[Footnote: Testimony of the Rocks.] carefully worked out a
suggestion derived from a German source, that the history of
Creation was presented to Moses in a series of six visions, which
appeared to him as so many days with intervening nights. More
recently Dr. Rorison [Footnote: In Answers to "Essays and
Reviews."] has maintained that the first chapter of Genesis is not
a history at all, but a poem--"the Hymn of Creation." There is,
however, nothing in the chapter itself to confirm either of these
views. When visions are recorded elsewhere we are told that they
are visions, but no such hint is given us here. Nor do we find in
the passage any of the characteristics of Hebrew poetry. It is
inserted in an Historical document, and in the absence of any
proof to the contrary, it is plainly itself also to be regarded as
History.

But there remains yet one method to be attempted. If there is
reason to believe that the Bible is the Word of God, just as the
universe is His Work, then we may well expect that each of them
will throw light upon and help us to a right understanding of the
other. And if there be one part beyond all others in which this
may be confidently looked for, it is that part in which the Divine
Architect describes His own work. We know how difficult it is to
understand a complicated process, or a complex piece of machinery,
from a mere written description; and how our difficulty is
lessened if we have the opportunity of inspecting the machinery or
the process. Just in the same way we may expect to encounter
difficulties, and to form erroneous conclusions when we study by
itself such a document as the history of Creation, and we may well
expect that those difficulties will be diminished, and those
errors corrected by an examination of that material universe, the