to look for statements adjusted to science――not merely to the stage of its progress in this present year of the nineteenth century, but to the perfect science of ultimate fact; or, on the other hand, for statements adapted to the average mind of Hebrew readers in the age of Moses, written for their comprehension, instruction and spiritual culture. I answer unhesitatingly, the latter. “All Scripture, given by inspiration of God, is profitable for doctrine ... and for instruction in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3: 16), and was of God designed and shaped for these ends.――――Yet let it be borne in mind; these statements respecting the processes of creation, being in the sense intended, actually true, will not conflict with any true science. They may omit processes which human analysis and research may render probable, passing them as not germain to the scope of a moral revelation and as not likely to be intelligible to the masses of mankind.――――Finally――that the assumed stand-point of view from which these processes of creation are contemplated is on this earth and not elsewhere in the universe is certain from the fact that it was written to be read and understood by men and not by angels. Hence we must expect the facts to be presented _as they would have appeared to a supposed observer upon our globe_. 2. _What is the true idea of nature, and what the line between nature and the supernatural?_ A reference to familiar facts will best set forth the case. Thus; it is in and by nature that at a certain temperature water becomes vapor; at another temperature, ice; that vapor rises in the atmosphere, water runs downward, and ice abides under the laws of solids. On the other hand it is _not_ in nature that water in any of its forms creates itself. Its elements can not begin to be, save by some power above nature.――――Again, by nature plants and animals reproduce their kind, but never can of themselves _begin_ their own existence. Hence some of the processes brought before us in this record of creation come under the head of nature; others are as obviously supernatural――from the immediate hand of God. The work of the second day――the mists of the atmosphere, in part ascending in vapor, in part precipitated upon the earth in water――seems to have followed natural law. In the work of the third, the waters on higher portions of the earth’s surface subsiding into the seas, follow the law of flowing water. But the original creation of matter and the beginnings of life, both vegetable and animal, must have been supernatural――from the immediate fiat of the Almighty.