The doctrine of the creation the earth only six or seven thousand years ago is a product of monkish ignorance. Clemens of Alexandria, who lived in the second century of the Christian era, and Justin Martyr, who was a disciple and companion of the Apostle John, both teach the existence of an indefinite period between the creation and the preparatory work, fitting it for the habitation of man. The Jewish rabbis also are perfectly explicit in recognizing these distinctions. But it is replied, "Does not the Bible say, in the fourth commandment, 'In six days the Lord made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is?' etc" True. But we are speaking just now of a very different work; the work of creation. If any one does not know the difference between create and make, let him turn to his dictionary, and Webster will inform him. If he has no dictionary, he can satisfy himself thoroughly, as to the different meanings of these two words, by looking at their use in the Bible. He will find the term create used when there were no organized materials to form the earth from; unless we adopt the infidel absurdity that the paving stones made themselves. He will also find that the term make is applied to the adjusting of the earth in its present condition (_see Gen., i_, 21 _and_ 27. _Psalms, li_, 10. _Ecclesiastes, xii_, 1. _Col, i_, 16). {163} But between these two widely different processes, namely the creation, and the organizing of the world there intervened a period of indefinite length. That original chaos, which some would find in the second verse, never had an existence save in the brains of atheistic philosophers. It is purely absurd. The crystals of the smallest grain of sand, the sporules of the humblest fungus on the rotten tree, and the animalculae in the filthiest pool of mud, are as orderly in their arrangements, as perfect after their kind, and as wisely adapted to their station as the most perfect beings on the earth. If then astronomers and geologists assert that the earth was millions or hundreds of millions of years in process of preparation for its present state, by a long series of successive destructions and renovations, and gradual formations, there is not one word in the Bible to contradict that opinion; but on the contrary, very many texts which fully and unequivocally imply its truth.