I. It has been usual with writers to call this state LETTER a Chaos; meaning by that word, a confused disorderly mass of heterogeneous materials, mingled or mingling at random with each other: but this is a gratuitous assertion, at variance with the fact of an intelligent Creation. What the Deity formed, He composed from its very commencement with the same scientific regularity and precision with which He completed and has since maintained it. Under such a Being, the formative process, from its most elementary state, must have been a careful work of deliberative and arranging mind; the preceding adapted to the subsequent; and every stage and part fulfilling its appointed office and subserviency to the completion of the chosen and admirable whole.* At this point of time, when its specific composition was taking place, the Divine command was issued for the appearance of the luminous fluid. The introduction of this grand agent of the creative process is mentioned with that sublimity of diction which arises from the emphatic conciseness of imperative dignity: And ELOHIM said, ' LIGHT! BE,' and light was.' The Sanscrit Institutes of MENU have in this point a remarkable coincidence with Moses: 'He-the Soul of all beings-having willed to produce various beings from His own Divine substance, first, with a thought created the Waters, and placed in them a productive seed. The Waters are called nara; because they were the production of Nara, or the Spirit of God: and, since they were His first ayana, or place of motion, He is thence named Narayana or moving on the Waters.' Sir Wm. Jones. Instit. of Menu, p. 2. 'M. Fairholme justly urges, that the theory of a Chaos or imperfect formation of the Earth, is contrary to our reason.' He thinks it not true, that the solid globe was a chemical crystalline deposit from an aqueous chaos;' but that the mineral kingdom was perfectly formed at Creation, and not left to any crystallizing process.' Fairholme's Gen. View of Geol. of Scripture, p. 20, 21. Gen. ch. i. ver. 3. The Hebrew words of command are only four, which I. LETTER It came instantaneously, pouring on and pervading the terrestrial mass; and the operations of this beautiful element, whose penetrating, universal, and marvellous agencies are yet so little understood, fulfilled its Author's wishes: ⚫ ELOHIM saw the light, that it was good.'' From light we cannot separate the recollection and companionship of heat. They are now found to be so generally co-existing, in the latent or the active state, wherever either is present, that they are thought to be modifications or different conditions of the same element. When both these occur, we have fire. Fire is luminous heat, or heat in the state of light. The Sun's light has the effect of both heat and light. All flame from all combustible bodies, our domestic and furnace fires-volcanic light, the electrical lightning-all these exhibit both light and heat.The Hebrew word used by Moses, aor, expresses both light and fire. We We may therefore reasonably infer, that Light came to the Earth in the state in which we now almost universally find it, as both light and heat; and that from the moment of its presence, the phenomena and agency of light, heat, and fire began, wherever it spread-and within the which express, even more concisely than the Greek translation of them, that sublimity of effect which Longinus so much admired. The Latin gives also their יהי איר ויהי אור They are as in the text dignified brevity, Sit lux! et lux fuit.' The third person of the imperative in our language, Let there be light, and there was light,' lessens the force, by multiplying the words of the passage. Gen. ch. i. ver. 4. With this account of Moses, that of Orpheus, as his verses are cited by Timotheus the Chronographer, in Eusebius, singularly coincides. When the Oog, the Deity, was making the world, an æther spread around, within which was Chaos, and dark Night covering all things under the æther. The earth from the darkness was not to be seen, but he said, that Light breaking thro the æther (pýžav ròv ailipa) enlightened all the creation.' Gr. Chron. p. 4. I. earth as well as upon it.' The interior of the Earth, LETTER as far as it is yet known, exhibits every where the agency of light and heat, either in their combined operation of fire, or in their separate states or other modifications. Submarine volcanoes are still occasionally bursting up, as indications of the fiery agencies that are yet acting beneath our surface. Thus the Mosaic record expresses the true principles of our geological formations. These have proceeded from the action of the watery or of the fiery element, or are the alternate effects of each. We learn from the book of Genesis, that both these were active agents in the Creation, from its very