bones," he exclaimed at the first sight of the woman, "and flesh of my flesh; therefore shall she be called Woman, because she was taken from Man." This, joined to the expression of a "deep sleep" could not be otherwise than a work of time; and yet the sun had not gone down when Eve, formed from the side of Adam, stood perfect before him; and Adam, refreshed and invigorated by his slumber, received her at the hands of God, the last, best gift which he had bestowed upon him.

These, then, are some of the most prominent reasons which may be urged against the usual interpretations. The argument might unquestionably have been pushed to a greater length; but we have been careful of saying aught, except what seemed to arise out of the first idea, that we might not be supposed to use ingenuity in a matter of such solemnity. To those who only think how God might have acted, they will weigh as nothing. Doubtless he might have performed ten times the same number of deeds in the same space; but this is not the question. He might have inspired the mind of Adam with all conceivable knowledge, with every breadth and length of cause and effect through all distant generations, -as he might have created all things, in a moment. But he wrought by rule; and it is natural to suppose that he would continue to act in the same mode which was so conspicuous from the beginning. Under such an idea, the events are crowded together on the sixth day; and are neither in harmony with His other works then, nor with His usual mode of action since. They therefore present a strong objection to the received opinion, and incline

the mind to suppose the views which have been stated to be correct. But these are not yet sufficiently strong to gain the entire assent. It is nothing to raise an objection, without at the same time supplying its place. If the history will not support the idea of a second creation in every point, it should be thrown on one side as prejudicial and pernicious. We have stated the objections. Let us therefore look now at the affirmative side of the question.

DIV. III.

There can be no question, that the Deity, when he formed the world, separated his work into six equal portions, in order that these might form the basis of a religious law, which should be observed by a perpetual statute, as long as the world endured. This division was arbitrary; and respected not the Creator in his power; but the creature in his obedience; - and however far back we may place that original creation, it is fair and just to suppose, that of whatever nature, or of whatever scale in reason the races may have been, who are imagined to have lived anterior to man in his present state, they nevertheless held this division as the ground-work of that adoration, which all created beings must pay to the Sovereign Lord of all things. Unless it were with this design, it is difficult to see the reasons of these precise divisions of time. Why should they be selected in preference to others? What possible necessity was there for these in particular? What end, in

regard to God, do they answer? These questions may be repeated to infinity, and still no easy and fair result, flowing spontaneously from the bare fact of the division into six days be obtained. But receive them as a religious law of the earth; the fundamental law, by which it should ever be bound, and the questions at once meet with a reply, which has not only the advantage of being the authorized solution; but, at the same time has the advantage of being satisfactory to the mind. In this view we regard them.

When therefore Moses by divine inspiration proceeded to sanction the Sabbath to the Israelites by a reference to the works of God, he did not draw his authority from the reconstruction of the earth;— supposing an interval really to have taken place ; — but went back to the period, when that Sabbath first became an ordinance by the will and design of God. It seems as nothing to say, that when God re-prepared the earth for man's habitation (all things except animal life being already in existence) he prepared it in six periods, - even if that re-modelment could fully and substantially be borne out, without failing as it does in some rather essential particulars. I cannot see how it gains by this process any greater sanction than it would by the simple command of God, that one day out of seven should be kept holy unto himself; while it has this manifest disadvantage, that it possesses, as a reason for man's observance, to detail and bind on his faith that as a creation, which in point of fact, was no creation at all. The sun, moon, stars, and firmament had been formed, perhaps, myriads of years previously;

while the only hindrance to the full radiance and power of the former, was a mass of clouds which overloaded the atmosphere. What analogy can possibly exist between their creation, and the dissipation of these clouds; that because God worked for six successive days and rested on the seventh, that therefore the Sabbath should be ordained unto man? The parallel, which would be grand and magnificent, if drawn from the original labors of the Deity, appears absurd when applied to the expedient of the geologist; ;— for let him refine and explain with his utmost ingenuity, he cannot make the imagined works of the four first days more than the gradual operation of one single command. "Let there be light," is the divine fiat; and that single fiat, in the slow melting or dispersion of the vapors, causes those works successively to appear to the light of day, which existed antecedently, and were only hidden by the darkness. I repeat, that I am perfectly at a loss to see the analogy between this mode of working, and the law which enjoins six days of labor; and the seventh, a day of rest to all future generations. And it is clear to my mind, that in giving a sanction for the Sabbath to the Israelites, Moses gave that which was the original sanction:the religious law of the earth; that which should exist as the law from the hour in which time commenced on its surface to the day of the last judgment, when time in its artificial divisions should cease, and be swallowed up in eternity. This was his design, and as an unanswerable reason to those who might oppose it as an ordinance of human policy, and imagine perhaps that its institution proceeded

from himself, he details to them the mode in which God Himself meted out his six acts of creative power, for the express purpose of imposing the Sabbath on the world as an ordinance for ever.

This then having been done, Moses commences his account of the present system. 66 'These," he proceeds, "are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens." The object of Moses, it will be remembered, was to write a history of the present system. The form of his design necessarily led him at the commencement away from the direct narrative, that he might give an account of the original creation, as an introduction to his subject. This he has done; and he now refers to the direct and chronological history in these words, "These are the generations, &c." Such and such were the causes and movements which first produced the earth and the system with which it is associated. "Thus were the heavens and the earth finished." These, which now follow, are the springs and agency which called the present order of things into being. "THESE are the generations of the heavens and the earth, when they were created."

Suppose that he had designed a history of the settlement of the children of Israel in the land of Canaan. There is no other history extant either of the Jews, Gentiles, or the former inhabitants of Canaan. They are all equally ignorant of its deeds, laws, or original government. How would he have commenced? Not, assuredly, at the passage over Jordan. For the sake of clearness, and the right understanding of his hearers, he must have com