THE GENESIS OF THE EARTH. 15 



the universal ocean, its waves rolling unobstructed 

 around the globe, and its currents following without 

 hindrance the leading of heat and of the earth's rota- 

 tion. Then the rupture of the crust and the emer- 

 gence of the nuclei of continents. 



Some persons seem to think that by these long 

 processes of creative work we exclude the Creator, and 

 would reduce the universe into a mere fortuitous 

 concourse of atoms. To put it in more modern phrase, 

 " given a quantity of detached fragments cast into 

 space, then mutual gravitation and the collision of the 

 fragments would give us the spangled heavens." But 

 we have still to ask the old question, <( Whence the 

 atoms?" and we have to ask it with all the added 

 weight of our modern chemistry, so marvellous in its 

 revelations of the original differences of matter and 

 their varied powers of combination. We have to ask, 

 WTiat is gravitation itself, unless a mode of action of 

 Almighty power ? We have to ask for the origin of 

 of thousands of correlations, binding together the past 

 and the future in that orderly chain of causes and 

 effects which constitutes the plan of the creation. If 

 it pleased God to create in the beginning an earth 

 " formless and void/' and to elaborate from this all 

 that has since existed, who are we, to say that the 

 plan was not the best ? Nor would it detract from 

 our view of the creative wisdom and power if we were 

 to hold that in ages to come the sun may experience 

 the same change that has befallen the earth, and may 

 become ff black as sackcloth of hair," preparatory 



