"And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. "And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. "And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. "And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day." When we had finished I asked Chrissie what it means when we read that "God created the heaven and the earth." Why is the word "created" used? Would any other word have done instead of that one? Chrissie said no other word would do, because to create means to make out of nothing. He was right, was he not? The next question was, "Why is create a word which can never be used except when we are speaking of God?" I don't know who answered, but someone gave the right reason--"Because only God can make a thing be when there was nothing before it; nothing to make it out of." This seems quite plain, does it not? But do you know there was once a boy, who did not believe that he could not create things until he had tried to make something out of nothing, and found that only nothing came. He was quite sure he could create anything if he only told it to come; so at last his teacher said, "You had better try." He was only a very little boy, so he thought he would try, and up he got and stood as straight as he could on his chair, while he said with a loud voice, "Fishes, be!" Perhaps it was a good thing that this boy should thus prove for himself that it is only God who can create anything; only God of whom it could be said, "He spake, and it was done." I did not tell this little story to the children, but I said to Leslie, "You heard Ernest say just now that he was going to make a kennel for your stray doggie; do you think he could make one?" Leslie thought perhaps he might if he worked very hard; and then I asked them all whether, if he worked very hard, day and night, for a long, long time, Ernest could create a kennel? "No, indeed he could not. He never could, no matter how hard he worked." Everybody was sure of this; for even little Dick quite understood that if the cleverest and handiest boy in the world were told that he must make a box, he could not even begin to make the commonest box unless he had something given him to make it out of, and something too to make it with. "He would need wood," they said, "and nails, and a hammer and saw; and if it were to be a nice box, to last long, he would want paint, and a lock and key, and hinges; and if he wished everyone to know that it was his own box, he must mark it with his name when it was finished."