Genesis And Geology Hand In Hand.

its different layers of rocky or sedimeutal crusts , first the unstratified and igneous , ancl afterwards the stratified aud aqueous . The Bible nowhere fixes the date of the creation . Genesis i . 1 , " fn tJie beginning God created the heavens and the earth . " There is no definite

fixing of the time ivhen by the expression " In the beginning ; " on the contrary , it is surely mdefinite . It proves conclusively that they were created at some time . It also proves as clearly that there was a time in which , the heavens and the earth were not in existence . It ; shows that at some

time or other the heavens and the earth began to be , and that their existence at that undefined time sprang from a volition of the will of God , the Almighty Creator . It proves that they were not eternal ; ancl may we not suppose , that Moses was inspired of God to write thus , partly against

the teaching of the heathen Egyptian philosophers ? There is not—and there cannot be—any proof that the first verse is not separated from the six days by an incalculably broad chasm of time , affording ample space and verge enough for any

or all of the facts , or discoveries , of geology , whatever length of time they might have required . Nor is this all ; but , in addition , there must have been an indefinite and lengthened period between the original creation related in the first verse and the time of the so-called chaotic condition

described in the second verse , from which condition the earth was restored in the work of the six days , and which restoration the third verse commences to describe . Let us weigh the term "In the beginning /'' aud let the so-called chaos be for a subsequent consideration . It appears probable that however

good a translation . "In the beginning may be , yet that had the Bible , as the Worcl of God , been inspired in the English language , the words " In the beginning" might not have been used , for they seem to be a much more literal translation of the Septuagint Greek—a version generally correct ,

and highly honoured , since it was quoted several times by our Blessed Lord Himself—than of the original Hebrew . " In the beginning " refers us to the beginning , not the beginning of time , for that may be more correctly supposed to commence at the first measurement of time , the first of the

six days , ages and ages subsequent , but the beginning of the creation of the earth , though the expression may , nay must , infer that the Creator must of necessity have been before the thingcreated . "In the beginning , " therefore , seems to bo a correct translation of the Greek en arche ,

but signifying nothing more , if , indeed , as much . En arche means from the very spring or source , as tracing a mighty river to its very commencement , finding out the very root of a matter , or being sure that the bottom itself is fathomed . But , however expressive en arc-he may be as to the thing itself , the original Hebrew worcl B ' raJtshceth ,

the worcl inspired of God , means for more , for ife not only traces up anything to its commencement , but it suggests beyond , for it does not stop there , but infers the period when it was not , an indefinite at first . B'rahsheeth , and the connection it is in ,, seems to comprehend in one suggestive idea , three

several periods . First the interminably longperiod to the commencement of the heavens and the earth ; secondly , the epoch of their very beginning ; and thirdly , the eternal period when they were not , but were willed to be in the intention of the Great Creator and Mighty Architect of

the Universe , the Eternal God . A commencement of creation there must have been , but before that , from all eternity , the Selfexistent was His own All-sufficiency . The first verse , therefore , surely only asserts the creation of matter at some epoch unknown to man . The

second verse describes the state the created earth . was in immediately before the restoration , though ages and ages may , nay , must , for by geology the study of the same identical work of God is provedhave intervened between the orig inal creation related inthe first verse and the so-called chaotic state described in the second verse . It may be said that the two verses are connected , tied together

by the conjunction " and . " They may appear to be so in the English , but are not so in the Hebrew ; and certainly in inspired words connection in composition does not as a necessary consequence infer or require contiguity in states , or continuance in time , for there are passages where in English only

a comma divides centuries , and other passages thewords of which are so interlaced , and the meaning so interwoven , that it is impossible for the human intellect to analyse fully , or to separate correctly . As an instance of the first , may becited the passage in Isaiah Ixi . 2 which oui- Lord

, quoted ( Luke iv . ) , and where he stops at "To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord , " and adds " This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears ; " but He has pointedly omitted to continue the passage in Isaiah , the following words of which are " And the clay of vengeance of onr God , "

which is not yet fulfilled , nor will be till the day of judgment . As an instance of interwoven words belonging to different periods the 24 th chapter of St . Matthew may be quoted , where the prophecies of the destruction of Jerusalem , now fulfilled , are so intimately connected with the prophetic

allusions to the destruction of the world , that even now , when one is fulfilled ancl the other not , with the interval of centuries , no critical commentator

can clearly separate between the two . The word and in English is generally a copulative particle , but the original of this English and in Genesis i . 2 , is not so in the old Hebrew Scriptures . Parkhurst says that the "lad" in the Greek Septuagint , like tho Hebrew " van" "is used in almost all sorts of connections , and serves for most of the different kinds of conjunctions , " and he cites 24 . The elder Michaelis assigns to