"The common objection to that special view which regards the days of creation as immensely protracted periods of time, furnishes a specimen, if not of reasoning in a circle, at least of reasoning from a mere assumption. It first takes for granted that the Sabbath-day during which God rested was a day of but twenty-four hours, and then argues from the supposition that, in order to keep up the proportion between the six previous working days and the seventh day of rest, which the reason annexed to the fourth commandment demands, these previous days must also have been twenty-four hours each. It would, I have begun to suspect, square better with the ascertained facts, and be at least equally in accordance with Scripture, to reverse the process, and argue that because God's working days were immensely protracted periods, his Sabbath also must be an immensely protracted period. The reason attached to the law of the Sabbath seems to be simply a reason of proportion: the objection to which I refer is an objection palpably founded on considerations of proportion, and certainly were the reason to be divested of proportion, it would be divested also of its distinctive character as a reason. Were it as follows, it could not be at all understood: "Six days shalt thou labor, etc.; but on the seventh day shalt thou do no labor, etc.; for in six immensely protracted periods of several thousand years each did the Lord make the heavens and the earth, etc.; and then rested during a brief day of twenty-four hours; therefore the Lord blessed the brief day of twenty-four hours and hallowed it." This, I repeat, would not be reason. All, however, that seems necessary to the integrity of the reason, in its character as such, is that the proportion of six parts to seven should be maintained. God's periods may be periods expressed algebraically by letters symbolical of unknown quantities, and man's periods by letters symbolical of quantities well known; but if God's Sabbath be equal to one of his six working days, and man's Sabbath equal to one of his six working days, the integrity of proportion is maintained." Not only does this view of the case entirely remove the objection, but, as we have already seen, it throws a new light on the nature and reason of the Sabbath. No good reason, except that of setting an example, can be assigned for God's resting for a literal day. But if God's Sabbath of rest from natural creation is still in progress, and if our short Sabbaths are symbolical of the work of that great Sabbath in its present gray morning and in its coming glorious noon, then may the Christian thank this question, incidentally raised by geology and its long periods, for a ray of light which shines along the whole course of Scripture history, from the first Sabbath up to that final "rest which remaineth for the people of God."[53]