16 THE STORY OP THE EARTI/ AND MAN. 



perhaps, to clianges whicli may make him also the 

 abode of life; or if the earth, cooling still further, 

 should, like our satellite the moon, absorb all its 

 waters and gases into its bosom, and become bare, 

 dry, and parched, until there shall be ^^ no more sea,'' 

 how do we know but that then there shall be no 

 more need of the sun, because a better light may be 

 provided ? Or that there may not be a new baptism 

 of fire in store for the earth, whereby, being melted 

 with fervent heat, it may renew its youth in the fresh 

 and heavenly loveliness of a new heaven and a new 

 earth, free from all the evils and imperfections of the 

 present ? God is not slack in these things, as some 

 men count slackness ; but His ways are not like our 

 ways. He has eternity wherein to do His work, and 

 takes His own time for each of His operations. The 

 Divine wisdom, personified by a sacred writer, may 

 well in this exalt his own office : — 



" j'ehovali possessed me in the beginning of His way. 

 Before His work of old. 

 I was set up from everlasting, 

 From the beginning, or ever the earth was. 

 "When there were no deeps, T was brought forth; • 

 When there were no fountains abounding in water. 

 Before the mountains were settled, 

 Before the hills, was I brought forth : 

 While as yet He had not made the earth, 

 Nor the plains, nor the higher part of the habitable world, 

 When He gave the sea His decree, 

 That her waters should not pass His limits; 

 When He determined the foundations of the earth.** 



