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 com. panionship of heat. They are now found to be so generally coexisting, 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 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 earth as well as upon it. The interior of the earth, as far as it is yet known, exhibits everywhere 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

*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 Ocos, the Deity, was making the world, an ether spread around, within which was chaos, and dark night covering all things under the ether. The earth from the darkness was not to be seen, but he said, that light breaking through the ether (av rov allépa) enlightened all the creation."-Gr. Chron. p. 4.

† Dr. Thomson thinks "we are certain that no particle of light weighs the one-millionth millionth part of a grain."-Chymistry, vol. i. 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.

The public papers mention the submarine explosion of an island, in July, 1831, in that part of the Mediterranean, lat. 37° 6' and 10° 26' long. from Paris, which flows near Trafane, on the S. W. coast of Sicily; having an active volcano with a crater in its centre from which lava was flowing.

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 afterward, 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.*

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."+ 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

* 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 192,500 miles in a second of time. It travels from the sun to the earth in seven minutes and a half."-Treat. Opt. p. 2. Mr. J. W. Herschel also mentions that "a ray of light travels over 192,000 miles in one beat of the pendulum of a clock."-Disc. p. 23. Yet La Place states that light employs 571 seconds in coming from the sun to the earth.-Vol. i. p. 168, 172. This makes the time nine minutes and a half, which is nearly one-third more than the usual calculation. This would greatly diminish the supposed speed of the descending light.

† Gen. ch. i. ver. 4, 5.

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:
The Moon knew not where should be her home:
The Stars knew not where would be their station.

Then all the Deities moved to their royal stools.
The stupendously holy Gods considered these things:
They gave names to the night and to the twilight;
They called the morning and the midday so;

And bade the rise and course of the year to begin.

Hist. Anglo-Sax. vol. i. p. 242, 5th. edit
C

space of time in which our globe turns once completely round. This section of time, which we subdivide into twentyfour 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.

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 alone. This is mentioned by Moses as beginning 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.* 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 1000 miles an hour, or above 16 miles every minute, a stupendous celerity for a massy globe nearly 8000 miles in diameter! A greater velocity would make

The distinction between the day made by the time of the earth's rolling round itself, and that which is computed with reference 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 sidereal day. Assuming the mean astronomical day to be equal to unity (1), the sidereal day is 0,997,26957."-La Place's System of the World, vol. i. p. 22. Mr. Harte's Translation.

our day so much the shorter; a slower progress would as much prolong it. But this revolving force has been continued and has acted for nearly 6000 years with a precision which has never varied. In all the ages of which history has preserved any memorial, the natural day has always exhibited everywhere the same uniform duration; a proof that the rolling power which actuates it has never undergone any alteration or diminution, but has still the same measured and governed proportion or agency with which it was first attached to our terrestrial habitation.*

It is desirable to refer all phenomena to natural causes, whenever these can be discerned, as it is unnecessary to resort to the Omnific Power, while his secondary instrumentalities are competent to the effect: but, for the performance and limitation of this amazing rotation no other origin can be alleged than the Divine choice and ordina-' tion. Of the other planets, three revolve round their axis in obedience to the same commanding potency, and in portions of time nearly similar; but the two largest ones, notwithstanding their greatly superior magnitude, in less than half that space. And so might any have done. Our earth might have rolled round in twelve hours, or in twenty, or might have taken thirty or forty to have completed its rotation. For purposes unrevealed to us, but most probably in special adaptation to the nature, formation, and benefit of all the organized beings that have been created to be upon it, and particularly to the most salutary

*It was a great oversight in the theologians of the papal church to resist the admission of the Copernican system, that the earth moved round its axis, and to prefer to cling to the Ptolemaic theory, of the sun actually circling round us, as it appears to do. This old theory is incompatible with the Mosaic account, of a day beginning before the sun, because upon that, the sun is essentially necessary to make the period of time which constitutes a day. But on the Copernican system, the earth does this without the sun, as its revolving motion round its own centre, which forms our day, does not require the solar luminary.

†The planets Mercury, Venus, and Mars have a natural day, from their respective revolutions round their axis, nearly equal to our own, as Mercury performs his circle in 24 hours 5 minutes, Mars nearly in the same time, and Venus in 23 hours 214 minutes.--La Place, p. 53, 54, and note, p. 325. But vast as the force must be to revolve their masses in that time, it is inconsiderable to what Jupiter requires for effectuating his movement. His volume is 1,000 times greater than that of the earth, La Place, p. 62; and yet he rolls round his axis above twice as rapidly as our planet.--Ib. 68.

period of the sleeping and waking of its sentient exist. ences, and to the fittest action and succession of light and heat, and their absence, we revolve as we do. It is as important to recollect these circumstances as it will be useful for our science to investigate their causes and effects, because one of the most satisfactory evidences to our admiring reason, that our earthly system is not a medley combination of accidents, but has been artificially composed and arranged by an intelligent Creator, on a wise and provident system of thinking, and according to a deliberate and designed construction, arises from that universal adaptation of all its parts and movements to each other, and to the fabrication, agencies, and welfare of the whole, which become the more manifest to our enlightened judgment the more they are studied and understood.

The use of the word "day," to signify in its lesser meaning that portion only of the natural day which occurs while one part of the earth is in visible light, was a secondary and peculiar application of the term, to express a different thing from that of our diurnal revolution. In this restricted sense, it rather shows the phenomenon of the illumination of our inhabited surface, than any specific lapse of time. The word is appropriated by us in popular language to mark the appearance as well as the duration of light in its perceptible state, as the term "night" denotes the period of its invisibility. An actual chronological day is thus made up of the alternation of darkness and daylight, whose respective durations are always so varying, that they never express any constant and equable recurrence or division of uniform time, which the natural day, caused by the rotation of the globe, steadily observes.

No account is given in Genesis of the geological formation of the different strata, rocks, and minerals which constitute the interior and the crust of the globe. The knowledge of these is left to be explored and ascertained by the researches and reasonings of our scientific inquirers. The intelligent curiosity of many, in every country of Europe, has been for some time, and continues still to be, directed to a minute examination of the mineralogical contents and geological structure of our globe, and with the most encouraging success. Surprising dicoveries have been made within the last fifty years; and that science,