life. Many substitutes have been proposed for this verse but none
that can be so easily understood, explained and defended.

Second: the 24th verse gives us the only law governing the
continuity of life on earth. If life is to continue, reproduction
must be according to law or lawless. _Reproduction according to
kind_ is the basic scientific fact in the world; all the books on
science combined do not state as much that is of value to man as
this one verse--it is the foundation of family life and of all human
calculations. No living thing has ever violated this law; even man
with all his power has never been able to persuade or compel that
intangible, invisible thing that we call life to cross the line of
species.

Third: the 26th verse--"Let us make man in our image"--gives us the
only explanation of man's presence on earth. Without revelation no
one has been able to explain the riddle of life. Man comes into the
world without his own volition; he has no choice as to the age,
nation, race, or family environment into which he shall be born. So
far as he is concerned, he comes by chance; he goes he knows not
when, and cannot insure himself for a single hour against accident,
disease or death; and yet, he is supreme above all other things.

The 26th verse reveals a truth of inestimable value. When man
knows that he is "the child of a King," with the earth for an
inheritance--that the Creator, after bringing all other things into
existence, made him, not as other things were made, but in the
image of God, and placed him here as commander-in-chief of all that
is--when he understands that he is part of God's plan and here for a
purpose he finds himself. To do God's will becomes his highest duty