2 THE BRITISH NATURE BOOK 



God, as we believe our great poets and thinkers to be inspired, turned it into 

 the form of the immortal story which to-day we call the story of Adam and 

 Eve. It seemed to them that they had found certain high thoughts about 

 God : where they had come from, or how they came into their minds, they 

 could not tell ; but those thoughts they felt to be true, and so, in telling again 

 the old story of the Creation and the first man and woman, they raised it to 

 be a vehicle to convey these thoughts to others. 



If ever you are able to read the Assyrian story of the Creation, you will see 

 the diff$te,n'c;e betwe'eh- ft And the story of Genesis in this respect ; yet you will 

 understand 'that both versions come from some still older story. 



So*. \Vd jirajerstai^l tcKjaty.tliat the books of the Old Testament were never 

 intended 'to teach us science or history ; but they help us to see what science 

 cannot tell us. They show us that man is far more than an animal that he 

 has a spiritual character ; that he is, in fact, a soul ; and therefore there is 

 something in him that reaches out after a knowledge of other things besides 

 those that lie within the compass of his five senses after a knowledge of God 

 and the things of God after that spiritual realm to which the best part of him 

 belongs. 



The Bible is the record, then, from the human side, of the reaching out of 

 man's mind and soul after these things it is, we also believe, far more than 

 that : a record of how God has reached out after man's love and not a science 

 primer, or a history book. 



From this point of view it is as valuable as it was before, and indeed 

 more valuable : for instead of having to criticize and explain its imperfect 

 science and history, we can leave them alone altogether, and see how it helps 

 us to realize that higher life, and the relation of man to God, which those 

 old story-tellers felt was true when they told the great tales of the first few 

 chapters of Genesis. 



Naturally, living as they did in times that we should call barbarous and 

 uncivilized, compared with the present day, they could not put their thoughts 

 into such words as a great thinker or poet would use in the twentieth century. 

 They clothed their thoughts in very simple forms. They made them into 

 tales, just as we often make up tales for little children, knowing that this is 

 the best way to get them to understand things. That also helps to explain 

 the stories of the beginning of the world, and the creation of man ; and the 

 proper way to read them to-day is to try to discover what are the lessons 

 which are hidden under their surface. There are many such lessons, and the 

 longer we live the more true we are finding them to be ; but the first lesson, 

 and the lesson from which all others start, is contained in the opening words : 

 " In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." 



But though we believe this to be true, it is not long before we have to 

 pass on to another question : " How did He do it ? " Here Science steps in 

 and tells us what she has found out after long and laborious investigation. 

 Even now she does not pretend to be able to tell all the story ; but she tells 



