Twilight and Dawn; Or, Simple Talks on the Six Days of Creation Part 18

"No," he said, smiling sweetly. "Jack no sleep. Jack think good Jesus Christ see poor Jack. Night dark, heaven all light; soon see heaven. Cough much now, pain bad; soon no cough, no pain."

You can see that, when he spoke on his fingers, Jack's way was to make his sentences short by leaving out all the little words, much as children do when they first begin to talk.

During the few months of life which remained after he became so ill, his sister Mary was with him, and his soldier-brother Pat got leave to come and wish him good-bye. For Jack was really going to Him whom having not seen he loved, and at the last moment of his life his great comfort and joy was in thinking of the love of Christ to him. He would say, over and over, "Jesus Christ _loves_ poor Jack," and then speak of the "red hand" that had blotted out all his sins--those many sins which G.o.d would remember no more, because "good Jesus Christ" had given His own life for poor Jack.

The snow was falling fast when they laid the body of this dear boy in the quiet churchyard, far away from his Irish home. His beloved mistress and his sister Mary were there. How wonderful it is to think that the first sound that will fall upon those ears, deaf all his life long to every human tone, will be "the voice of the archangel and the trump of G.o.d," calling him, and all those who sleep in Jesus, to rise in their bodies of glory, "to meet the Lord in the air," and to be with Him for ever!

"Then, when the archangel's voice Calls the sleeping saints to rise, Rising myriads shall proclaim Blessings on the Saviour's name.

"'This is our redeeming G.o.d!'

Ransomed hosts shall shout aloud Praise, eternal praise, be given, To the Lord of earth and heaven."

THE STONE BOOK.

"_The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord's: but the earth hath He given to the children of men._"--PSALM cxv. 16.

"_Speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee: and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee._"--JOB xii. 8.

"_Be still, and know that I am G.o.d._"--PSALM xlvi. 10.

We have been reading a little about the story of the heavens. Now I want to take you from the starry heights to the dens and caves of the earth, and to speak to you a little about--not astronomy, but geology, as the science or study of the earth is called. This is a very interesting study, but one in which we may easily make serious mistakes; for we have not here the firm ground under our feet which the Word of G.o.d gives us, and we must always beware of saying, "This thing _is_ so, therefore that other thing _must_ be so"; or, "This thing is not, therefore that other cannot be."

When we first began our talks, we read that "In the beginning G.o.d created the heaven and the earth"--all that which is meant when we speak of the "Universe." This is just what we need to know; and how gracious of G.o.d the Creator to speak to us about His own works, and set at rest all the guesses and reasonings of our minds as to how and when this earth first came into existence!

Then we noticed that there is a pause, how long a pause we know not. The silence of G.o.d, as it were, falls upon the scene; we hear nothing more about the heavens, and nothing of the earth between the time of its creation and its state as described in the next verse--a desolate, watery waste, upon which darkness brooded.

It is a great thing to know how to listen when G.o.d speaks to us, and to be silent when He is silent. "By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of G.o.d"; this is what He has been pleased to tell us, and we cannot go beyond it.

In the chapter called "Ruin and Darkness," we learnt a little about the "crust" of the earth; and I told you that those who have studied it believe that they can read in it, as in a book, marks of the many changes which have pa.s.sed over it since the Creation.

As they search into its depths and bring out to the light of day remains of plants and animals which lie buried there, they point to these "footprints on the sands of time," and tell us that our earth is very, very old; _how_ old they do not say; they can only guess.

But long before anyone began to lay bare the recesses of the earth and to ponder its age, G.o.d had told us that it is older than our little minds can conceive, for He created it "in the beginning."

Men of science also when they speak of the work of G.o.d on the SIX DAYS of His Creation, say they could not have been actual days of twenty-four hours, as time is now measured. I have told you that in speaking of what G.o.d does we must never say a thing _could_ not be; but rather lay our hand upon our mouth, or speak as Job did when he answered the Lord and said, "I know that Thou canst do everything, and that no thought can be withholden from Thee." But we may also remember that, as G.o.d measures time, "One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day"; "for a thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night,"

I wonder--as we have read now four times, at the close of each of G.o.d's wonderful days, "The evening and the morning were the first," "the second,"

"the third," "the fourth day"--whether you have stopped to think why the evening is always put before the morning; surely this way of reckoning time is very unlike ours.

