You will find it to be suggested by several able men, that the word "day," in the brief account of the creation in Genesis was not meant to be restricted to our duration of twenty-four hours; but was rather used as a term to express an indefinite period of time: and that six days of creation express only so many successive stages; and that each of these may be construed to be a thousand years; especially as in the Psalm which the Jews, according to an ancient tradition, supposed to be written by the same author, a thousand years are spoken of as no more in the Divine consideration than a human day.*

They have been led to this enlarged construction of the term, by finding many appearances in the state and natureof the masses of the earth, and of their organical remains, which, in the present degree of our geological knowledge, seem to have required a much longer period for their occurrence, and for the revolutions which they indicate our globe to have undergone, than the short space of six of our natural days would have admitted. Feeling this difficulty, they have preferred to expand the meaning of the word by which Moses designates the time of each successive act of creation, to the other alternative, of opposing his authority altogether. If there were an absolute necessity of making such an election, it would be most reasonable to coincide with their idea; and it is remarkable that some ancient nations had traditions of that sort among their learned men.t

position, almost always horizontal, of its beds, and the fossils it contains, which have taught us the long residence of the sea on our continents." --Journal de Phys. Oct. 1791.

M. FERUSSAC, less prejudiced, intimates the same fact, when he expresses the importance of showing "that the formations above the chalk were the production of a certain state of things intermediary between the epocha when the waters of the sea covered all, and when its surface became free."--Bull. Univ. 1828, vol. vi. p. 185.

So WERNER thought "that the whole ocean must have formerly covered the whole earth at the same time."-Jameson's Mines, vol. iii. p. 75.

*"For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday."- Ps. xc. ver. 4. St. Peter expresses a similar idea: "Be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."-2 Pet. ch. iii. ver. 8.

† We learn from Suidas, that the ancient Etruscans had such traditions. He mentions that a well-informed man of their nation, who had written their history, stated, that God was the Demiurgos, or maker of all things; that he had employed 12,000 years in his creations, and had distributed them into twelve mansions. In the first chiliad, or 1000.

But although it is true that many of the geological phenomena have been represented by these observers, and others, to indicate that our earth has had a much longer duration than the strictest import of the terms used by Moses can allow, and especially in the succession of its organized races; yet, after the most patient comparison and consideration of their facts and reasonings, I cannot but feel that they have not at all advanced beyond plausible conjectures, as I also perceive that they are mostly at variance with each other; and that, as fast as one theory of this sort is set up, it has been found to be wrong by a succeeding inquirer, who attempts, in his turn, to establish a different one, of the same tendency, in its stead. These are all fair exertions of ingenuity, and arise from a desire to let no fallacy stand, and from a love of exploring what has baffled anterior research: but these circumstances prove, that none of these theories are true; that the right theory has not yet been discovered; that erroneous deductions have been made from the phenomena which have been seen; and that these are not yet justly understood, nor their real bearings discerned. Hence, I continue in the belief, that whatever is true in fact and correct in inference on this subject, will be in the end found to be not inconsistent with the account of Moses, nor with the common meaning of the expressions he uses. In studying the Scriptures, it is peculiarly desirable that we should on no occasion depart any more from the usual and natural meaning of the words and phrases which there occur, than we do in reading any other author. They have been greatly disfigured by the forced constructions which most men seek to put upon them; and much dissatisfaction has by this conduct been excited in the in

years, he had made the heaven and the earth; in the second, the firmament, which he called heaven; in the third, the sea, and all the waters on the earth; in the fourth, the great luminaries, the sun and moon, and the stars; in the fifth, all birds and reptiles, fish and quadrupeds; and in the sixth, the buman race. That being so formed, mankind would last 6000 years, and there would be a consummation of the whole world at the end of the 12,000 years.-Suidas, vol. ii. p. 958.

The ancient Persians taught the formation of things in this succession: the heavens, the waters, the earth, the trees and plants, the animals, and then man. The space they allotted to each period was in the following days; 55, 60, 75, 30, 80, and 75, making together 365 days, or a complete year, during which creation was completed.-Hyde Vet Pers. 164.

telligent mind. The true construction of every part must be, not the possibilities of meaning which refining ingenuity may draw from the expression, but that sense and purport which the author himself, in penning them, intended that they should express. His personal meaning at the time, and not the import which our verbal criticism can now extract, should be the great object of our attention. In the present instance, I think Moses meant to express six natural days; and therefore it appears to me to be most probable, that whenever the right theory on the fabrication of our earth, and on the era and succession of its organized beings, shall be discovered, it will be found to be compatible with the Mosaic cosmogony, in its most natural signification. But until this desirable event arrives, there will be as much incongruity between this ancient account and our modern speculations, as there cannot but be between the devious excursions of an active imagination, and the simple and solid, but unattractive, reality. Our German contemporaries, in some of their reveries on ancient history, are equally alert to prove that novelty of fancy is more sought for by many than justness of thought; that it is easier to argue than to judge; and that even truth becomes wearisome when it ceases to be original, and has lost the impres sion of its beauty by its habitual familiarity.

