Moses proceeds, “And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And he called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.” Here we have the work of the second day, like that of the first day, forming, fashioning and bringing order out of chaos. This “firmament,” that God made, and “called Heaven,” is not the same as mentioned in the first verse, but is included in the words: “The heavens and the earth.” This is the work of arrangement, ordering, etc. Then follow the gathering together the waters into one place, and the bringing to view the dry land, the naming of the dry land, Earth, and the gathering together of the waters of the seas; the ordering of the grass, the herb, the fruit-tree upon the earth. This was the work of the third day. Then comes the ordering the heavenly bodies, the great lights for day and night, the dividing the light from the darkness, etc., the work of the fourth day. All this is fashioning, forming, arranging, ordering, and not creating from nothing. Then follows the ordering of the waters, to bring forth the fishes, the fowl, and all the inhabitants of the seas on the fifth day. This is followed by the ordering the earth to bring forth the cattle, the creeping thing, and all the lower orders of the inhabitants of the earth, and concludes the work of the sixth day by the creation of man, or _forming_ him in the image of God. We have both the words “made,” and “created,” used and applied to this work of the six days, where it is manifestly used in the sense of shaping, forming, fashioning, ordering, arranging, and not in the sense of the word “created” in the first sentence in the Bible, where it manifestly means _creating from nothing or bringing into existence_. This wonderful act of the Infinite One, of bringing into existence the heaven and the earth—this stupendous universe—may have been performed an indefinite period of time before the commencement of the work of the six days described by Moses. In this view there is no danger. It makes the work of the Creator none the less wonderful, glorious and overwhelming. It matters not how long before the work of the six days it was that “God created the heaven and the earth,” or brought the universe into existence. Nor need we be startled at this. The work of the six days, as described by Moses, is wonderful beyond all human imagination. We can comprehend but little of it. We may well exclaim, as Paul did, in view of a different matter: “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counselor? For of him, and through him, are all things; to whom be glory forever. Amen.” LOTTERIES.