picture than a creative history, and from Ammon to the effect that the author of it evidently takes the position of a beholder of creation, the learned German concludes his general statement by remarking, that the scenes of the chapter are prophetic tableaux, each containing a leading phase of the drama of creation. "Before the eye of the seer," he says, "scene after scene is unfolded, until at length, in the seven of them, the course of creation, in its main _momenta_, has been fully represented." The revelation has every characteristic of prophecy by vision,--prophecy by eye-witnessing; and may be perhaps best understood by regarding it simply as an exhibition of the actual phenomena of creation presented to the mental eye of the prophet under the ordinary laws of perspective, and truthfully described by him in the simple language of his time. In our own country a similar view has been taken by the author of a singularly ingenious little work which issued about two years ago from the press of Mr. Constable of Edinburgh, "The Mosaic Record in Harmony with Geology."[17] The writer, however, exhibits, in dealing with his subject, the characteristic sobriety of the Anglo-Saxon mind; and while the leading features of his theory agree essentially with those of the Continental one, he does not press it so far. In canvassing the _form_ of the revelation made to Moses in the opening of Genesis, he discusses the nature of the inspiration enjoyed by that great prophet; and thus retranslates literally from the Hebrew the passage in which the Divine Being is himself introduced as speaking direct on the point in the controversy raised by Aaron and Miriam. "And He [the Lord] said, hear now my words: If he [Moses] were _your_ prophet [subordinate, or at least not superior, to the prophetess and the high priest], I, Jehovah, in the vision to him would make myself known: in the dream would I speak to him. Not so _my_ servant Moses [God's prophet, not theirs]; in all my house faithful is he. Mouth to mouth do I speak to him, and vision, but not in dark speeches; and likeness of Jehovah he beholds." Moses, then, was favored with "visions without dark speeches."