form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters; and thus gave shape and outline to the planetary mass. The light was thereupon produced. We are not told whence, nor out of what. Like all the matter of the universe, it started into being at the call of the Creator, suddenly, as its own brilliant flashing emanations over the darkness at this hour. Then came day and night; and this implies, that there came along with them the revolution of the globe and the commencement of motion in the astral universe. The production of a firmament or atmosphere is next alluded to, and in immediate connection with this part of the work, whereby a medium was provided for the diffusion of the light and the play of all that beauty and variety of coloring by which the earth was to be adorned. “And God said, Let there be light: and there was light; and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light day, and the darkness he called night. And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.” Light, the subtilest and fleetest of all elements, has nearly eluded every effort of man to detect or analyze its essence. It travels swift as thought through infinite space. It spreads its ethereal force over every opposing obstacle. It gives brilliancy to the gem, form to the crystal, color to the flower, health to animal life, and is so indispensable to every existing condition of existing physical nature, that, were the mandate of its creation revoked, we know just as much of its principle as to see in its annihilation a relapse into that state of chaos when all things were without form and void. Not only the beauty of organic structure, but the molecular arrangement of the mineral mountain masses of the earth, would, in all probability, have been an impossible condition of matter without the existence and agency of light. And light, whether glowing in the solar disc, gleaming in remotest stars, or breaking and sparkling in the rain-drop, what revelation has science made of it beyond its properties of luster and activity?—We trace its effects; we discern its influence upon all bodies; but when we would go deeper, and seek to know it essentially and in itself, we can only speak of it as the utterance of Him who said,—LET THERE BE LIGHT.