no date to the mighty operation. The most superficial reader must admit the correctness of Doederlin's remark upon the beginning spoken of Tempus vocæ declaratur cum aliquid esse inciperet; verum quando insigne opus edideret Deus Moses non præcisæ finit. "By the phrase the time is declared when something began to be, but when God produced this remarkable work Moses does not precisely define." Geology demands nothing beyond what this indefinite enunciation of the Creator's work as to time supplies; and Theology, in the passage, requires only an acknowledgment of the will, power, and wisdom of the One God, bringing the world into being, which geologists reverently yield. This is the view entertained by Dr. Smith; and, if we are rightly informed, it was expressed by him in print some thirty years ago; a clear refutation of the statement, that his interpretations of Scripture have been determined by recent geological doctrines. We believe, then, the sacred archives to register the fact of the universe in its primordial elements being called into being at a precise point of time; but to leave the question completely undetermined when that time was. We feel at liberty, therefore, to put an interval as long as the imagination can conceive, between the first operation of the divine power and that movement which arranged the globe for the habitation of man; the inspired record allows room enough for all those wonderful transformations and changes to have transpired, whose indubitable memorials have been discovered by the scientific eye in the deep and dark places of the earth, and which, after ages of entombment, have been commanded to show themselves; but yet, as if to prevent man from becoming proud amid the triumphs of genius, he is checked at once in the endeavour to measure that cycle of duration through which the world has progressed, which will probably ever remain to us, in the present state, invested with the obscurity that marks the number of the ocean's sands. With singular flippancy and contraction of mind, Professor Stuart has observed, with reference to geological eras:-"Truly the planet we inhabit is venerable for age, if for no other quality." We would bid him to remember that time

We must strongly protest against the following remarks of Professor Stuart, though Dr. Smith has passed him by without a reference, on the ground, perhaps, of personal friendship :

"Thus we have," says he, "the first great event or transaction in the forma tion of the universe. It consisted in bringing the materials into being. But there are geologists who doubt all this, or look very grave when it is suggested, and think that it belongs only to superstition and credulity to give credit to it. I once met with a philosophizing Jew, who strenuously maintained that means only to array, adorn, set in order, &c.; and when I asked him how the earth when adorned and set in order could still be desolate and waste, as Gen. i. 2, asserts, his reply was, that Moses ought to have put the second verse first. This may provoke a smile from some; but grave geologists are not wanting, who reason little, if any, more conclusively than this, so far as the record of Moses is concerned."

We do not mean to deny but that Professor Stuart may have thus discoursed with a conceited Israelite, but if he insinuates that the eternity of matter is a doctrine held by any number of respectable geologists, we at once say that such is not the fact.

is a relative term, and that the ideas we form of its brevity or extent are shaped according to the standard we employ in its measurement. The man of three score years and ten, who appears venerable for age when compared with the nestling infant in its mother's arms, would be a very greenhorn by the side of Methuselah! So let us bring geology, with its cycles of thousands and millions of years, into contrast with Him who inhabits eternity," or the immortality for which we ourselves are destined, and they shrink into a span; and, for our part, we love to think of the antiquity which the world may claim, because, while it baffles us in the attempt to measure it, it aids us in our conceptions of that endless life upon which we hope to enter!

THE SIX DAYS' WORK.

Here we come to more debateable ground. Independent of geology, the first chapter of Genesis is, in many respects, a locus vexatissimus; but upon the following points the majority of sound critics may now be said to be agreed. They reject the mythic hypothesis of the German anti-supernaturalists reproduced in this country by Professor Baden Powell, which resolves the Mosaic account of the grand series of operations on the six days into a poetical fiction; they equally reject the idea which many of the christian fathers held, and which modern theologians of the Faber school have advocated, that the Hebrew day and days, are to be understood of indefinite periods; they believe also that Moses wrote optically, Kar' ov, in accordance with things as viewed by the physical eye. Dr. Smith has a Lecture which well deserves the thoughtful attention of every reader and expositor of the sacred volume, upon the manner in which the Scriptures speak of the nature and works of God; and with great ability and complete satisfaction to our minds, he shows the manner to be intentionally and necessarily condescending, in order that the subject matter may be intelligible to beings of finite understanding. This mode of communication he thinks peculiarly characteristic of the earlier sacred records; and unversed in science, rude and unlettered as the Hebrews were upon their first emergence from a state of slavery, such a descending to the circumstances of a people of scanty information, was obviously needed by them. Upon this principle Dr. Smith proceeds to explain the narrative of the six days' work, and we cannot do better than submit to our readers his views in his own words:

"Ver. 2. And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep.

"The first inquiry here is, What relation does this paragraph bear to the preceding? Is it the relation of close connexion, an immediate sequence; or does it only express posteriority without defining the separating interval? My conviction is, not the former, but the latter.

