i 3 2 FAMOUS SCOTS 



a successive series of the Azoic, Silurian, Carboniferous, 

 Permian, Oolitic, and Tertiary ages. To the human eye 

 of the seer, the second day would afford nothing to 

 divert it from the atmospheric phenomena; on the 

 fourth the celestial phenomena would alone be so pro- 

 minent as to call for specific mention. But, familiar to 

 most readers as the famous passage is, we here present 

 it as the best example of his descriptive and imaginative 

 powers. If there are to be reconciliations at all, as 

 either necessary or desirable, it would be hard to beat 

 this fine piece of fused strength and imagination. 1 



* Such a description of the creative vision of Moses as the 

 one given by Milton of that vision of the future which he 

 represents as conjured up before Adam by the archangel, 

 would be a task rather for the scientific poet than for the 

 mere practical geologist or sober theologian. Let us suppose 

 that it took place far from man, in an untrodden recess of 

 the Midian desert, ere yet the vision of the burning bush 

 had been vouchsafed ; and that, as in the vision of St. John 

 in Patmos, voices were mingled with scenes, and the ear as 

 certainly addressed as the eye. A " great darkness " first 

 falls upon the prophet, like that which in an earlier age fell 

 upon Abraham, but without the "horror"; and as the 

 Divine Spirit moves on the face of the wildly troubled 

 waters, as a visible aurora enveloped by the pitchy cloud, 

 the great doctrine is orally enunciated, that " in the begin- 

 ning God created the heavens and the earth." Unreckoned 

 ages, condensed in the vision to a few brief moments, pass 

 away; the creative word is again heard, "Let there be 



i Testimony of the Rocks, pp. 186-191, ed. 1857. 



