RUIN AND DARKNESS. "_Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear._"--HEBREWS xi. 3. "_Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did He in heaven, and in earth, in the seas, and all deep places._"--PSALM cxxxv. 6. There are three words which God has used to tell us about His work which we call "The Creation." We read, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." "And God made two great lights." "And the Lord God formed man." "Created," "made," "formed," these are the words; and it is of the first of them we shall speak a little to-day. Before my children came, I had been thinking how I could make it plain to the little ones that there is a very great difference between being able to create and being able to make anything. It happened that when they came in they were all talking so fast, of something which had greatly delighted them, that it was some time before I could find out what it was all about. At last Sharley told me that as they were racing along with their hoops a strange dog had followed them, and rubbed his nose against their hands, wanting to make friends with them. "We are quite sure it is nobody's dog," she said; "or at any rate it is a dog that has lost its master, and has no home now. So after lessons we are going to call it, and get it to follow us home. It is waiting for us outside the door this minute." "And I am going to make a kennel for it," said Ernest, who was very fond of sawing and hammering away in the shed behind, the house, and wished to be a carpenter, when he grew up; "at least, I am going to try, and I think I can." I may as well tell you at once that this little stray dog soon got tired of waiting, outside the door. When lessons were over, and the children went to look, no doggie was to be found; and as they did not know his name it was not easy to call him. I have no doubt he found his own master and his own home again, and was much better off there than he would have been in the best kennel Ernest could have made, with seven boys and girls to take him for a walk every day. However that may be, I tell you of this dog because it was while Ernest was talking about making a house for it that I was saying to myself, "I wonder whether this plan of Ernest's about making a kennel will help them to understand, what I so much want them to learn, about the difference which there is between the words make and create." First of all I had to tell them not to talk any more just then, but to repeat their verses. Then we read--more than once--for Leslie and Dick would not have liked to miss their turn, and there were not enough verses for each to read one--what God has told us in the first five verses of His book. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.