"The question will be answered by attending to the connecting particle. As it is rendered in our version, it naturally excites the idea of immediate sequence. But a few words will show that this wonld be an unwarranted inference from the expression in the original. This prefixed conjunction is the general connecting particle of the language; but the mode of connection may be extremely

various, and is always to be ascertained by a consideration of the circumstances in every case. It may be copulative, or disjunctive, or adversative; or it may express a mere annexation to a former topic of discourse, the connexion being only that of the subject matter, or the continuation of the composition. This continuative use forms one of the most marked peculiarities of the Hebrew idiom; and it comprehends every variety of mode in which one train of sentiment may be appended to another. As this prefix is most usually rendered and, in our version, (though frequently by other conjunctions,) the English reader has it in his power to observe the variety in the shades of meaning, and the different grounds upon which it connects sentiments and expressions. The two sentences are thus rendered by a cautious and judicious critic, the late Dr. Dathe, of Leipzic: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. But afterwards the earth became waste and desolate." "+

"A most important subject of our inquiry is the genuine meaning of the word which we render earth; and which, in passing, it may be remarked, has an etymological affinity with the words of the same signification in all the Teutonic languages, to which class ours belongs, the ancient Persian, those allied to the Hebrew and the Sanscrit. I assure my friends that I have not spared time and pains in pursuing this inquiry; and the result I will briefly give. The most general sense of the word is, the portion of the universe which the Supreme Lord has assigned for the habitation of mankind. When it is conjoined with the heavens' it denotes the entire created world; but it is evident of itself that the practical understanding of the phrase would be in conformity with the ideas of the people who used it. Frequently it stands for the land of Palestine; and indeed for any country or district that is mentioned or referred to in the connection. Sometimes it denotes a mere plot of ground; and sometimes the soil, clay, and sand, or any earthy matter. Often it is put, figuratively, for mankind, as the inhabitants of the world. Considering all the evidence of the case, I can find no reason against our considering the word, subsequently to the first verse, and throughout the whole description of the six days, as designed to express the part of our world which God was adapting for the dwelling of man and the animals connected with him. Of the spheroidal figure of the earth, it is evident that the Hebrews had not the most distant conception. The passages which have been quoted, and many others, abundantly convince me that it never entered into the purpose of Revelation to teach men geographical facts, or any other kind of physical knowledge.

"I must profess, then, my conviction that we are not obliged, by the terms made use of, to extend the narrative of the six days to a wider application than this; a description, in expressions adapted to the ideas and capacities of mankind

"It introduces the series of history, commencing at Numbers xx. 1; which immediately follows the preceding narrative from which it is chronologically separated by an interval of thirty-eight years; yet that interval is not indicated by any words; it is left to be made out by the research of the reader." Dr. Smith might have noticed the apposite case in Exod. ii. 1, 2, where the particle is used to denote the continuation of the narrative, and not an immediate sequence of events: "And there went a man of the name of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi; and the woman conceived and bare a son, and when she saw that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months." The birth of Moses was not the immediate sequent of the marriage, for Miriam and Aaron were older than he.

+ Professor Stuart, to whom we have had occasion to refer, speaks contemptuously of the elder Rosenmuller, as "a scholar in Hebrew, from whom posteaquam, as a translation of would not be unexpected;" yet, with singular inconsistency, he admits that "the general sense of the verse would not be materially injured by translating it thus- Afterwards the earth was without form,'" &c.

in the earliest ages, of a series of operations, by which the Being of omnipotent wisdom and goodness adjusted and furnished the earth generally, but, as the particular subject under consideration here, a PORTION of its surface for most glorious purposes; in which a newly formed creature should be the object of those manifestations of the authority and grace of the Most High, which shall to eternity show forth his perfections above all other methods of their display.

"This portion of the earth I conceive to have been a large part of Asia, lying between the Caucasian Ridge, the Caspian Sea, and Tartary, on the north, the Persian and Indian seas on the south, and the high mountain ridges which run, at considerable distances, on the eastern and western flank. I venture to think that man, as first created, and for many ages afterwards, did not extend his race beyond these limits, and therefore had no connexion with the extreme east, the Indian and Pacific clusters of islands, Africa, Europe, and America; in which regions we have occular demonstration that animal and vegetable creatures had existed to a vast amount, uninterruptedly, through periods past, of undescribable duration.

"This region was first, by atmospheric and geological causes of previous operation, under the will of the Almighty, brought into a condition of superficial ruin, or some kind of general disorder. With reverence I propose the supposition, that this state was produced by the subsidence of the region, of which the immediate cause might be the same that we know has often operated to work a similar effect in various districts upon the earth's surface; namely, that which is probably the cause of earthquakes, a vast movement of the igneous fluid mass below. Extreme darkness has been often known to accompany such phenomena. This is the meaning of the two words rendered without form and void.' These words in the Hebrew Bible are elsewhere used to describe ruined cities, wild wastes of desert-land, and figuratively any thing that is empty, unsubstantial, or useless.

