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before “ them.” Then as to the word thohu. It is true that is used in a sense 
signifying ruin, but it also means emptiness and desolation, and it does not 
follow that there could have been no emptiness and desolation arising from 
other sources than ruin. In Isaiah the usage of the word thohu differs consider- 
ably, and, looking through the latter half of the prophecy of Isaiah, which 
some think is by a different hand, I find six places in which thohu is used as 
meaning simply nothing, — nothingness, without the slightest trace of ruin. 
It also means empty, worthless. Thus the passage which Dr. Baylee quotes 
from Isaiah may be interpreted to mean that the earth was not created for 
nothing — that it was not created desolate. If the earth was not created 
for nothing, for what was it created ? In order that it might be inhabited. 
Isaiah, then, is comparing this thohu with the end of creation as some- 
thing different. God did not create the earth in order that it might 
remain empty, but that it might be inhabited ; which leaves out of the 
question whether the original condition of the earth was one of empti- 
ness or not. Further on we have a remarkable criticism upon thunder, 
with the suggestion that it is nothing more than volcanic action. We are 
told that in all volcanic countries underground volcanic noises are called 
thunder, and that in Hebrew poetry thunder is represented as the voice of 
God : — “ At Thy rebuke they fled : at the voice of Thy thunder they hasted 
away.” Taking these several points of criticism together, then, we shall 
have to alter Dr. Baylee’s five principles as follows : — “ 1. In the beginning 
God gave existence to the earth. 2. The earth was in a state of emptiness 
and desolation. 3. The character of that emptiness and desolation was that 
water covered the whole face of the earth. 4. The Holy Ghost was brooding 
over the whole, instilling life into it. And, 5, In six stages God fashioned (not 
restored) the earth.” Then we come to the flood, and we are told that the 
flood accounts for the fact that there are no historic nations south of the 
Torrid Zone. But Dr. Baylee should first have looked at the map to see 
what field there was for their existence there. There is such an extremely 
small portion of dry land there that it is hardly reasonable to suppose there 
would be many historic races upon it. I have also yet to learn the fact, 
stated by Dr. Baylee, that philologers have been compelled to divide man- 
kind into three great divisions in order to bear out the account of the 
three sons of Noah. Then we pass on to the reckless way in which Dr. Baylee 
treats the words tzureem and selang, as evidences of strict scientific phrase- 
ology in the Scriptures. I fail utterly to see the force of his argument, 
when I know that the word which he says signifies rocks lying in strata 
also means stones lying in a brook. We are told also that there is a very 
remarkable agreement between the fortieth chapter of Isaiah and the dis- 
coveries of modern science. But do we know as a fact from any scientific 
discovery that the waters have been measured, that the heavens have been 
meted out, that the dust has been measured, and that the mountains and 
hills have been weighed 1 I suppose my scientific knowledge must be very 
backward, but I never heard of any scientific discoveries which proved these 
things. I fail utterly to see how the statement in the twelfth verse comes in 
