renewed confidence in the last part of the Bible. A belief in a real
Creation of the world, as recorded in the book of Genesis, naturally
implies a belief in the end of the world as predicted in the book of
Revelation. A belief in the former destruction of the world by water is
in accord with a belief in its coming destruction by fire, each of these
destructions being not absolute but regenerative.

This is in fact the line of argument used in that remarkable prophecy of
2 Peter 3: 3-7:

"In the last days mockers shall come with mockery, walking after their
own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? For, from the
days that the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from
the beginning of the creation. For this they wilfully forget, that there
were heavens of old, and an earth compacted out of water and amidst
water, by the word of God; by which means the world that then was, being
overflowed with water, perished; but the heavens that are now, and the
earth, by the same word have been stored up for fire, being reserved
against the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men."

Two points in this remarkable prophecy deserve special attention:

1. It is a description of the religio-scientific problems of the "last
days"; and the class of people referred to are represented as "mocking"
at the second coming of Christ, because they have grown accustomed to
denying, or "wilfully forgetting," the former destruction of the world
by the waters of the Flood. This prediction, as we have seen, is in
complete and accurate accord with the present situation; for the
doctrine of Evolution is chiefly supported by the accepted theories of
geology that there never was a universal Flood. Belief in the current