Is it not so reckoned because as light was made to s.h.i.+ne perfectly upon the earth, when G.o.d called it out of the darkness, there was no dawning of that first day? It began when G.o.d said, "Let light be: and light was"; then, with the gradual disappearing of the light, "there was evening," nothing being told us about the "unfurled flag" of night, or the dawning of the second day.

This at least we know, that whether in the beginning, when the strong foundations of the earth were laid, or during those periods of time when G.o.d was working to bring it into order and beauty, "no touch of man's rude hand" interfered. The goodness of G.o.d was seen in storing it with mineral treasures for his use; covering it with vegetation which has lived and died and laid up vast abundance of coal; peopling the air and the waters with birds and fishes. But with all this man had nothing to do, for one of the very last acts of Creative Power was that which called him into existence, and set him, as lord of all, in a place so carefully and wonderfully prepared for him.

And as we look back over those Days of Creation of which we have been reading, let us remember that each successive Day led up in perfect order to making his dwelling-place perfectly fitted for him, the creature of G.o.d apart from all others, specially formed for Himself. As has been beautifully said, "when the sea was gathered into one place and the dry land appeared, a secure footing was found for man; when the waters above the firmament were separated from the waters below, man, the highest of all created things, could look up"--all was done in reference to him, when as yet he was not.

We shall not read about the work of G.o.d on the Fifth Day in this chapter, but I want you to turn to the account of it given in the first chapter of Genesis, and you will see that there for the first time in the Story of Creation the word "life" is used. G.o.d speaks to us no longer of only inanimate or lifeless things, such as the sea and the dry land, the earth with its herbs and trees, and the two great lights which were made to give light upon it. He tells us now of creatures which live and move and have a being, each "after its kind"; each exactly fitted to enjoy life in the place prepared for it.

The story of the way in which G.o.d in His mighty and gracious working prepared earth and sea and sky to be the home of creatures which were yet to be brought forth and created, is very wonderful. But when we read of "the moving creature that hath life," and of "every living creature that moveth," we come to what is still more wonderful.

You remember in the history of the plagues in Egypt, that when the wise men tried to imitate what G.o.d was doing in sending His judgments upon the land, there was a point at which they stopped, and could go no farther, "This is the finger of G.o.d," they said.

What was that point? It was when they tried, by their enchantments, to produce one of the meanest, as we should say, of _living_ things.

And so it has always been: man, the highest of G.o.d's creatures, apart from all the rest, is still a creature, and he never has been able to usurp the power which belongs to G.o.d alone.

It is true that man can destroy animals, and so hunt them down as to render them extinct; he can also, as we have seen, by great care and skill and long patience, produce what are called "varieties" of both plants and animals, increasing the size of leaves and blossoms twenty, thirty, even a hundredfold; but though he may talk of the formation of new flowers, with endless shades of colour, they are not really new, but only varieties of those already existing. You remember, when we were speaking of the "Green Earth," we learnt that never, from the beginning of his life on earth, has man produced a new _kind_, or species, of either plant or animal.

We must never forget this. G.o.d, who said to the mighty ocean, "Hitherto shalt thou come, and no farther: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed"

(Job x.x.xviii. II), has also set a bound beyond which man, however great his powers may be, is not permitted to go. Life, in all its forms, from the lowest to the highest, belongs to G.o.d.

But perhaps you are asking why I said that we do not in the Story of Creation read anything about _life_ till we come to the work of G.o.d on the Fifth Day. Are not the trees and plants alive? Do we not say of a blasted tree or withered flower, It is dead?

It is quite true that plants have a life which shows itself as we have seen in their growth, and even in some "sensitive" plants, by their shrinking from the touch. In the wheat-fields the order of the unfolding of the life of a plant "whose seed is in itself," may be seen, as we watch "first the blade, then the ear, afterwards the full corn in the ear." But this life is very different from that of the lowliest animal which has power to feel and to give expression to its feelings, power to move from place to place, and which shows in its own way of living an intelligence which is not seen in the very highest forms of vegetable life. At the same time it is true that in their lowest forms animal and vegetable life approach each other so nearly that it is often difficult to say where the one ends and the other begins.

But without the plants and their ceaseless work, as the "sleepless universal providers of the earth," as they have been called, all animal life would fail and die; for they are the means by which all the nourishment which is contained in earth, air, and water can be made of use both to themselves and to the animals.

And is it not very beautiful to see how G.o.d has made one part of His creation dependent upon another, and all dependent upon Him? Does it not show us His care for His creatures, and especially for that wonderful creature--the last and best of all, who was created for the earth and the earth for him--when we see, as we have seen so constantly, that before the inhabitants of earth, air, and sea came into being, He had caused the earth to bring forth that which should give to every living thing the means of sustaining life?

