Disregarding the chronology of Archbishop Usher printed in the margin of our Bible, and the division into chapters and verses made by Hugh de St. Cher--both modern inventions which are no part of the sacred record--and purging our minds of those prepossessions which are incident to an uncritical faith, we can now contemplate the Symbolical Hymn of Creation in its simple and original form, as a record of the _self-manifestation of God_, given in such order and under such conditions that it shall be apprehensible and interpretable by the finite mind. 1. _Creation was a gradual process._ God did not create a perfect universe at once, but built it up slowly, step by step. A consistent interpretation of the record forbids us to regard "the Creative Week" as a literal week composed of days of twenty-four hours each. Creation is the work of God, and surely the Divine action can not have been conditioned by time-measures which did not exist before, but were consequent upon the act of God. The great cyclical changes in nature produced by the creative Word are the only measures of time. Therefore the "days" of the Creative Week are _new appearances, new manifestations, new developments_ in the creative purpose of God. The first morning is the appearance of _luminosity_ in the aeriform fluid, or nebulous vapor, whatever science may finally determine that to have been. The Hebrew מַיִם (mayim), from the root ים, which denotes _tumultuous_, _tremulous_, or _undulatory_ movement, is used of the waters of the ocean, of the waters above the firmament, of vapor and clouds, because of their susceptibility of tremulous, undulatory motion. The first distinct creative formation was _heat_, or invisible molecular motion, resulting from "the Spirit of God brooding upon the face of the abyss;" and this heat reveals itself in the phenomena of _light_.[198] How closely the ideas of light and heat were united in the Hebrew mind is shown by the same word being used for both, with merely a slight difference in pronunciation, אוֹר (ōr) and אוּר (ūr). The second morning is the appearance of an _expanse_ in the midst of the vapors, dividing the vapors which were below the expanse from the vapors which were above the expanse. The Hebrew רֳקִיֹעַ (rakai), from רֳקַע (to stretch, to spread out), means properly an extension, an expanse. This is the translation adopted by Benisch, Kalisch, Delitzsch, Keil, and Lange. After heat and light, the next creative formation is an _atmosphere_, with its auroral light and a cloudy canopy.