3io Natural Theology. 



to hold its place when thrown up. For countless 

 ages that crust must have thickened beneath the 

 waters that grew deeper and deeper as the lower 

 temperature of the globe allowed more and more to 

 be condensed from the air, until the atmosphere, 

 with a perfect ocean beneath and dense clouds 

 above, took its place as a divider of the waters 

 which it holds to-day. Thus by the natural change 

 of the globe was produced the condensation and 

 separation of the mingled elements, until the two 

 permanent gases which were prepared to consti- 

 tute the atmosphere were left mainly free, and had 

 gained their proper place, and had commenced one 

 of their great offices in the machinery of creation. 



How now do the words of the Bible correspond 

 with this description which we have made, guided 

 by the known laws of nature ? 



"And God said. Let there be a firmament in the 

 midst of tJie waters, and let it divide the ivaters from 

 the wafers!' 



The word translated firmament means simply ex- 

 panse, anything that is spread out. And the criti- 

 cism that has been made that Moses taught that 

 there was a solid sphere above us, has no foun- 

 dation in -the Holy Scriptures. That doctrine be- 

 longs to a later day, if not to a heathen philosophy. 



The great office of this firmament is to-day what 

 it was when first separated from the condensing ele- 

 ments. It is the great water-bearer. From the 

 waters beneath go up the unseen streams, till in 

 the colder upper regions they condense in clouds 



