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records it as a very terrible thing ; but I maintain that we have no data for saying 
that Adam was overtaken by spiritual death. The death in his case is 
physical death, not spiritual. If you draw an inference from the passage, 
“ in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die,” I say that that 
only means, “ thou shalt enter into a new condition of life, the end of which 
is and will be death.” As to time being “ immaterial,” in the same page 
you will find that I put it rather differently. I meant to say that if we 
believe a certain operation proceeds from God, it does not rest upon time,— 
it exists in time, but it does not matter to me whether it took twenty-four 
hours, or years, or centuries ; if it is His immediate creation, and His work, 
the question of time does not so much matter : this is all that I meant when 
I said it was immaterial. With respect to the age of the patriarchs, a gentle- 
man made some interesting remarks with reference to the age of Methuselah. 
Some years ago there was a little notice copied into the Times from the 
Lancet. I, at the time, read a copy of it, and have it still. It gives an 
account of certain great ages, and the medical writer argues that after a man 
has attained a certain age, and has passed certain epochs, the wonder is not 
that he should go on living, but that he should ever die. I never felt any 
difficulty about the matter, but I was very much struck with that medical 
confirmation of the Mosaic writings. As to pre-Mosaic documents, I should 
concede that there probably were documents before the time of Moses. As 
to pre-historic man, it is not necessary now to enter upon that subject. Is 
the Mosaic account poetic ? I think not ; it is perhaps figurative, but not 
poetical. Lastly, with respect to the seventh day, I still adhere to my 
opinion. The difficulty to my mind is that there is a practical command to 
men to keep holy the seventh day, because God rested on the seventh day ; 
and it appeared to me, primd facie, unlikely therefore, that that should re- 
present a period and not a day. But I am quite aware that it is often held 
to be a period, and I am aware that Bacon, in his essays, takes it in that 
sense, speaking of the ages that exist now as the day on which the Lord 
rested. I thank you again for the very kind way in which you have received 
my paper. (Cheers.) 
The meeting was then adjourned. 
