Taking then the view of revelation to which I have referred as being that contained in Holy Scripture, and acknowledging that such a view presents difficulties to thoughtful and inquiring minds, I wish to examine and see whether we cannot find some help towards a right appreciation of God's method of revelation by examining the course of nature, or that which is supposed to be its course. And when we look to nature with this purpose, it is impossible not to be struck by this general fact, namely, that gradualness of development appears to be a universal law. The manner in which the original design of the Creator (for I assume that there was an original design) has been carried out, so far from being sudden, has been very slow;[63] and more than this, the method of operation has been frequently such as we should scarcely have expected, and greatly opposed to those notions of creative majesty which most of us are very much disposed to preconceive. In order to put this clearly before you, let me call your attention to the very picturesque and poetical view of creation, contained in Chateaubriand's "Genie du Christianisme." That work appeared after the explosion of the volcano of the first great French revolution, and was intended to reconcile the minds of men, weary with the infidelity and atheism which had so long been rampant, to the views of God contained in Holy Scripture, and maintained by Christians. Writing with this purpose, M. Chateaubriand tells us that we may conceive of the Creator as having called the world into existence in a condition as complete, and having as many marks of antiquity, as we now see about us: when this earth was created there would be already ancient forests, and abundance of animals, some in their maturity, others dancing about in the friskiness of youth; the trees would be furnished with birds' nests, and the crows and pigeons would be hatching their eggs, or tending their young; the butterflies and moths would be sporting on the plants; the bees would be making honey from the new-formed flowers; the sheep would be followed by their lambs; and the nightingales would be astonishing themselves with their first, yet perfect songs, in all the groves. Finally, Adam would be a man of thirty, and Eve a girl of sixteen. "Without this original antiquity," says our author, "there would have been neither pomp nor majesty in the work of the Eternal; and, which could not well be, nature in her innocence would have been less fair than she is now in her corruption. An insipid infancy of plants, animals, elements, would have crowned a world devoid of poetry."[64] No doubt this description is anything but devoid of poetry; it is perhaps the only way in which a poet would be disposed to conceive of creation; it is difficult to imagine the music of Haydn set to any other description of the creative work; but undoubtedly it is not scientific, and, what is more, it is not Scriptural. Chateaubriand no more got his picture of creation