1. The heavenly hosts and their arrangements are the work of Jehovah, and are regulated wholly by his laws or ordinances; a striking illustration of the recognition by the Hebrew writer both of creative interference, and that stable, natural law which too often withdraws the mind of the philosopher from the ideas of creation and of providence. 2. The heavenly bodies have a relation to the earth--are parts of the same plan, and, whatever other uses they were made to serve, were made for the benefit of man. 3. The general physical arrangements of the solar system were perfected before the introduction of animals on our planet. CHAPTER X. THE LOWER ANIMALS. "And God said, Let the waters swarm with swarming living creatures, and let birds fly on the surface of the expanse of heaven. And God created great reptiles, and every living moving thing, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every bird after its kind; and God saw that it was good. "And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters of the seas, and let the flying creatures multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day."--Genesis i., 20-23. In these words, so full of busy, active, thronging life, we now enter on that part of the earth's history which has been most fully elucidated by geology, and we have thus an additional reason for carefully weighing the terms of the narrative, which here, as in other places, contain large and important truths couched in language of the simplest character.