HOW LIFE APPEARED ON EARTH 127 



how much anyone may wish to expunge the 

 Creator from His works, the fact stands incon- 

 testable that vegetable life is found in the precise 

 location in the Scripture account which modern 

 science must assign to it, even to its appearance 

 before the full sunlight would penetrate the mists. 

 This, and no more, we desire here to maintain, 

 without seeking to affix any scientific hypothesis to 

 a Scripture text. 



So then, with the creation of the first humble 

 forms of vegetative existence, the entire scene is 

 at once unveiled before our eyes by the inspired 

 writer, as, on the evolutionary assumption, it was 

 to unfold itself in the course of the unnumbered 

 years. It matters not whether these are reckoned 

 by the thousands or the millions. Thus only 

 could the great fact be consistently told by the 

 sacred scribe to a primitive people and yet re- 

 tain all its truth for the most advanced worker in 

 modern research. Here follows the Scripture ac- 

 count: 



And the earth brought forth the green herb, 

 and such as yieldeth seed according to its kind, and 

 the tree that beareth fruit, having seed each one 

 according to its kind. 



We may add here that science has exceedingly 

 little to tell concerning this earliest period of 

 living organisms. Owing to the great changes 

 that still continued to take place upon the earth's 

 surface, their traces have been almost entirely ob- 



