AS TO THE EELATIONS OF SCIENCE AND FAITH. 23] 



beautiful they are. They are not intended to teach us what the 

 subjects are, but to lift our minds up to God as tlie Creator, the 

 Governoi", and Director of all. So with the teaching of the Great 

 Master Himself. He took lessons from all the different objects 

 round about Him. He used these lessons frequently, in a some- 

 what poetical sense, e.g., " Consider the lilies of the field, how they 

 grow ; they toil not, neither do they spin : and yet I say unto you, 

 that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of 

 these." That is poetical or metaphorical. Our Lord spoke of 

 those objects that wei'e round about Him, and used them as great 

 lessons, and I think tlie descriptions of Nature throughout the 

 Bible are only emplo} ed in that way to direct us to higher and 

 greater things. 



In regard to the question discussed just now as to creation, I 

 believe thoroughly with the writer of this paper in creation by 

 evolution, and I do so because I think we ought to use all those 

 words, as nearly as we can, in the scrij)tural sense of the term, 

 and therefurel use the term creation in the sense in which I think 

 it is used in scripture. This word is always applied to the work 

 of God, and never to the work of man — I believe that is invariable — 

 but in the dozen or twenty cases in which it occurs in the Old 

 Testament it is never once used, I believe, for " creation out of 

 nothing." In Genesis i we have it, " God created the heavens and 

 the earth " ; but of course the question then arises as to what 

 He created them from — whether from nothing, or from things 

 that already existed. 



When we come to other parts of the Bible, we find the 

 Psalmist speaks of the animals and plants then existing, and the 

 earth, as having been created by God. Of course they wez-e 

 created in the ordinary way — not made out of nothing, bur by 

 evolution. I think I am right in saying jou will find that half, or 

 more than half, of the cases in which the word creation occurs, it is 

 clearly a creation from something which preceded it, and in the 

 other instances there is nothing to indicate it one way or the other. 

 It appears to me that the idea of God creating by a gradual 

 progressive method is a far greater and far more noble and far 

 truer conception of His work than that plan which is believed in by 

 those who do not hold that view. 



I hope you will excuse my mentioning in this very simple and 

 rotigh way some of my thoughts on the subject. 



