perfectly well know, what I have said on other occasions; but it is
necessary for me to run over it, and I will do so as briefly as I can,
setting it before you in outline as a whole, so that you may see it in
contrast with the other theory which I shall then endeavor to set forth
also as a whole.

According to that theory of the world, then, which lies at the
foundation, the old-time and still generally accepted theory of
Christendom, the world was created in the year 4004 B.C. It was created
in a week's time. This was the general teaching until thinkers were
compelled to accept another theory by the advances of modern
investigation. The world was created inside of a week. God got through,
pronounced it good, and rested. Then in a short period of time we do
not know how long evil entered this world which God had pronounced
perfect. Satan, a real being, the leader of the hosts of the fallen
angels, the traditional enemy of God, who had fought him even in his
own heaven and been cast out, invades this fair earth. He seduces our
first parents, gets them to commit a sin against God which makes them
his enemies, turns them into rebels against his just and holy
government. The world, then, is fallen. Now from that day to this the
one effort on the part of God, according to this theory, has been to
deliver the world from this lost condition. Jonathan Edwards, for
example, published a book called "The History of Redemption." He
conceived the entire history of the world under that title, because the
history of the world, according to this theory, has been the history of
the effort of God to deliver man from the effects of the fall.

Now let us note the story as it proceeds a little further. The world
exists for I think I have a date here which may interest you 1,656
years, God meantime doing everything he could, by sending angels and