THE BIBLE IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. 



39 



at the very end of the Creation Period do the warm-blooded 

 creatures appear, man, both male and female, being made at the 

 same time. This is only the physical fact of sex, the mental and 

 spiritual differences between man and woman coming on the 

 scene later. 



Then, again observe how the purpose of the whole is brought 

 forward as existing before the completion, " And God said . . . 

 and God made " — and this formula is repeated eleven times in 

 all, giving us a hint of the duration of time, as well as of an aim 

 kept steadily in view. In four seconds a man may say deliber- 

 ately, " I will build myself a house," and it may take him four 

 years to accomplish his design. There are over 30 million seconds 

 in a year, so the work takes 30 million times longer than the 

 speaking. Also look at the sparing use of the word " create." 

 To make is to modify existing materials, but to create is to 

 originate. Now, there are three great bewildering questions in 

 our minds — How did Matter, as we know it, come into being? 

 How did Vitality spring out of the inorganic world? How 

 did Man come out of the world of animal vitality? The gap 

 in each case is unfathomable. See how the word " create " is 

 reserved for these three gaps alone, and all else comes under the 

 heading " made." The answer to our questions is in no mechan- 

 ical process unfolding itself, but lies with God and God only, 

 " Author and Finisher." 



It is tempting to go into further details, but we must pass on 

 to Prof. Christlieb's third division of difficulty. This he con- 

 sidered most formidable, and yet we find that the questions solve 

 themselves if once we admit the principle of gradual or evolu- 

 tionary creation, for this surely applies to the mind and character 

 of mankind as well as to the powers of his body. It is at 

 this point that the parallel between the individual and the race 

 is eminently instructive, and certain bright little diagrams illus- 

 trative of our long-past history are ever in our nurseries. When 

 the age of actual infancy, the period of passivity, is past, we 

 come into the age of self-will, when the babe grasps at everything, 

 and is more prone to destroy than to build. Of this period we 

 have hints in the evil of the world before the Flood, and in the 

 old tyrannies of brute force such as Nineveh and Babylon. From 

 five years old onward comes the age of chatter, the enchanted 

 time of real childhood, when imagination is vivid, and the word 



Why? " is ever on our lips. Here we have the brilliant Greek, 

 with his fairy -tales and his love of adventure ; and in the Bible 

 we have the beautiful figure of Abraham, the good and happy 

 child at home living under no strict rule, but in direct and com- 

 plete communication with his Father. We must all revert to the 

 type of Abraham, and this is why spiritually he is called the 



father of the faithful." But looked at historically, as soon 



