The business of a theologian is, in the first instance at least, with the Scriptural narrative. To estimate its worth, and determine its relation to science, we must ascertain its design. Criticism of a church-organ, under the impression that it was meant to do the work of a steam-engine, would certainly fail to do justice to the instrument, and the disquisition would not have much value in itself. Before we exact geology of Genesis we must inquire whether there is any in it. If there be none, and if there was never meant to be any, the demand is as absurd as it would be to require thorns of a vine and thistles of the fig-tree. Should it turn out, for instance, that the order of the narrative is intentionally not chronological, then every attempt to reconcile it with the geological order is of necessity a Procrustean cruelty, and the venerable form of Genesis is fitted to the geological couch at the cost of its head or its feet. Either the natural sense of the chapter is sacrificed or the pruned narrative goes on crutches. If we would deal fairly and rationally with the Bible account of creation, our first duty is to determine with exactness what it purposes to tell, and what it does not profess to relate. We must settle with precision, at the outset of our investigation, what is its subject, method, and intention. The answer is to be found, not in _à priori_ theories of what the contents ought to be, but in an accurate and honest analysis of the chapter. The narrative of creation is marked by an exquisite symmetry of thought and style. It is partly produced by the regular use of certain rubrical phrases, which recur with the rhythmical effect of a refrain. There is the terminal of the days—"and there was evening, and there was morning, day one," etc.; the embodiment of the Divine creative will in the eightfold "God said;" the expression of instant fulfilment in the swift responsive "and it was so;" and the declaration of perfection in the "God saw that it was good." But the symmetry of the chapter lies deeper than the wording. It pervades the entire construction of the narrative. As the story proceeds there is expansion, variety, progression. Yet each successive paragraph is built up on one and the same type and model. This uniformity is rooted in the essential structure of the thought, and is due to the determination with which one grand truth is carried like a key-note through all the sequences of the theme, and rings out clear and dominant in every step and stage of the development. Our first duty is to follow, and find out with certainty, this ruling purpose, and then to interpret the subordinate elements by its light and guidance.