chap. xxxviii. 9, 10. Literally, _In my making_, etc.

[253] Revelation, chap. xxi. 23; chap. xxii. 5. Isaiah, chap. lx. 19.

[254] Job, chap. xxxviii. 7.

[255] 2 Corinthians, chap. iv. 6.

[256] Somerville's Connection of the Physical Sciences, Sec. 19-23.

[257] Amos, chap. viii. 8.

[258] Jeremiah, chap. xlvi. 7. Genesis, chap. xli. 1-18. See Parkhurst's

Hebrew Lexicon, sub voce.

[259] Neander.

[260] Cosmos, Vol. I. p. 196.

[261] Annual of Scientific Discovery. 1856.

[262] Cosmos, Vol. I. p. 196. Nichol's Solar System, 184.

[263] Somerville's Connection of Physical Sciences, 288.

[264] Cosmos, Vol. I. p. 250.

[265] Lyell's Principles of Geology, 465.

[266] Cosmos, Vol. I. p. 250.

[267] Cosmos, Vol. I. pp. 198, 216.

[268] Cosmos, Vol. III. p. 139.

[269] Nichol's Solar System, 188. Connection of Physical Sciences, 363.

[270] Herschel's Outlines, Sec. 827.

[271] Cosmos, Vol. VIII. p. 210.

[272] Herschel's Outlines, Sec. 832.

[273] Mitchell's Planetary and Stellar Worlds, 294.

[274] Cosmos, Vol. III. p. 253.

[275] Astronomical Observations, 351.

[276] Herschel's Outlines, Sec. 830.

[277] Astronomical Observations, 351.

[278] Cosmos, Vol. III. pp. 222-232.

[279] Cosmos, Vol. III. p. 246.

[280] Solar System, 190.

[281] Ephesians, chap. iv. 18. 2 Corinthians, chap. iv. 4.

[282] Matthew, chap. xxiv. 29. John, chap. viii. 12. Jeremiah, chap.

xiii. 15. Matthew, chap. xxii. 13 and chap. xxv. 30.