'The terms "evening and morning" of a day have, from all recorded time,
conveyed to the mind distinct impressions; evening, that portion of sun
light immediately preceding and succeeding its apparent departure or
disappearance below our horizon; morning, that portion of light that
immediately precedes and succeeds its apparent rising above. They also
imply two other divisions of time, night and mid-day. Now, we have
the direct conclusive evidence daily exhibited, that the sun, or its
luminous atmosphere, by recognised laws and combinations, lights the
world; and that darkness, as a necessary consequence, follows its
absence.
'If the earth had existed independently of the sun, it would have been
a wanderer in space, under circumstances which are decidedly
inconceivable. Yet Genesis relates that there was light, without a sun
to give it forth, or medium to diffuse its rays. We have also involved
in this order of creation the phenomena of a diurnal rotation, indicated
without any central source of light to make the period or time of
revolution, and a planet revolving in an orbit without a centre round
which to revolve. Scientific observations and deductions, every day
evidences of the physical laws that govern our solar system, lead
clearly to the conclusion that the sun, 140,000 times larger than the
earth, was the first born. Genesis asserts that our pigmy earth was its
precursor.
'Whence, without sun or moon or stars, did this light, in accordance
with any known natural law, proceed; and how was the division of evening
and morning of the first day indicated?
'The second day's creation again gives us an evening and morning without
any arrangement to measure those divisions of time, and still without
any source from which light could proceed. What the waters were above
the firmament or atmosphere, I cannot discover; certainly clouds are not
_above_ the firmament or atmosphere, but _floating in it_; and of any
other aqueous aggregations _above the firmament_ we know nothing.
'In the third day's creation we have dry land appearing, and grass and
herb yielding seed, and fruit trees yielding fruit brought forth.
'We have, as yet, had no sun to shine on the earth created, to give
colour to the leaves or to the flowers; to ripen the seeds of herbs
yielding seed, or the fruit of trees yielding fruit. Neither does
Genesis mention any other creation of plants; we must therefore infer
this creation originated all the vegetable world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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