In that great conflict of ages against idolatry, the one final appeal was wont to be made to this great fact of God’s Creatorship. We have examples in Ps. 115: 2–8 and Jer. 10: 1–16 and elsewhere.――――Thus throughout the sacred word this great fact that God is our Creator, involving the whole sphere of God in nature, stands as the first witness to his true divinity, the first proof that in him we live and have our being――the ground of the first claim upon us for supreme homage, worship, trust, love and obedience. The first lessons taught in Eden were taken from this great and open volume of natural religion. The first lessons which God’s people were to place before the heathen in their mission work of the early ages were drawn from the visible worlds and from their testimony to the Great Creator. These manifestations are the alphabet of God; the point therefore from which progressive revelations begin. Noticeably the record of the creation (Gen. 1 and 2) rests not with simply giving the general statement that God made all things, but enters somewhat into the particulars, reciting in certain points the _steps of the process and the order of its details_. First the heavens and the earth had a beginning and this beginning was _from God_. At some stage in the process, perhaps the next in order after the heavens and the earth could be said to be, the earth was chaotic, _i. e._ formless and desolate; then God brought forth light; then to clear the atmosphere somewhat of mists and vapors, he caused some of its waters to rise into the expanse, and some to descend to the earth below; then gathered waters below into seas, leaving portions of the earth’s surface dry land. Then he brought forth grass and herbage; next, the light-bearers in the heavens appeared――the sun, moon and stars; then came into being fish, reptiles and fowl; and on the sixth day land, animals and man. Thus in six successive periods of time, through steps of gradation easily traced by the witnessing “sons of God” (Job 38: 7), the processes of this creative work were finished. The Great Father would have his first-born unfallen “sons” as well as his later-born and redeemed children enjoy these works of his creative hand, and therefore he developed them slowly and in the order of naturally successive steps that they might see that all was truly “good,” “very good.” Partly because of advances made within recent times in physical science, partly because of speculations not always friendly in tone to the inspired record, and partly because of the intrinsic interest and importance of the subject, some special points in this narrative demand very particular attention. 1. _The origin of the written record and the manner of its revelation to men._