The Work of the Sixth Day.
1. Beasts, with a perishable spirit, are the evening of the sixth day.
Man without an immortal spirit is the morning. Here we shall find the
grandest contrast of any of the six days. Historic man is the morning,
extending to the end of God’s work, in reference to matter.
Duration ceases to be measured at the close of this day. Solomon alludes
to the contrasts found in this day. “Who knoweth the spirit of the
beast, that goeth downward; and the spirit of man, that goeth upward?”
For a long time these animals, without a spirit to be preserved, ruled
the earth as kings, “without any one to till the soil.” Jungles and
forests, mountains and dales, lakes and caves, alike afford no facts
inconsistent with this statement of Moses. Should science ever confirm
the existence of a race prehistoric, resembling man, it will doubtless
be shown that they were not a contrast with beasts, and have no
connection with our race.
2. Our race undoubtedly sprang from Adam less than six thousand years
ago. Prehistoric man, like evolution, rests upon the hypotheses of men,
always unsafe; but in this case unsupported by a well-attested fact. The
former may claim the intuitions of that class of persons ever looking up
the genealogy of Cain’s wife; the latter has the common sense of the
average man against him. Upon this subject, as upon every other upon
which the Bible pretends to speak, “If they speak not according to what
is written, it is because there is no truth in them.” By special
revelation man saw that by a special providence of God, he caused the
ground to become the mother of man; and from this creation proceeded, by
the same special providence, a help-meet for man. She has ever proved
herself the great help in the march of civilization. Facts show that man
gloriously contrasts with the highest types going before.
3. It is not yet a settled question that the air, for any number of
thousands of years before Adam, was sufficiently cleared of deadly gases
as to admit of human breathing. On looking upon the coal veins of
Pennsylvania, we need no argument to show that man could not have
breathed the carbon that hung in the air of that period of deposit. The
mute faces of the coal beds of Ohio forbid man’s existence then,
although these succeed the former by millions of years. Geologists agree
that the Pacific deposits of coal have been this side of the great
upheavals of the large mountains. If man had been living then, the
carbonic acid of the air would have strangled the life out of him. When
we take into consideration how very slowly a continent rises out of the
ocean, and that both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts had to rise over
five thousand feet to expose their fruitful valleys; and also how very
long a period had to elapse after, before the air would be laid into the
ground by vegetation, we shall readily see the force of this
proposition, viz: The very calculations which science has given us bring
the deadly gases very near to the time given in Genesis for the creation
of our present race.
The volcanic periods of the world’s history argue against the early
habitation of the Earth by man. Every volcano is a vent for the escape
of deadly gases, caused by the consumption of oils and coal in the
Earth’s strata. The enormous quantity of coal consumed is but faintly
indicated by the amount of ashes thrown out. The mountains give evidence
of recent volcanic disturbance, greatly exceeding the present. Ancient
river beds are found into whose channels the debris of the mountains had
been dragged by the great ice-flow, until leveled over to the height of
several thousand feet; then the volcanic era covered, in places, this
drift fifty or sixty feet thick; thus preserving the silt from being
dragged away, as the waters receded. The fact that we had a coal period
following, shows that man in the volcanic period, and for thousands of
years after, could not breathe the air. Our active volcanoes are reduced
to about three hundred. Still the air is polluted in many ways. Smelting
works, forges and gas plants all pollute the air. Every cesspool, every
whiff of burning tobacco, adds its quota to air-corrupting. Each year
contributes to deposit a portion of the remaining carbon of the air.
Rich valleys of warm zones are not yet healthy. We still go to the
mountains for invigorating air.
5. Evidently, we have not yet reached the climax of good breathing air.
Nature discourages the thought, that man could have continued his race,
in any time, much previous to that given for the creating of Adam. The
morning of the sixth day is in progress. Prophecy presents the coming
man greatly improved over the present. “My Father worketh hitherto, and
I work.”
6. This morning ends, when the angel stands one foot upon the land, his
right hung over the sea, with his left hand pointing to heaven,
proclaiming that time shall be no longer. “And God rested from all his
labor.”
● Transcriber’s Notes:
○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only
when a predominant form was found in this book.
○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).