It is quite true that Moses did not profess to be a geologer, and had no business to be so. His object was, not to teach natural science, but to inculcate the existence, the laws, the will, and the worship of GOD; and to found the polity and social manners and institutions of his countrymen on this only true foundation of national prosperity and of individual happiness. But as he was the chosen organ of Divine truth to man, on his moral and religious duties, it is most probable that what he expresses on other subjects, in those compositions which were to be the permanent guides of the opinions and conduct of his nation, will be also what is true and proper. It is most consistent with all that we know of intelligent agency, to suppose that he who was instructed or guided to be the lawgiver and sacred preceptor of his people, would be likewise se inforped, or influenced, as to avoid falsehool on every other collateral subject which it would be in the course of his narration to notice. If we were directing or assisting any pupil to

write on any topic, we should certainly not suffer him to insert any thing that we knew to be a fiction or a fallacy. It is, therefore, most rational to suppose that the same precaution was used by the Deity towards his selected messenger. Hence, I am induced to believe that what Moses expresses incidentally on other points besides those of his divine legislation is substantially true, and will be found to be so, as soon as his judges or readers have acquired competent knowledge. It is our deficiency in this which hurries us to discredit, or to doubt, or to oppose him. But on no collateral point, additional to his main subject, was he more likely to have been correct, either from true human traditions of preceding knowledge, or communications, or from new supplementary aid, so far as that was needed, than in his notices of the divine creation. This was indeed the true basis of his mission and tuition; and is brought prominently forward at once to our view, as if it were meant to be so. His brief intimations are, therefore, most probably the just outlines of all true geology; and thus far we may affirm, that the more our materials of judgment are increased by the multiplying labours of our geological students, the less founded any opposing speculations appear to become. It is now thirty-five years since my attention was first directed to these considerations. It was then the fashion for science, and for a large part of the educated and inquisitive world, to rush into a disbelief of all written revelation; and several geological speculations were directed against it. But I have lived to see the most hostile of these destroyed by their as hostile successors; and to observe that nothing which was of this character, however plausible at the moment of its appearance, has had any duration in human estimation, not even among the skeptical.

Augmented knowledge has from time to time overthrown the erroneous reasonings with which the Mosaic account has been repeatedly assailed; and has actually brought to light more facts in its favour than at this late period of the earth could have been expected to occur. Those which

are of this description are enlarging in number every year; and therefore my belief is, that the veracity of the chief Hebrew historian will be ultimately found to be as exact in what he has recorded in the cosmogony with which he commences his work, as it is in the account of his own D

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legislation. There is certainly no appearance, as yet, that any contradictory theory will long survive its public enunciation. Magna est VERITAS, et prevalebit, is the everlasting axiom. Truth, and truth only, will obtain any immortality in the intellectual, and therefore in our literary and social world.

LETTER II.

On the Formation of our Planetary System-The Stars and the Comets.

MY DEAR Boy,

I HAVE preferred to lay before you this review of the sacred history of the world in the form of letters, because it will unavoidably be of that excursive nature which best suits this class of our literary composition. The peculiar events and agency, and the intelligent design that directs and causes them, which distinguish sacred from profane or common history, lead the mind to many considerations and investigations on which it desires to attain every elucidation which patient thought can supply. But these would not suit the direct statements and usual rules of historical writing, in its regular forms. The epistolary style will therefore be adopted, as most convenient for the accomplishment of the purposes of the present undertaking.

The fourth rotation of our globe was accompanied by the formation and arrangement of our planetary system. At this period of our creation Moses places the formation of the sun and moon, and their association with our earth; and expresses the divine order, that they should regulate the illumination of our world, and divide our day into the two natural distinctions of visible light and succeeding darkness, and become the cause of our seasons, and suggest and govern our computations of time.

"And ELOHIM said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven, to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years: and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so."*

* Gen. ch. i. ver. 14, 15.