been able to reckon them all; and every year that passes we discover new varieties and new wonders among them. Some were large and monstrous, both in the sea and on the dry land; whales, elephants, and other gigantic creatures, which we still see existing, swam in the ocean and trod the plains; and besides them, many and many a monstrous animal was seen living and sporting in the woods, the valleys, and the rivers, which is now to be found no more existing alive, but whose enormous bones remain buried beneath the surface of the earth. But yet more wonderful, the very air which covered the whole world, and the waters wherever they flowed, swarmed with myriads upon myriads of beings, so small that our unassisted eyes cannot see them, and it is only by the help of modern instruments that we know that they exist. And yet more wonderful still, every one of these creatures, from the most monstrous elephant down to the insects which float invisible in the air and water, was not a mere solid mass of flesh, as it appears to our eyes when we look at it; but its body was filled with a kind of clock-work, like the bones and muscles, the heart, veins, and lungs of our own bodies, which moved, and lived, and performed a certain fixed service, just as we ourselves move and live by means of the machinery of which God has constructed us. And the same marks of the inexpressible wisdom and knowledge of the Almighty He imprinted on the trees, shrubs, and flowers He had already formed. The miracles He wrought, in framing the burning sun and the innumerable stars, were not greater than those He wrought in the smallest bud that grows in the field. Every thing that lived, whether plant or animal, He made to consist of a delicate machinery, so various, so complex, and so wondrously small, that generations and generations of men lived and died, and did not even know that it existed.

And thus God ended the first part of His creation. He completed that very earth on which we live; He made the first of every species of tree, flower, fruit, and leaf-of every bird, insect, beast, and fish-which is now

found in the world; He made them all just such as they are now, except that they were better and purer, and the animal creation did not destroy one another as they do at this day; and upon every kind of creature thus created He conferred a power of producing fresh creatures like themselves; so that there has been no new creation since the first, but God has made each new one exactly similar to those which went before, and not, as at first, out of the chaos which He had created.

CHAP. II. The Creation of Man.

BUT yet, in the almighty mysterious purpose of God, all was not complete. All was made in vain unless some other being were added to the inhabitants of the earth, which should be like God Himself, and should offer to Him its love and obedience in return for the gifts He conferred upon it. God then made man. He formed a being, possessing not only the body and the life of one of the beasts of the field, to eat, drink, sleep, and move, but He gave him also a soul. That soul was unlike all that God had yet created on the earth. The visible world was not like God Himself, except that it bore the marks of His wisdom, power, and goodness: it was of a different nature from Him who created it; for God has no body and no parts. He cannot be seen, or heard, or touched, in any way like that in which we see, hear, and touch the creatures He has made upon this earth. He is a spirit; that is, a being which can think, which can understand, which can choose, which can commence working of itself, which can distinguish between good and evil, between right and wrong, between truth and falsehood. The chaotic mass of matter which God first created could do none of these things; it was a mere material to be worked upon by one greater than itself. And so, too, with all that God created on earth before He made man. It could do nothing of itself, except that the animals could move according to their own desires, and followed certain mysterious instincts

and feelings within them. None were like God. None were capable of knowing right from wrong, of understanding who it was that created them, and of rendering to Him that service which He delights to receive. This only could be done by a spirit created after the pattern of the Almighty Himself.

Thus God crowned all His works by forming a being, partly like the lower kinds of creatures whom He had already made, and partly like Himself. He created a

man, possessing a body fashioned like the bodies of animals; and also a soul, which was not made from out of that first chaos from which his body and all the earth was framed, but which was called by the power of God out of nothing. The soul and body were united together, and God decreed that when the soul should leave the body, the body should cease to live, although the soul itself would live apart from its body. To the man thus created God gave the rule over all the creatures of the earth. He was their master and lord; they were to serve him, fear him, be attached to him, and minister to his wants. They were to honour their Maker in the man who bore their Maker's image. They could not know God Himself, or love Him, or serve Him in any more acceptable way; they were to worship Him by worshipping the being whom He had made in His own likeness. But they were not to die for man's food: the first man lived upon the fruits of the field, and the earth yielded him her fruits in abundance and without pain to himself. Nor did they devour one another, but, like the man whom they served, they were supported by the roots, the seeds, the fruits, and the leaves of the plants which God had created for them. All was life, joy, unity, and peace, in the works of the hands of God.

The man, however, was not designed to live alone. As the Almighty Himself regards all the works of His will with various degrees of regard and love, so He gave to the man whom He formed in His own image, a capacity for different kinds of regard and love also. One kind of love was to be bestowed on the world in which

he was placed; another on the animals who were around him; another upon the great and good God to whom he owed his existence; and another upon beings like himself. For it was not the will of God that one human being alone should occupy the faultless earth He had created. Multitudes were to spring from him, to love and serve their Maker, first in the state in which they were created, and afterwards in another and better one. Therefore God created a second being, a woman, to be, with her husband, the parents of unborn generations of souls, all, like their first parents, to be afterwards raised to a nobler condition than that in which they were born, and there to live for ever. The man was accordingly thrown into a deep sleep by God, who took from his side one of his ribs, and from it created a woman, whom He gave to be companion to the man. The man was called Adam, and the woman Eve.

CHAP. III. Adam and Eve in Paradise.

WHEN the almighty Creator had thus completed the creation of man, the Bible tells us that He rested from the works He had done. That is, God ceased to create; for in one way God ever works, every moment that passes. Although He had finished the earth and heavens, with their inhabitants, and appointed certain laws by which they should continue to exist, and increase, and multiply, and should seem to live by their own powers, yet it was only by the perpetual support and guidance of the same God who had first created them that they were preserved from destruction, and enabled to fulfil the purposes of their creation. It is the will of God which still upholds the sun and stars in the heavens, and sends them along their courses; it is His will which gives to the seeds of plants their life and fertility; it is His will which has filled the earth with the children of Adam up to this hour. It was only by ceasing to make or create any new species of creatures that God rested from His works. The day on which

He thus rested, He set apart for a day of rest for man. He blessed the seventh day and sanctified it; and thus His Church in every age has set apart one day in seven, on which men may rest from their labours, and devote themselves to prayer and praise more than is obligatory on other days.

The dwelling-place which God gave to Adam and Eve was a garden containing every thing that was delightful to look upon and to eat of; trees, fruits, and flowers, and all that could make life most full of joy. It was called a Paradise, and its name was Eden. A river watered it; and it was to be the work of Adam and his wife to till the garden, and cultivate its fruits and flowers. But it was not in the possession of this Paradise, with all its charms, nor yet in the society of one another, that Adam and Eve were to find their truest and deepest happiness. The soul which God had given them was incapable of being satisfied, except by the enjoyment of God Himself. Every thing He conferred upon them was to be enjoyed in exact obedience to His will, and was to be loved, not for its own sake, but for the sake of Him who bestowed it. To Adam and his wife, therefore, God gave a knowledge of Himself, and of His holiness and glories. He communicated to their minds many wonderful and mysterious truths respecting Himself and their own future destinies, which they could not have learnt by their own understandings. He conferred on them the gift of speech, and taught them a language by which they might converse with one another, and adore and praise Himself. What that language exactly was is not known; but it is probable that all the languages now spoken among men are in some measure derived from it. So, too, it is not known in what part of the world the Paradise in which Adam lived was situated. No traces of it now remain; and though guesses have been made respecting its position, nothing has been handed down to us that can be relied on. All we know is, that it was in that quarter of the globe since called Asia, and in the neighbourhood of Assyria.