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being thus a rest from a ll the work of creation ; to suppose, as 
some have done, that the preceding six days, where the 
gradual process of creation is described, include but a portion, 
and that a very small portion, of creative work, is plainly to 
destroy the proportion and symmetry of the narrative altoge- 
ther. God's sabbath, on this view, becomes a sabbath not 
after six days' work, as the narrative distinctly implies, but 
after six days' work and a great deal more, of which great - 
deal-more the narrative makes simply no mention and gives 
no hint whatever ! 
But at least, it is said, there is a point in the narrative 
where the earlier stages of creation can without difficulty be 
slipped in; an indefinite blank space between the first and 
second verses, which the interpreter can fill up at pleasure. 
But what we want to know is, not how it is possible to fill in 
such earlier stages without doing violence to the context, but 
what reason there is for imagining such stages to exist at all ? 
To point to scientific discoveries as the reason, is beside the 
mark, since it has been already shown that all honest inter- 
pretation of this chapter must be independent of Science. If 
it be admitted that Science has cast such a new light upon the 
history of creation as to make the natural significance of the 
six days' work, as all-embracing, untenable ; and a new inter- 
pretation is required, altogether alien to the spirit of the 
cosmogony; a blow has been struck at the authority and 
divinity of the latter even more formidable than direct rejec- 
tion, for it has come from friends, not foes. And whereas also 
the bolder course of rejection ascribes no more than ignorance 
to the author of the narrative, the weaker one of altered inter- 
pretation in effect asserts his cunning , in so framing his 
account as that, while bearing one meaning plainly on the 
face, there should still be a loophole for escape in case facts 
should eventually prove that natural meaning to be a false 
one.* 
But what, after all, are the facts with regard to this imagi- 
nary space, of indefinite dimensions, between the first and 
second verses? 1st. The state of the earth described in the 
second verse is distinctly spoken of as a condition in which 
* It has not been lost sight of in thus speaking that there were some who, 
before the discoveries of Geology, held a similar view in regard to a space 
between the first and second verses. But whence did this idea originate ? 
Simply in the difficulty where else in the cosmogony to place the creation 
and fall of angels. The 'principle, therefore, on which these ancient inter- 
preters acted was the very same as that of their modem followers — the solu- 
tion of imaginary difficulties by ignoring the natural meaning of the text and 
introducing ideas altogether out of harmony with its structure. 
