ANNUAL ADDRESS. 
17 
chapter of Genesis, and read verses 14-19, especially verse 16: — 
“ And God made two great lights, the greater light to rule the 
day and the lesser light to rule the night : He made the stars also.” 
I would ask you to weigh the extreme simplicity of these 
words, and to see what it signifies. Consider that the sun and 
moon have no distinctive names assigned to them. There is no 
recognition of any of the planets. There is no recognition even 
of the grouping of the stars into constellations. The celestial 
bodies could not be referred to in a more simple manner. 
What does that mean ? It means that we have before us the 
expression of man’s earliest observation of the heavenly bodies. 
AVhenever the book of Genesis as a whole was written, there 
was incorporated in it this primitive record whether preserved 
orally or in writing. But primitive it is beyond possibility of 
challenge. It is probably the earliest document existing. The 
astronomy is indeed primitive and simple in character, the very 
simplest possible, but it is astronomy of observation. It 
•concerns the observed brightness of sun, moon and stars. But 
it is not myth ; there is not the faintest trace of the deification 
of sun, moon or stars, or of spiritism. There is no confusion of 
ideas ; no anthropomorphic treatment of sun or moon. 
And as the astronomy of the chapter is simple and sane, and 
(we may truly say to the very small extent that it goes) 
scientific ; so is the religion of the chapter. It is, as we have 
seen, a primitive document, but there is no personification of 
Nature, no spiritualisation of Nature, no endowing natural 
objects, not with life only, but with will. There are no myths 
of hideous demon monsters and of unnatural births. There 
is no confusion of ideas ; no inability to discern between Creator 
and Creation. The religion of the chapter, — the religion of this 
earliest age, — is perfect in its sanity and truth. 
But it has been urged that this first chapter of Genesis was 
borrowed by the Jews from a Babylonian Creation Epic, though 
we are obliged to suppose that, as Professor Fr. Delitzsch puts 
it, “the priestly scholar who composed Genesis, Chapter I, 
endeavoured of course to remove all possible mythological 
features of this creation story.” It has escaped the notice of 
those who press this view that it ascribes a measureless 
superiority in intellectual and spiritual standing to the Jew 
over the Babylonian, seeing that the former could recognise 
and bring to light the truth hidden beneath the debased and 
irrational Babylonian myth. But there is no need to suppose 
this miracle. The evidence of any connection between the 
