154: GEOLOGY AND MOSES. 







and, admitting these claims, its peculiar forms of thought and 

 expression must be admitted to have been governed, to some 

 extent, by spiritual laws ; and according to these same laws, 

 therefore, they must be interpreted. Now, one way, and, in 

 some instances, the only feasible way, of conveying in human 

 language a deep interior idea is, by presenting it in the verbal 

 imagery of some familiar exterior fact, which embraces within 

 itself the identical principle which is involved in such interior 

 idea. That this rule was observed in all the parabolic, and 

 much of the prophetic and descriptive language of the Bible, 

 no one who is familiar with the contents of that book can 

 deny. 



Now, let it be observed, that if Moses himself, through 

 spiritual or Divine impressions, or any other means, had pos- 

 sessed any adequate idea of the immense periods which Ge 

 ology proves to have elapsed between the commencement of 

 the creation of our globe and the introduction of man upon its 

 surface, it would have been impossible for him to have con- 

 veyed to the unenlightened minds of the semi-barbarians of his 

 age and nation any adequate idea of the actual truth of the 

 case ; and any attempt to do this, would only have been pro- 

 ductive of misapprehension, and would probably have gene- 

 rated some of the wildest forms of superstition. The probability 

 is, however, that Moses himself had no adequate conception 

 of the immensity of the actual periods of creation ; and con- 

 sidering him, according to his claims, as a revelator merely 

 of what was revealed to. him, this admission may be made 

 without affecting the truthfulness of the representations which 

 were by him recorded as he himself received them. 



These considerations strongly favor the belief, even a priori, 

 that any truthful record of the natural history of creation 

 made in those days, and especially for spiritual purposes, and 



