knew nothing, but to whom passing allusions were made in Scripture, such as Hittites, Elamites, the first Assyrian empire, &c., have had their early history revealed and the Scripture allusions fully justified. The enlarged knowledge of Egyptian history, manners, customs, topography, and the like, which recently deciphered papyri and inscriptions have afforded, has shown more clearly than ever before the accuracy of the Scriptural accounts of the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt. Even in the domain of science where the Scriptures incidentally touch it, be it astronomy, or be it geology, they have never been convicted of error. With these characteristics agreed the unique position of the Bible as compared with all the literatures of the whole world. No other book has swayed the whole civilised world as for the last eighteen centuries the Bible has done. No other book has been translated into near three hundred languages, and speaks with a voice of authority wherever it is read. No other book has inspired and directed the opinions and actions of the wisest and holiest men whom the world has ever seen as the Bible has done.

Evidently these writings of such a character, which are the channels for communicating to the mind of man such human and divine knowledge, ought to be studied and well known by every man desirous of receiving a liberal education. The following pages are intended to give such help as is in the writer's power towards understanding that portion of Holy Scripture which comprises the first two Books of Moses and is commonly called the Pentateuch.

GENESIS

CHAPS. I.-II. 3.-THE CREATION.

THE first act of that great drama, the development of which was to fill the pages of Scripture, was the act of creation. Man, whether he lives in the far East, or in the lands of the setting sun, whether he belongs to one of the ruling races of mankind or to one not yet emerged from the condition of savages, finds himself an inhabitant of this planet which is called the earth. Born, endowed with life, and with the various faculties of mind and body which constitute a man; surrounded by animals subject to him, and contributing in various ways to his wants and comforts--the camel, the horse, the ox, the sheep, the dog, and so on; seeing the earth under his feet producing corn, and wine, and grass, and vegetables, and trees, and flowers, to minister to his necessities or to his pleasure; lifting up his eyes to heaven, and seeing the glorious sun filling the sky with light, and pouring warmth and joy on the face of the whole world, or looking up at night and seeing the moon and the countless stars speaking out of infinite space, and telling him that his little earth is but a speck in a boundless universe he asks, How came I here? and who constructed this glorious mechanism, and arranged this wondrous order of things which I feel within me, and which I see around me? And this first chapter of Genesis gives the God-sent

answer.

1. There was a time when this wondrous scheme of nature was not. But God was. "In the beginning," before the sun and moon and stars were brought into existence, there was

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a Being, invisible but infinite in power, unsearchable in wisdom, of perfect goodness, whose name is God. He spake the word, and all that is seen in heaven above and in the earth beneath was created and made. But not at once did they assume their destined completeness. Through six great periods of time, each of unknown length, did this creative energy pursue its mighty work. First light shone upon the confused and shapeless mass. Then the spacious firmament enfolded the new-made earth. Then the multitudinous waters beneath the firmament were gathered into oceans and seas, and the dry land appeared. Nor did it long continue naked. A beauteous verdure clothed the mountain side and the plain beneath. The green grass carpeted the ground, the various herbs sprang up with their blossoms and their seeds to perpetuate their race through ten thousand thousand generations. The fruit-tree stretched out its branches laden with precious fruit.

But the earth, so to speak, was not sufficient to itself. It was not a solitary thing, it was a member of a great family which filled the boundless space around it, and depended upon those other bodies for its supplies of light and heat. The sun was set to rule the day, and the moon to give light by night. By the mysterious power of gravitation the succession of seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, were established for ever in a wonderful order, and God saw that His work was good. As yet no animal life moved upon the earth. But when the fifth great period had arrived a new wonder of creative power arose. First the waters teemed with life in marvellous abundance, and the winged fowl flew in the open firmament of heaven. Next the earth brought forth the living creature after its kind. Cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth in their curious variety, beauty of form, sagacity of instinct, strength of limb, swiftness of motion, endurance of labour. But as yet no conscience of right and wrong, no divine reason to apprehend moral truth, no spirit with which to hold communion with God, to understand His way, and praise Him for His mighty works, was

in any creature which God had made. At length the word went forth from the mouth of the Lord, and man stood upon the earth in his Maker's image, in the likeness of God. He stood erect with uplifted face—“Os homini sublime dedit, cœlumque tueri Jussit, et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus." And he was made lord of the earth. God made him have dominion over the works of His hands, and put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field, the fowl of the air, and the fishes of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the sea.

And now, when the sixth great period closed, the work of creation, as far as this planet is concerned, was complete. The work planned "in the beginning," and carried on through countless ages with such unerring wisdom and matchless power, was now finished and ended, and "God rested from His work." The Heavenly Sabbath was begun. And God's priest was thus ready to celebrate his Maker's praise, and adore His glorious name.

But note one remarkable feature in the work of creation— the provision for the continuance and extension of each form of life. The grass, the herb, the tree had each its reproductive seed "after his kind." The living creatures in the waters and on the earth received their Maker's blessing—

Be fruitful and multiply." And to the man and his wife God said, "Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth," and that pair has grown into the thousand millions which now go far to fill the earth.

Such then is the answer which Holy Scripture gives to man's inquiry-How came I here, and whence came that material universe of heaven and earth which I see around me, with its wonderful order and its rich furniture of things useful and beautiful to behold? And here we shall do well to observe that while the language of this first chapter of Genesis is as far as possible removed from the language of science, and meddles not with any of those questions which are the legitimate objects of scientific treatise, its broad statements agree in the most striking manner with the conclusions to which centuries of scientific inquiry have led the

brightest intellects among mankind. Genesis tells us, alone among the cosmogonies of the ancient world, that Creation was carried on in successive stages, spoken of as six consecutive days. The earth contains in her own structure the indelible record of the different stages of her progress from chaos to maturity. Genesis tells us the order in which the things created succeeded one another. The great vegetable family first, the swarming brood of fish and fowl next, then the cattle and the beasts of the earth, and then man, the crown of all. And this exact order, unknown to philosophy of old, unsung by poets, unguessed by sages, is the very order which the voice of science proclaims to-day, as ascertained by scientific research, and vouched for by irrefragable proof.

Here then we leave this first chapter of the Scripture record. If we have read it right, we shall have learnt to adore the invisible Majesty of God. We shall have learnt to see Him in all His works, to admire the wisdom, the power, and the Providence which shines throughout them all. We shall have felt the awful dignity of our own manhood-our responsibility for our use of our splendid inheritance, the obligation to use our faculties of mind and body to the glory of the Giver, and the welfare of our partners in those gifts. And we shall now be ready to follow with awakened interest the history of that race whose beginnings we have here seen, as traced in those same "Scriptures" from which we have learnt the history of Creation.

CHAPS. II. 4-III. 24.—THE Fall.

The second chapter of Genesis (commencing at ver. 4) has a feature which we shall frequently meet with hereafter as characteristic of Hebrew narrative, viz., that it goes back to supply certain details which had not been given in the preceding narrative. These details are of great value. They relate first to the newly-created Adam, or man. The preceding narrative had told us of the creation of man in the image of God, but had not told us of what material the man