To forestall misapprehensions (possible and sometimes actual), let it be noted that progress in the revealed science of God by no means supersedes what has gone before. Naturally it only serves to place old truths in new and richer light. No one fact affirmed concerning God in the earlier ages is denied in the later. Certain features of his character may be brought out more prominently in the later lessons, but there is no unsaying of the things said before. Nothing can conflict with this axiom of divine science――“I am the Lord; I change not.” Prominence may be given in the early ages to such manifestations as impress men with fear and as set forth God’s righteous justice toward transgressors; while later revelations may disclose more fully the depths of divine love and compassion. Yet let none infer that God is less just in the New Testament than in the Old, or that the earlier policy of God’s throne has been modified to a larger leniency toward persistent criminals. The men who flippantly talk of throwing aside the older revelation “as they do an old almanac” mistake most egregiously. God has written nothing to be thrown aside. The oldest records still give us lessons of God shining with unfading freshness and undimmed glory. The statutes binding on Israel in the wilderness and in Canaan may not be in the same sense binding on our age, but they have not for this reason become valueless. They made revelations of God then, truthful and rich; they make revelations of God still which it were but small indication of wisdom or good sense to ignore. CHAPTER I. CREATION. FITLY the written word of God to the race begins with the _creation_. In every reflecting mind the first inquiry must be this: Whence am I? Whence came my being――this wonderful existence; these active powers? It must be that I am indebted for all these gifts to some higher Being; how earnestly then do I ask――_To whom?_――――No other question can claim priority to this. Every thing in its nature and relations gives it precedence above all other questions. Inasmuch as my reason affirms to me that I owe my existence to some great Maker, I feel that I must know Him and must know my responsibilities to Him. I need to learn also how the further question――my future destiny――may link itself with my relations to Him who brought me into being.