NEW THEORY OF THE ORIGIN OP THE EARTH. 33 



phrases and to the ideas that are involved in them. ''Fahles 

 from the world's childhood," the lullabies that were sung at the 

 rocking of the cradle of the race, are still potent influences in 

 moulding the minds of men, and most of us talk as though we 

 didn't know that there is no height nor depth, no up nor down, 

 no ascending nor descending, in the boundless universe of God. 



The origin of the earth! We can make conjectures and 

 elaborate theories to explain the origin of the earth, but we cannot 

 know, we cannot go back tc the beginning. One thing, however, 

 we do know. We know — we do not conjecture, but we know — 

 that the earth, much less the heavens and the earth, wa'^ not made 

 in six days, neither in six solar days nor in six geologic days, and 

 we know that the World-builder has kept right on and is still at 

 work — that his task is not completed — that he has not rested from 

 liis labors for a Sabbath or a second. The forces with which he 

 has fashioned the earth are still ceaselessly shaping it. They never 

 grow weary and never take a holiday. There is no cessation of 

 activity in the universe. The recent outpouring from Vesuvius, 

 and the earthquakes that destroyed San Francisco, and Kingston, 

 Jamaica, show that the world builders are still doing business at 

 the old stand, and that they are no respecters of man or his 

 works. Instead of working for mankind, to make the earth a 

 dwelling place for so excellent a creature as man, the builders 

 take no notice of him, and crush him and the proudest monuments 

 of his skill and energy, when they get in the way, as ruthlessly as 

 we kill a mosquito or tread upon i worm . 



The origin of the earth ! Trie mind of man cannot conceive of 

 a time when suns and planets were not, nor of a time when the 

 (constituents of the universe were not, nor of the creation of some- 

 thing, whether a solar system or a hairpin, out of nothing, aiid so 

 we must leave the beginning out of the field of our inquiries and 

 take our departure, as mariners sav, from something visible — from 

 something conceivable, let us say in this case. 



Count the sands on the shores of every sea, and let each grain 

 represent a million years of the past, and we may possiblv get 