I have called this chapter, which does not speak of the work of G.o.d on any special Day of Creation, THE STONE BOOK. A wonderful book it is for those who can read it; its leaves are the successive layers of the earth's crust; its letters are not only the remains of plants, but the fossil-sh.e.l.ls and bones of animals imprisoned there, which tell us that creatures, all in some way unlike any we now know, once lived and died, and are still to be found, not in their ancient forms in rushy mere of tangled jungle, but in "graves of stone and monuments of marble."

When we were speaking of the coal-mines I told you something about the remains of giant ferns, sedges, reeds, and mare's-tails of far larger growth than any now known, which have been found there. You are familiar with fossil-plants, but I do not think we have spoken much of fossil-animals, which are found in all except the oldest layers of rock--the first pages of the "Stone Book."

The children had been with me to the Museum in the town in which we lived, and had looked with wonder at the huge creatures whose skeletons have been built up bone by bone, after being taken from their rocky tomb--for this earth of ours which has seen so many changes has been rifled of her treasures; not the gold and silver, coal and iron with which she is so richly stored, but the wonderful specimens of G.o.d's work in bygone ages which He has allowed us to see; so that we cannot doubt that such creatures once existed, though we may know nothing with certainty as to the time of their first appearance in the sea and on the dry land, and can only guess at the kind of life they lived.

You remember that we spoke, in the chapter about the earth's crust, of the "fire-made rocks," which were once in a liquid state from intense heat (we could not expect to find any remains of plants or animals there, and none _have_ been found), and of the "water-made rocks," which have been gradually acc.u.mulated by the action of water in wearing down the land.

These rocks lie in layers, and fossil sh.e.l.ls, plants, and bones of animals have been found in them, as we have already seen.

But how did these fossils get into the rocks? And how is it that they have been found in all countries and at all heights above the sea?

Before I try to answer these questions, I must tell you that when geologists speak of "rock" they mean everything which has gone to form the crust of the earth, whether clay, or loose sand and gravel, or the hard heavy granite which some of us had seen crowning the Dartmoor tors.

It is thought that the huge creatures whose bones have been found at different depths in the earth's _strata_ were buried there when the "rock"

which formed the layers was soft; perhaps in the mud of lakes, or in peat or sand at the mouths of rivers. Then, as time went on, their softer parts perished, but the harder turned to stone, thus forming the "letters" in the stony pages from which those who study the earth try to read something of its history. Then, as sea-sh.e.l.ls are found inland, deeply buried in the hills, it is thought that the land in which they were buried has been raised by earthquakes, or thrown out by volcanoes: or was altered in position at the time when the earth's foundations were overflowed with a Flood, and "the waters stood above the mountains." As geologists read the Stone Book, like the writing of Eastern lands, _backwards_--as they search deeper and deeper into the crust of the earth, they speak of its Old life, Middle life, and New life: but we must remember that they _do_ read backwards, calling the older life what is really the younger. And we must also bear in mind that many of the words used in what is called science--especially those relating to the study of the earth--betray our ignorance rather than prove our knowledge. The marking off stages in the life-history of the earth, and speaking of its Old, Middle, and New Age has been done to help in the study of its crust. Nothing is known, however, with certainty about these different periods or where one ends and another begins, and no one knows whether the first, or oldest, layer has yet been discovered. One geologist says, "I have found it," and presently another penetrates a little deeper, goes a little farther back, and finds one lower still. Nor can anyone say certainly where a fossil-fern or the mummy of an old-world fish appeared for the first time, and though many plants and animals which are found in a fossil state have long been extinct, yet there are many more which appear at a very ancient date and have continued unchanged to the present time.

There is a famous cliff in Dorsets.h.i.+re upon which may be read, almost as upon a map, the record of the changes which have pa.s.sed over it during its life-history.

On examining the strata, or layers which lie one above the other, geologists find the first, or lowest of all, to be Portland stone, which was formed by the acc.u.mulation of lime at the bottom of the sea.

The second layer shows that this sea-bed in time became dry land, and was covered with soil--what had once been the seash.o.r.e gradually giving place to a forest.

But how do we know that such a wonderful change was wrought in process of time?

We have clear proof that it was so from the vegetable soil still remaining, and the numbers of trees the remains of which are embedded in the rock, many of them standing upright as when growing.