This has always been my position. I did not sup- pose that nothing was used as the raw material; but if the Mosaic account means anything, it means that whereas there was nothing, God caused something to 25 exist--created what we know as matter. I can not conceive of something being made, created, without anything to make anything with. I have no more confidence in fiat worlds than I have in fiat money. Mr. Talmage tells us that God did not make the uni- verse out of _nothing_, but out of "omnipotence." Exactly how God changed "omnipotence" into matter is not stated. If there was _nothing_ in the universe, _omnipotence_ could do you no good. The weakest man in the world can lift as much _nothing_ as God. Mr. Talmage seems to think that to create something from nothing is simply a question of strength--that it requires infinite muscle--that it is only a question of biceps. Of course, omnipotence is an attribute, not an entity, not a raw material; and the idea that something can be made out of omnipotence--using that as the raw material--is infinitely absurd. It would have been equally logical to say that God made the universe out of his omniscience, or his omnipresence, or his unchangeableness, or out of his honesty, his holiness, or his incapacity to do evil. I confess my utter in- ability to understand, or even to suspect, what the reverend gentleman means, when he says that God created the universe out of his "omnipotence." I admit that the Bible does not tell when God created 26 the universe. It is simply said that he did this "in the beginning." We are left, however, to infer that "the beginning" was Monday morning, and that on the first Monday God created the matter in an exceedingly chaotic state; that on Tuesday he made a firmament to divide the waters from the waters; that on Wednes- day he gathered the waters together in seas and allowed the dry land to appear. We are also told that on that day "the earth brought forth grass and herb "yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding "fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind." This was before the creation of the sun, but Mr. Talmage takes the ground that there are many other sources of light; that "there may have been volcanoes in active operation on other planets." I have my doubts, however, about the light of volcanoes being sufficient to produce or sustain vegetable life, and think it a little doubtful about trees growing only by "volcanic glare." Neither do I think one could depend upon "three thousand miles of liquid granite" for the pro- duction of grass and trees, nor upon "light that rocks might emit in the process of crystallization." I doubt whether trees would succeed simply with the assistance of the "Aurora Borealis or the Aurora Australis." There are other sources of light, not mentioned by 27