Genesis And Geology Hand In Hand.

The most correct scientific deductions attempt to explain the jjhenomenon of light by a comparison with the known effects of certain -mechanical causes , which may remain most valuable , until , indeed , if ever God may choose in his wisdom and goodness to reveal its nature , or allow it to be discovered . '

Some have supposed light to consist m the projection of detached particles with a known velocity . Others , more modern , have revived the most ancient theory of an undulatory action of a highly ethereal ancl universally diffused fluid . Newtonindeedfavoured the former idea of

, , the succession of material particles until the polarisation of light tended to revive the doctrine of the undulatory action . But although so little is known as to its nature , its effects are clear and universally admired .

Although we cannot tell how light is so , yet we know it to be pure , subtle , swift , mysterious , ancl ethereal . Ligh is Pure , 1 st , as being as far as man ' s knowledge can discern , elementary , and therefore uncompounded ; 2 nd , that it is in its nature pure

and transparent , revealing things as they are , distinctly , without ttncluly influencing any , or being influenced by them , beyond what is necessary to reveal its action , or their capacity for receiving or reflecting light . Light is Subtle , for although it ever obeys

known laws , they are laws which the uniformity of its own action has tauo-ht ; for without the evideuce by sight , the knowledge of the laws would never suggest the action of li ght to one born blind . And moreover it passes through certain solid , though not opaque , bodies , which might

have been expected to havo offered an impassable barrier , but which really , form no obstruction , although it is little , if at all known how light passes through thick solid , though transparent masses , remembering the theory of the projection of innumerable and independent particles or tho more probable wave theory , occasioning the spreading influence by undulatory action .

Light is Swift , for a ray of light travels at the rate of two hundred thousand miles in a second of time , whereas the initial speed of a cannon ball is only about one thousand six hundred , or in other words , supposing a ray of light and a cannon ball to emerge from the sun at the same moment ,

upon the instant of the birth of a child on earth , one to convey a blessing and tho other a message of death , the ray laden with blessing would arrive , having travelled the 95 millions of miles , when the child was eight minutes old , whereas the ball messenger of death could not reach its little victim until it had lived to be ten vears of a-re .

Light is Mysierinns , for although it is and has ever been plain aud manifest to man , since the time of Adam , it has ever escaped the most subtle reason to be analysed where it is enjoyed , or to be described where the power of the sense so

generally bestowed and so peculiarly adapted to receive it , may be denied . Light is Etherial , for of all substances on earth it is the most immaterial , the most spiritual , the least of earth , and tlie most suggestive of heaven and heavenly things .

Sow old is Ligld cannot be answered either relatively to the sun , for we are nowhere told when the sun , moon , or stars were created , neither can it be replied to with reference to its own origin , for we have full proof that light existed in unknown ages long before the time of Adam , as

also we have full evidence of the sun itself having existed in old periods antecedent * to the six days of the restoration , referred to in the oldest record , the gloriously inspired first chapter of Genesis . Scripture nowhere says that light was created on the first day , or the sun created on , the fourth day . What God in his wisdom chose his word should

be silent about , that his work , in ltis goodness , by palpable evidence , he permitted to reveal . His word is simply silent about the existence of light before the first day , and of the existence of the sun before the fourth day ; ergo , ifc denies neither .

But his work manifests both the one and the other as in existence long before , although there is no evidence when the one or the other commenced to exist . Although the question when was the sun created has been shown to be unanswerable , let

us humbly learn why it is so—1 st from Scripture , 2 nd from nature . 1 st from Scripture , because the sun , Hebrew shemesh , is not once mentioned in the 1 st chapter of Genesis , as it does not occur till Genesis xv . 12 . " When the sun was going down" & c .

, The words translated " greater light" in our Bibles , Gen . i ., 16 , are Jiammaorhaggadol , great light bearer ; they clearly mean fche sun itself , as the greater light bearer , and if the words in Hebrew scripture , hammuor haggadol , greater light bearer , were used in connection with Lara .

create , it would of course teach us ofthe creation of the sun then and there , but they are nowhere in connection ; the word used is vauyaas , lval , future apoc . third person sing . mas . gender , with van convevsive verb , root , axah , to make , & c , i . e ., made , adapted , set , arranged , which , taken in connection

with what the work of God reveals , proves thafc very existence of somo of the li ght bearers which shine on our globe testifies that they must have been shining much longer than the six thousand years since tho six days , for the light of some of the nebukowhich can be perceived with the naked

, eye , takes no account of their calculable though inconceivable distance , more than twenty or thirty thousand years to reach our earth . Fuels proce titut nothing of life known in either the vegetable or animal kingdom could exist long when the earth ivas without form and void , and