148 TRANSACTIONS OF THE [APR. 2, 
Moses, the earth and its contents were made in the short space 
of six consecutive days, and that, in consequence of so great an 
error, we must refuse to admit the divine origin of the story. 
The same strict adherence to every verbal detail, as strict as 
that which astronomers give to the photographs which they take 
of celestial phenomena, will I think carry the account safely by 
this difficulty. 
Suppose then that one was reading the story for the first time, 
and with no belief or theory about it. In short, suppose he had 
never heard of it, or of the controversies to which it has given 
rise. He would note in the first four verses a statement that 
certain important things were done, but no hint as to the time 
occupied in doing them. He would note after this an interrup- 
tion in the current of the narrative, a sort of dam thrown across 
the stream. Just as the fourth of July, 1776, stretches across 
the stream of American history, and marks the end of colonial 
life, and the beginning of national, so the ‘first day,” the 
first complete day and night, marks the end of the self-luminous 
condition and the beginning of the non-luminous or true plane- 
tary state. But the story does not say that anything was done 
on the day. 
In verses 6, 7 and 8, he would read of the condensation and 
descent of the waters which in superheated vapor had covered 
the earth to the depth of many hundred miles, and the an- 
nouncement of its completion in the words, ‘‘ And it was done.” 
Then he would note a second day clause, which interrupts the 
current of the story, and divides that stage from the next, but 
on which it is not said that anything was done. After this he 
would read of another long stretch of work, and again find the 
story interrupted, the past marked off and divided from that 
which was about to follow. 
Going through the narrative, he would find three more inter- 
ruptions, each following and preceding a stage of work. So far 
as this account says, no work was done on any one of these six 
days, but all was done in the interval between them, of whose 
length no intimation is given. Tried by the letter of the text, 
the charge that Moses says the earth was created in so brief a 
period must be dismissed. In fact, the real ground of the 
charge is not anything in Genesis, but it is the wording of the 
fourth commandment. 
I am well aware that many regard ‘‘day” as used in this 
story figuratively for a period of indefinite length. But any 
varying from the intensely literal character of this chapter 
seems out of harmony with its other statements, while the use 
of day to denote along period would be in harmony with the 
commandments; for their most marked characteristic, rhetori- 
