After ages of thought and discovery we have come out of the darkness and misconceptions of men. We believe in no serpent, turtle, or elephant supporting the world; no Atlas holding up the heavens; no crystal domes, "with cycles and epicycles scribbled o'er." What if it be found that one book, written by ignorant men, never fell into these mistakes of the wisest! Nay, more, what if some of the greatest triumphs of modern science are to be found plainly stated in a book older than the writings of Homer? If suns, planets, and satellites, with all their possibilities of life, changes of flora and fauna, could be all provided for, as some scientists tell us, in the fiery star-dust of a cloud, why may not the same Author provide a perpetually widening river of life in his Word? As we believe He is perpetually present in his worlds, we know He has [Page 232] promised to be perpetually present in his Word, making it alive with spirit and life. The wise men of the past could not avoid alluding to ideas the falsity of which subsequent discovery has revealed; but the writers of the Bible did avoid such erroneous allusion. Of course they referred to some things, as sunrise and sunset, according to appearance; but our most scientific books do the same to-day. That the Bible could avoid teaching the opposite of scientific truth proclaims that a higher than human wisdom was in its teaching. That negative argument is strong, but the affirmative argument is much stronger. The Bible declares scientific truth far in advance of its discovery, far in advance of man's ability to understand its plain declarations. Take a few conspicuous illustrations: The Bible asserted from the first that the present order of things had a beginning. After ages of investigation, after researches in the realms of physics, arguments in metaphysics, and conclusions by the necessities of resistless logic, science has reached the same result. The Bible asserted from the first that creation of matter preceded arrangement. It was chaos--void--without form--darkness; arrangement was a subsequent work. The world was not created in the form it was to have; it was to be moulded, shaped, stratified, coaled, mountained, valleyed, subsequently. All of which science utters ages afterward. The Bible did not hesitate to affirm that light existed before the sun, though men did not believe it, and used it as a weapon against inspiration. Now we praise men for having demonstrated the oldest record.