118 PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY. 
following verses—may have intervened a space of which millions of ages may 
have been but units. The work of creation in connexion with our own globe 
and the solar system is narrated in the following verses. Here, then, is 
started the enquiry, Are we to understand this literally—six days of twenty- 
four hours each? or does the term day, according to a common usage of 
Scripture, express a very long though definite period of time? or have 
we here the utterances of a prophetic mind—the narrations of the prophetic 
historian’s mentalapprehensions and visions, when he was under the power 
of Divine inspiration? That is to say, Did he see, as it were, the work of 
creation commence, and go on unto completion, when under the influence of 
the prophetic ecstasy, as probably the other prophets of God did when they 
were under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost? They saw facts in vision as 
if to them they were realities, and as some think, pictorial views, in which 
objects that were near and those which were afar off, were present to the 
mind like the wide expanse of a glorious landscape, in which the near and 
the distant appear to the eye at the same time—and were written as thus 
seen. So God made the mental perception of the prophetic historian to take 
in, during six days’ revelation, all things which transpired from the com- 
mencement of creation to the placing of man on earth. Thus the return of 
morning and evening would be literally true—but true in relation to the 
prophet’s divine ecstasy rather than as expressing the period of the Creator’s 
operations. 
‘“Thus only shall we enter on the true course of progress, when 
we feel such a divine impulse to go forward—for only as you advance can 
you be happy or wise. Go forward—all things around are moving, and 
every thing in creation is developing into a higher and higher state of being 
—and thus they say to us, Go forward. Let ‘ Excelsior’’ be our motto— 
let progress be our aim. 
There is a firefly in the southern clime, 
Which shineth only when upon the wing ; 
So is it with the mind,—when once we rest 
We darken. On! said God unto the mind, 
As to the earth, for ever. On it goes, 
Rejoicing native of the infinite— 
As a bird of air—an orb of heaven. 
Go forward, but with all your study of creation, ignore not creation’s God. 
The German has said that we may see in nature all that we bring an eye to see 
it with. Christ has said the pure in heart shall see God. Let us not be of 
the number of those who see there everything but God, but of those who see 
God in everything. The universe is Jehovah’s temple: let us not admire 
the temple, for the solidity ofits foundation, or the grandeur and beauty of its 
structure, but see no God there; rather let our admiration of the created 
fill us with adoring thoughts of the great Allin All. Then indeed shall 
creation seem refulgent with the glories of the Eternal King, and all things 
around be vocal with His praise.”’ 
