The statement in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, I cannot accept. It is contrary to my reason, and I cannot believe it. It appears reasonable for me that force has existed from eternity. Force cannot, as it appears to me, exist apart from matter. Force, in its nature, is forever active, and without matter it could not act; and so I think matter must have existed forever. To conceive of matter without force, or of force without matter, or of a time when neither existed, or of a being who existed for an eternity without either, and who out of nothing created both, is to me utterly impossible. 375. Haeckel before Moses! It may be that I am led to these conclusions by "total depravity," or that I lack the necessary humility of spirit to satisfactorily harmonize Haeckel and Moses; or that I am carried away by pride, blinded by reason, given over to hardness of heart that I might be damned, but I never can believe that the earth was covered with leaves, and buds, and flowers, and fruits, before the sun with glittering spear had driven back the hosts of night. 376. How was it Done? We are told that God made man; and the question naturally arises, how was this done? Was it by a process of "evolution," "development;" the "transmission of acquired habits;" the "survival of the fittest," or was the necessary amount of clay kneaded to the proper consistency, and then by the hands of God moulded into form? Modern science tells that man has been evolved, through countless epochs, from the lower forms; that he is the result of almost an infinite number of actions, reactions, experiences, states, forms, wants and adaptations. 377. General Joshua My own opinion is that General Joshua knew no more about the motions of the earth than he did mercy and justice. If he had known that the earth turned upon its axis at the rate of a thousand miles an hour, and swept in its course about the sun at the rate of sixty-eight thousand miles an hour, he would have doubled the hailstones, spoken of in the same chapter, that the Lord cast down from heaven, and allowed the sun and moon to rise and set in the usual way. 378. Early Rising is Barbaric! This getting up so early in the morning is a relic of barbarism. It has made hundreds of thousands of young men curse business. There is no need of getting up at three or four o'clock in the winter morning. The farmer who persists in dragging his wife and children from their beds ought to be visited by a missionary. It is time enough to rise after the sun has set the example. For what purpose do you get up? To feed the cattle? Why not feed them more the night before? It is a waste of life. In the old times they used to get up about three o'clock in the morning, and go to work long before the sun had risen with "healing upon his wings," and as a just punishment they all had the ague; and they ought to have it now. 379. Sleep is Medicine!