"The sacred record presents to us the district described as overflowed with water, and its atmosphere so turbid, that extreme gloominess prevailed 'Darkness was upon the face of the deep,' the waters' mentioned just before. Both this deluge, from the flowing in of a sea or rivers, and the darkness, would be the effect of an extensive subsidence. The Hebrew word does not necessarily mean the absolute privation of light; it is used in relation to various circumstances of partial darkness; and we know that conditions of the atmosphere have locally happened, in ancient and in recent times, in which the noon-day has become dark as an ordinary night. The divine power acted through the laws of gravity and molecular attraction; and where requisite, in an immediate, extraordinary, or miraculous manner. The atmosphere over the region became so far cleared as to be pervious to light, though not yet perfectly transparent. In this process, the watery vapour collected into floating masses, the clouds; which, as we have seen, the ancient Hebrews expressed by the phrase 'waters above the firmament.' Elevations of land took place, by upheaving igneous force; and consequently the waters flowed into the lower parts, producing lakes, and probably the Caspian Sea, which manifestly belonged to the very region. The elevated land was now clothed with vegetation instantly created. By the fourth day, the atmosphere over this district had become pellucid; and had there been a human eye to have beheld, the brightness of the sun would have been seen, and the other heavenly bodies after the sun was set. Animals were produced by immediate creation, in this succession; the inhabitants of the waters, birds, and land-animals; all in the full vigour of their natures. No mention is made of the thousands of tribes of insects, molluscuous creatures, and animalcule; whose number, we know, transcends calculation. It is generally assumed by commentators that they are included in the things that creep.' But this very phrase supplies an illustration of the scripture-style, as condescending to the limited knowledge and the simple associations of comparatively uncultivated men. Last of all, God formed his noblest earthly creature; in the image of God created he him,' in the command of physical

faculties, the possession of intellect, a dominion over the lower creation, and the noblest enjoyment of all, the image of the divine holiness.”

6

"The condescending principle of the narrative is manifested in a striking manner, by the description of the fourth day. The sun is mentioned as the greatest luminary, the moon as the next in magnitude and importance, and the other shining orbs are grouped together as if they formed, even when all combined, the least object of consideration. The heavenly bodies are represented, not as being at that time created but made,' constituted or appointed, to be 'luminaries,' for such is the meaning of the word used; and their design is specified with an exactitude very observable; to afford light, and to furnish standards for the divisions of time; the operations of agriculture, and religious or other social observances. Had it been the purpose of revelation, to give a view of creation according to the physical reality, can we imagine that no reference would have been made to superior creatures, of whom the subsequent scriptures say so much, under an appellative which designates only their work and officeangels? Or that no mention would occur of the planets, and their satellites, as distinct from the fixed stars? And that all the notice taken of the astral system would lie in two words, and the stars?' If not our earth merely, but the entire solar system, were to be this instant blotted out of existence, it would be no more missed in the aspect of the universe-EXCEPT TO THE GLORIOUS CREATOR'S EYE-than a grain of sand blown away from the sea-shore!"— pp. 282-291.

Long as this impressive extract is, we could not withhold its insertion, in justice to the calm and lofty mind that produced it. We know not how others may have been affected by its perusal, but upon us it broke with somewhat of the charm said to have invested the isles of the west to him who first ploughed through the deep Atlantic in doubt and fear to their havens; and the more thoughtfully we have pondered over these views of Dr. Smith, with the Mosaic record open before us, the more reason we have found to conclude that it is not the "baseless fabric of a vision" we are invited to examine. If we rightly understand Dr. Smith, and we have endeavoured to do so, he places an interval of indefinite length between the first and second verses of the opening chapter of Genesis, in which our planet underwent those changes whose memorials are exhibited in its physical structure, and was adorned with the flora, and inhabited by the animal races whose fossil remains are preserved in its strata-he supposes a part of its surface to be broken up in an era of paroxysm, reduced from a state of order into confusion, the land sinking, and the ocean rushing in, realising the waste and desolate condition indicated by the "without form and void," and the "waters," spoken of in the inspired text-he conceives the catastrophe to have occasioned a dense turbid atmosphere, covering the abyss with an overhanging gloom, answering to the "darkness" which was on the "face of the deep"-he then comes to the operations of the six days, partly accomplished by natural agencies, and partly by the immediate exertion of the divine power-the submerged land is elevated, the waters retire into their old basins, a fresh formed vegetation clothes the earth, new races of animals are created, the atmosphere clears up, again it becomes pervious to the solar ray, the heavenly bodies are charged with the dispensation of light, and finally the grand process is completed by the appearance of man! Are these conjectures merely? We think