As they search into its depths and bring out to the light of day remains of plants and animals which lie buried there, they point to these "footprints on the sands of time," and tell us that our earth is very, very old; _how_ old they do not say; they can only guess. But long before anyone began to lay bare the recesses of the earth and to ponder its age, God had told us that it is older than our little minds can conceive, for He created it "in the beginning." Men of science also when they speak of the work of God on the SIX DAYS of His Creation, say they could not have been actual days of twenty-four hours, as time is now measured. I have told you that in speaking of what God does we must never say a thing _could_ not be; but rather lay our hand upon our mouth, or speak as Job did when he answered the Lord and said, "I know that Thou canst do everything, and that no thought can be withholden from Thee." But we may also remember that, as God measures time, "One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day"; "for a thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night," I wonder--as we have read now four times, at the close of each of God's wonderful days, "The evening and the morning were the first," "the second," "the third," "the fourth day"--whether you have stopped to think why the evening is always put before the morning; surely this way of reckoning time is very unlike ours. Is it not so reckoned because as light was made to shine perfectly upon the earth, when God called it out of the darkness, there was no dawning of that first day? It began when God said, "Let light be: and light was"; then, with the gradual disappearing of the light, "there was evening," nothing being told us about the "unfurled flag" of night, or the dawning of the second day. This at least we know, that whether in the beginning, when the strong foundations of the earth were laid, or during those periods of time when God was working to bring it into order and beauty, "no touch of man's rude hand" interfered. The goodness of God was seen in storing it with mineral treasures for his use; covering it with vegetation which has lived and died and laid up vast abundance of coal; peopling the air and the waters with birds and fishes. But with all this man had nothing to do, for one of the very last acts of Creative Power was that which called him into existence, and set him, as lord of all, in a place so carefully and wonderfully prepared for him.