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would your theroy be tben ? You would have to go to the hook of Genesis 
and give a new interpretation of days to make things square. And that is 
how you attempt to accommodate God’s word to imperfect science. If you 
have got a scientific turn, — and God does impress some men to search for the 
results of nature, — if you will only do that, and read them fairly, be assured 
you will get a great reward, and confer a great favour upon the human race. 
(Cheers.) 
Mr. Reddie. — I think the tone of Mr. Warington’s paper scarcely called 
for so strong an attack against scientific theories generally. The paper 
is a very fair one, and I think we should receive it very much in the spirit 
in which it is written. Not that I altogether agree with Mr. Warington, 
for I feel some difficulty about what he calls “ divine days ; ” though I think 
that theory has been put forward very fairly, and not offensively, like some 
other theories as to the days of creation. I think it also gets over many 
apparent difficulties which have been felt by geologists ; and I cannot help 
believing that it will probably be well received by scientific men as a present 
standing-point on which they may rest with reference to geology and Scrip- 
ture, — at least by those scientific men who are not merely anxious to find 
that the two utterly disagree. There is, to my mind, a great difficulty in the 
natural day theory as put forward by Captain Fishbourne. In the first acts 
of creation, for instance, the creation of light, and the separation of land from 
the water, and before the sun and moon were made, you simply cannot con- 
ceive that the day was measured by a revolution of earth or sun. But, then, 
there is a further difficulty on the subject in Mr. Warington’s paper. 
Mr. Warington says : — 
“ The Biblical cosmogony was intended for no one single nation or place, 
but for the whole world.” 
I quite agree that the Bible account was intended to instruct the whole 
world ; but that is not all he means ; for he goes on to say, in another 
passage, that the creation itself had no special reference to any one place. 
He says : — 
“ By this proposition, then, we dispose of all theories which would limit 
the creation spoken of to a particular portion of the earth’s surface, or which 
would confine the significance of its form — the six days’ wnrk and seventh 
day’s rest — to the Jewish Sabbath.” 
Now, I think you cannot get rid of some limit of creation to a particular 
portion of earth’s surface. Captain Fishbourne certainly cannot in his view ; 
for, take a day in the arctic regions near the north pole measured by the 
continuance of light, — why, it lasts six months, and so does the night of dark- 
ness. I think there will be great difficulty in getting out of this upon any 
literal interpretation whatever as to the days of creation. I can only get out 
of it by believing just the reverse of what Mr. Warington puts forward, i, e. 
by believing that after the original creation of the heavens and the earth, the 
subsequent acts of creation commenced at a particular place, and had reference 
to the day and night there especially. It seems most natural to consider 
