486 Archaxa. 



panorama pass before the eyes of a wondering multitude, and it 

 will be found that the closing scene will be that which was most 

 vividly impressed upon their minds. 



The last scene of the several creative acts, recorded in Genesis, is 

 therefore not unnaturally that which is recorded first : " The 

 evening was and the morning was one day." We cannot agree 

 therefore with our author that the word "day" (yom) " occurs in two- 

 senses (in the narrative) and that while it was to be the popular 

 and proper term for the natural day, this sense must be dis- 

 tinguished from its other meaning as a day of creation." Noi* 

 can we regard the affixing of the name " day" to the light " as a 

 plain and authoritive declaration that the day of creation is not 

 the day of popular speech." (p. 100.) 



If we were so to regard the day (yom) of the text, then we 

 would be driven to regard the " day of creation" as a long, eveir. 

 an illimitable period, of light ; for nothing can be more clear thaih 

 that only light bounded by evening and morning is day. On the 

 other hand we would also be compelled to suppose that this lone 

 long day-light was followed by an equally long night-darkness^ 

 and that there was a succession of such days and nights during; 

 the whole six periods of creation. 



What, in such a case, would become of the diurnal motion o 

 the earth and even of the powers and purposes of the Sun himself J 

 Unless to a geologist and an allegorical interpreter, we believe th» 

 idea that the word " yom" of the text, designates a period comprise 

 ing, it may be, myriads of years, would never have been conceived,. 

 That the learned Origen, in the year 220 A.D., entertained som< 

 such an idea, was the result of his oriental culture, under th« 

 influence of which he attempted to make the ereation, fall antf 

 deluge, a grand allegory which, if he had succeeded in doing, would, 

 have swept away the foundations of the Christian faith. As wc 

 reject his allegory of the fall so we reject his allegory of the days, 



Nor do we consider any support to the day-period theory to be 

 derived from the confessions of St. Augustine, a learned, but 

 by no means critical writer of the 5th century, in which he speaks 

 charmingly of the dispensation of grace being the Sabbath-day of the 

 Lord, and the work of his rest as that of human redemption. 

 That these are fine thoughts every christian will allow. So pleasing 

 have they been that they have floated in christian literature from 

 a very early date down to the present time. They originated 

 doubtless from the fact that God is represented as ending his, 



