156 GEOLOGY AND MOSES. 



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shall stand as an ensign of the people ; to it shall the Gentiles 

 seek : and his rest shall be glorious. And it shall come to 

 pass in that DAY, that the Lord shall set His hand again a 

 second time to recover the remnant of His people." (Isa. xl. 

 10, 11.) "And it shall come to pass in that DAY, that the 

 mountains shall drop down new wine, and the hills shall flow 

 with milk." (Joel iii. 18.) And Jesus says, "Abraham re- 

 joiced to see my DAY ; and he saw it, and was glad." (John 

 viii. 56.) In neither of these passages is it possible to restrict 

 the meaning of the word " day" to the period of the diurnal 

 revolution of the earth. In candor, therefore, it must be 

 acknowledged to be at least extremely probable that the word 

 " day" is used in an equally enlarged and spiritual sense in the 

 equally spiritual language of the first chapter of Genesis 

 especially as there are so many other facts and circumstances 

 to corroborate such an interpretation. 



Considering the six days of creation, then, as expressing six 

 periods of very long duration, let us inquire whether the inci- 

 dents and characteristics of these periods as described by Moses, 

 bear any similarity to the incidents in the physical history of 

 our globe, as revealed by geological science ; and whether the 

 Mosaic classification of periods and operations possesses that 

 evidence of truthfulness which consists in a conformity to the 

 law of the three-fold and seven-fold correspondential series. 



In a previous general survey, ranging from the origin to the 

 full maturity of our globe, we have seen that there were seven 

 grand periods or stages in its development, as there are seven 

 stages in the development and compartments in the constitu- 

 tion of all perfect systems. These periods, however, are not 

 throughout exactly coincident with the periods described by 

 Moses, inasmuch as the two descriptions embrace subjects 

 somewhat different. In our general geological survey we have 



