174 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE, 
the day of its restoration necessarily becomes the true Sabbath, and it needed no 
argument or explanation to show to the first Christians their duty in this matter. 
This consideration is also inplied in the argument to Hebrews 4, already referred 
to. 
3. The long creative periods are in harmony with the records preserved 12 
the rocks of the earth by the Creator himself. It is now generally admitted that 
the order of creation in the long geological epochs revealed by scientific investi- 
gation corresponds very closely with that in Genesis. Absolute agreement in de- 
tails is not to be expected in the present state of knowledge; but the general se- 
quence, in the primitive formless state, the development of the atmosphere, 
ocean, and dry land, the introduction first of swarms of lower marine animals, 
then of great reptiles (mistranslated ‘‘ whales” in our version), then of mamma- 
lia, and finally of man, is the same with that in the geological record. ‘There are, 
besides, many other points of coincidence which cannot be detailed here, and 
which give the impression that the series of pictures presented to the inspired 
seer must have strikingly resembled those which might be devised to illustrate our 
geological chronology. It is certainly a remarkable fact that the old record of 
Genesis should thus give us a sequence similar to that arrived at independently 
by science in these last days. 
The second question above proposed, why this detailed revelation of creation 
should have been given, brings us to some practical applications. 
1. The first great object of that ‘‘ book of origins” which we have in Gen- 
esis, is to assure us of the reality of the creation, and of God as the great First 
Cause. The one utterance ‘‘in the beginning God created the heavens and the 
earth,” if received in faith, is subversive of atheism, materialism, pantheism, ag- 
nosticism, and a hundred other false doctrines which have afflicted humanity. 
The author of Genesis does not attempt to prove this great truth, but a moment’s 
consideration suffices to show that it needs no proof. The universe exists with all 
its numerous and complex machinery. Either it must have existed eternally, 
which.is inconceivable, or it must have been produced. If produced, then it 
had a beginning, and could not have produced itself. But before it began there 
must have been a power capable of planning and producing it, and that power 
must have been God. The Hebrew writer calls him Elohim, a plural name—not 
merely a plural of dignity, but implying that plurality of person and action which 
he himself recognizes in the word of God and the Spirit of God, and implying 
also, that all true godhead, by whatever names recognized in different tongues, is 
the one God, the Creator. 
2. The next object of the record of creation is to show us that all the details 
of nature are the work of one God, and parts of one plan. The heathen nations 
recognized many local and partial gods, and they deified heavenly bodies, moun- 
tains, rivers, trees, and animals. ‘The writer of Genesis grasps the whole of this 
material of ancient idolatry, and shows that it is the work of one God. ‘Thus no 
room is left for polytheistic views of nature, nor for that superstition which re- 