commencement. Water preceded, and began its operations as the Spirit of the Creator directed them. Light descended immediately afterwards, when ordered, and, with its modifications or attendants, heat and fire, exerted their powerful agencies. Thus the great scientific truth so recently ascertained, after many contending systems had been upheld and thrown down, that both the watery and fiery elements were actively concerned in the geological construction of our Earth, is implied or indicated by the Mosaic narration, instead of being inconsistent with it." 7 Dr. Thomson thinks we are certain that no particle of Light weighs the one-millionth millionth part of a grain.' Chemistry, v. 1. p. 390. And yet it is continually reflected and refracted by solid bodies. The incredibilia of science are numerous, and ought not to be forgotten when we are judging of other things which are not more incredible. An instance of this occurred in July 1831, in the submarine explosion of an island in that part of the Mediterranean, lat. 37° 6' and 10° 26'long. from Paris, which flows near Trafane, on the SW. coast of Sicily; having an active volcano with a crater in its centre, from which lava was flowing. "Dr. Bradley, above a century ago, inferred, from his observations of the heavens, that Light comes to us from the Sun in about eight minutes. Dr. Brewster remarks, Light moves with a velocity of C LETTER I. The next act of the Deity was to make a boundary, or division, between the effect of the visible presence or action of light, and that darkness which arises from its latent state or disappearance; calling the duration of our luminous sense of it'day,' and the time of its absence night.'10 10 Their succession was made to constitute that portion of time which we designate by a natural day. 'The evening and the morning were the first day.' Our earthly day, "is that space of time in which our globe turns once completely round. This section of time, which we subdivide into 24 parts, or hours, does not depend upon the Sun, nor arise from it. As it is only an entire rotation of the Earth, it could occur as well without a solar orb as with one. 11 The annual circuit, or a year, which is the completed orbit of the Earth round this luminary, could not take place without a Sun; but a day requires the existence and revolving motion of the Earth the Sun to the Earth Sir J. W. Herschel 192,000 miles in one 192,500 miles in a second of time. It travels from 10 Gen. ch.i. ver. 4, 5. 11 Gen. ch. i. ver. 5. 'And ELOHIM called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.' The VOLUSPA of the Pagan North has a remarkable coincidence with this intimation: The Sun knew not where should be his palaces: Then all the Deities moved to their royal stools. I. alone. This is mentioned by Moses as beginning LETTER before the Sun was made the centre of our astronomical system. As this fact denotes the diurnal movement to be distinct from the Sun, and independent of it, it is another instance of the correctness of the Mosaic account. The first rotation of the Earth round its own axis made the interval of the first day, and each subsequent revolution constituted the several days which succeeded.12 Our planet might cease to turn round in this diurnal continuity, and might yet circle round the Sun in its yearly course. The Moon moves in this way about our Earth; for it has no rotatory motion. The cause of our Earth's revolving round its axis, is quite distinct from the double and mutually counteracting forces which produce its annual orbit. Physics have not discovered, nor can rational conjecture assign any reason for the diurnal rotation, except the commanding will and exerted power of the Divine Creator. Nor is it a mere revolution alone which makes our day; but it is a revolution with that particular, chosen, specifically assigned, and limited and yet marvellous velocity, in which this movement is and ever has been performed. To occupy that portion of time which composes our day, it must move precisely, and with constant and undeviating exactness, at the rate of about 1,000 miles an hour, or about 16 miles every minute,—a stupendous celerity for a massy globe nearly 8,000 miles in diameter! A greater velocity would make 12 The distinction between the day made by the time of the Earth's rolling round itself, and that which is computed with referenco to the Stars and Sun, is well known in science, and thus marked by La Place: 'The astronomical day comprises the entire duration of the diurnal revolution; it is greater than the duration of a revolution of the heavens, which constitutes the sideral day. Assuming the mean astronomical day to be equal to unity (1) the sideral day is 0,997,26957.' La Place's System of the World, vol. i. p. 22. Mr.Harte's Translation. |