GENESIS AND GEOLOGY 351 



ted, while the great central fact of the existence of 

 God and his creative, ruling and moral power are 

 emphasized. 



His fatherhood is implied in the language, " Let us 

 make man in our image, after our likeness." "And 

 God created man in his own image, in the image of 

 God created he him." 



It has been said that the author of the cosmogony 

 in Genesis made an evident mistake in representing 

 that the sun and moon were not created till the 

 fourth day, while light was created on the "first day. 

 This may be answered, as has been done, by claiming 

 that the Mosaic account represents creation as it 

 would have appeared to an observer stationed upon 

 the earth and viewing the process as it took place. 



That the earth was once melted is shown by the 

 facts of science. At that stage of its existence all 

 the water now in the oceans was in the form of steam 

 and clouds above the surface of the earth. 



The sun, for a long period, was obscured by dense 

 clouds. Long before it could have been seen, the 

 light, at first small in amount, but ever increasing, 

 owing to the constant cooling of the earth, and the 

 settling of the condensed waters upon the land, 

 pierced in visible quantity through the clouds, so that 

 it could have been seen by an observer on the earth. 

 To such an observer, it could then, for the first time, 

 have been said in language that he could have under- 

 stood, " Let there be light." 



As the earth cooled more and more until the air 

 lost most of its moisture, a well-defined, visible region 

 appeared between the earth and the clouds. 



"And God made the firmament and divided the 

 waters which were under the firmament from the 

 waters which were above the firmament." 



While a permanent sheet of cloud still covered the 



