SCRIPTURAL ACCOUNT OF CREATION 227 



and let fowl multiply in the earth. . . . And God said, liet the earth bring forth the living creature after 

 his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind ; and it was so. . . . And God said. Let 

 us make man in our image, after our Hkeness : and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the 

 fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon 

 the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him ; male and female created 

 he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, 

 and subdue it ; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living 

 thing that moveth upon the earth." ^ 



" These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created. . . . And every plant 

 of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew : for the Lord God had not caused 

 it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. But there went up a mist from the earth 

 and watered the whole face of the ground. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and 

 breathed into his nostrils the breath of life ; and man became a living soul. . . . And out of the ground the Lord God 

 formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air : and brought them unto Adam to see what he would 

 call them : and whatsoever Adam called every hving creature, that was the name thereof. [The itahcs in these 

 passages are mine.] . . . And unto Adam he said. Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and 

 hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it ; cursed is the ground for thy 

 sake. ... In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground ; for out of it wast thou 

 taken : for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." ^ 



It will be noted that the magnificent scheme of creation quoted above was a designed and pre-determined whole 

 with an adequate cause and an unvarying sequence of events, inorganic and organic. There were no afterthoughts, 

 no patchings, no defects, no want of power in design or execution. The scheme was far-reaching from every point 

 of view, and fuUy explained the relations of non-living to living things. The universe to begin with was a nebulous 

 waste— it was without form and void. Its matter was first arranged. From being apparently homogeneous 

 it became markedly heterogeneous. Its movements were next seen to. The sun was made to rule the day and 

 the moon the night. Heat and fight, the indispensables of fife, were added. The heavenly bodies were made to 

 wheel in space according to inexorable laws, and these movements proceed unerringly at the present day. The 

 universe became a moving mass, and its several parts exhibited and continue to exhibit the most extraordinary 

 actions and reactions. Living things appeared on the scene ; plant and animal, each after its kind, whose seed 

 is in itself. Not only so, but the plant was created before it was placed in the ground. The same is to be said of 

 animals — even man. " And the Lord God formed man, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life." Man, the 

 comer-stone of creation, originally innocent and holy, fell from his high estate through the eating of the frmt 

 of the tree of knowledge, which he was strictly commanded not to do. The scheme of fife and death and of 

 rewards and punishments, it wiU be seen, was estabfished at a very early period of the earth's history. The plant 

 forms the food of animals, and plants and animals the food of man, but plants and animals can only become food 

 in the dead state. Death, from the food point of view, was not therefore the outcome of disobedience and sin. Sin 

 bore its own burdens : " In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." Punishment was reserved more especially 

 for man and the higher animals endowed with a distinct moral sense. 



It may be stated in this connection that disobedience, and punishment as a consequence thereof, manifested 

 themselves soon after man's appearance on the earth. The good and the bad quafities of his nature were not 

 slow to assert themselves. Cain slew his brother Abel, and so became a murderer and an outcast, and other great 

 crimes foUowed. As it was in the early times so it is now. Good and bad men occupied the same cities, vifiages, 

 hamlets, homes, and territories. A certain number were prone to wickedness in every form, and defiberately chose 

 the downward course. They were the law-breakers of primeval times, and continue to be so in modern times. 



The majority of mankind prefer the good, and strive to attain it directly or indirectly. As the law-breaker 

 cannot become wholly bad, neither can the most exalted members of our race become wholly good. There is a 



1 I may here state parenthetically that in order to cany out God's commands regarding the subduing of the earth man must have 

 been nrovided potentially with the power of directing and controlling matter and force, and this power he undoubtedly exercises at the 

 present day in an infinite variety of ways. He was also endowed with the power of speech, Adam having named the several animals, in succession 

 All the forees of nature were and are at his disposal-steam, electricity, gunpowder, dynamite, and a host of powerful agents, only a few of which 

 are known, but which are capable of completely altering the appearance presented by any part of the earth s surface, i his is seen in the 

 universal employment by man of fire and water on a large scale ; in the construction of powerful engmes ; m the hewing down of forests ; in the 

 reclamation of lands ; in smelting processes for the reduction of the hardest metals ; in the building of great ships of war ; m the making of 

 canals, dams, and docks ; in the construction of roads, bridges, and railways ; in quarrying and mining operations of unexampled magnitude ; m 

 the tunnelling of high mountains and in the drilling of deep subways ; in the harnessing of waterfalls and waterways ; m the laying down of 

 innumerable submarine telegraphic cables; in the installation of various systems of telegraphy ; in the use of wireless telegraphy; m the 

 employment of the telephone and phonograph, and in endless other ways which need not be enumerated. 



^ The Book of Genesis, chapters i., ii., and iii. 



