THE SIXTH DAY
THE CROWN OF GOD'S CREATION.
"The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life."—JOB xxxiii. 4.
"In Him we live, and move, and have our being … for we are also His offspring."—ACTS xvii. 28.
"I will praise Thee: for I am fearfully and wonderfully made."—PSALM cxxxix. 14.
"Ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body."—1 COR. vi. 20.
Before we speak of the last work of God upon the last of those wonderful days of which we are told in the first chapter of the Bible, let us read the verses about it, from the twenty-sixth to the end of that chapter, and to the tenth verse of the next. And then let us read the eighth Psalm, unless indeed you can repeat it, as my little scholars once could—and I hope they have not forgotten it now.
I think the first thing we noticed as we read was, that after the verses which speak of the beasts and creeping things which God made on the SIXTH DAY, there is, as it were, a close to the history, and then a fresh beginning.
We read, "And God saw that it was good." There is a full stop there; and again we read—now for the eighth time—the three words, "And God said."
But this is not all; a very wonderful expression, which had not been used in connection with any part of the work of God, is employed to tell us of the creation of the man who was placed by God as the head of all that He had made, the one to whom He gave dominion, after He had made the earth, and brought it all into order.
God had said, "Let the waters bring forth…. Let the earth bring forth" living creatures. "And God made the beast of the earth"; but before man was created He said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness."
Of no other creature could it be said that he was made in the likeness of God, and of no other do we read that he was "formed" by God "of the dust of the ground," and that the Lord God "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life"; then, and not till then, did man become a "living soul." The body was made of earth, but the soul came immediately from God.
The more we learn about our own body, that wonderful and beautiful house in which we live, the more we shall see, in what God thus formed from the dust of the ground, to call forth our admiration; but the body of the first man, although fashioned with such perfection in all its parts, did not live until God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.
Let us never forget how great a difference God has put between man, about whose creation He took thought, and who was made in His image, to whom He has given speech, reason, and a deathless soul, and all the creatures concerning which we read none of these things.
And now let us learn just a very little about the way in which God has formed what His word speaks of as our "house" or "tent"—the dwelling-place of the soul and spirit.
It would be strange indeed if we did not care to know something about our own home; but our body is not only the house in which we live, it is also the means, through those five senses—the eye, the ear, and the organs of touch, taste, and smell—which have been so well called "the five gateways of knowledge," by which we learn all that can be known by us of the world outside us.
More than this, it is the wonderfully perfect instrument, and implicitly obedient servant, by which all that we do is performed.
But the science that teaches us all that is known about our bodies is a very difficult study, and there are many hard names to master, even at the very outset. For instance, when we speak of the bony framework—that skeleton which, as you know, belongs to us in common with the vertebrate animals—there is a great deal which you would find very difficult to remember.
Still, as I daresay you have found out, the more we learn, even of difficult sciences, the more we can learn, and little May (though, to be sure, she is now four years older than she was when you first made her acquaintance) has learnt a good many of the hard words. She could show you upon her own round arm, just where the bone which reaches from the shoulder to the elbow begins and ends, and tell you its name, and the names of the two bones which reach from the elbow to the wrist, and of the wrist-bones, and of those which you can feel in the palm of your hand, and the finger-bones.
But when you hear that you have more than two hundred bones in your body, you will be inclined to agree with me that it would take both of us some time to learn even their names, much more to know all about them.
The spine consists of twenty-four short bones, each with a little ring. These vertebras are piled up one upon the other; for God has made our bodies upright; our faces, are lifted upwards, and our eyes look straight before us. These twenty-four little bones are closely and strongly bound together, and between each one and its neighbour there is something so soft and elastic that we can bend our heads, or move in any direction, without the slightest strain or jar.
The head is most wonderfully built up, like an arch, of several bones beautifully joined in a very strong and perfect way which carpenters call "dove-tailing." We can understand why the head, which is so much exposed, and is almost entirely occupied by the brain, should be so carefully protected; for thought, memory, will, and what we can best express as "consciousness of our being," all depend upon it.
Passing from head to foot, we find that our feet, which are not large, yet must bear the weight of the body, are also made upon the arch-principle, which has been found, like the hollow bones of the bird's wing, to combine lightness and strength. The twenty-six bones are so fitted together that this wonderful arch is quite elastic, as you can prove by moving your own foot up and down.
The joints, where two bones which are to play upon each other come in contact, as they do at the elbow or shoulder, are made in different ways. The elbow only moves to and fro like a hinge; the hip and shoulder, like a "ball and socket," move every way. You do not need to be told that each kind of joint is found just where it is needed for the work it has to do; for there is no mistaking or misplacing in God's workmanship, as there so often is in the very best of ours.
I cannot at present tell you anything about the muscles, except that it is by their means that we move arms, legs, head, eyes—every part of the body, for bones cannot move of themselves, but are acted on by the muscles.
Nor can we learn much about the nerves, because the subject is very difficult to understand. They come from the brain in the head, and from that part of it which runs all down the backbone, through the little bony rings of the vertebræ; and they are protected, because they are so very delicate, and so precious to us, by a strong bony sheath. At first these nerves are like coarse twine, but they divide and divide until they become as fine as threads of white silk—almost as fine as the stronger part of a spider's web—and they go all over the body, reaching to the very tips of the fingers.
The first pair of nerves goes to the nose, for smell; the second to the eye, for sight; and so on for hearing and taste. These are the nerves called "sensory," which carry to the brain sensations from outside the body. The "motor" nerves are those which take orders from the brain, to be instantly obeyed by the muscles.
In the hand, which has twenty-seven bones—one more than the foot—and is a more wonderful "tool" than any which God has given to the lower animals, wonderful as their tools are, the sense of touch is stronger than in any other part of the body.
Suppose you put your fingers upon something very hot or very cold. "Quick as thought," as we say, you draw them away again. But before you did so, what had happened?
The nerves at the tip of your finger had sent a telegram straight home to the brain, "Too hot!" or "Too cold!" and the brain had telegraphed back to the fingers, "Keep out of the way of it!" whatever the hot or cold thing may have been.
To think, even for a moment, of these lightning messages running backwards and forwards, to and from the brain, gives us some little idea how very wonderful the brain itself must be, and also how God has made one part of the body to depend upon another.
Apart from the brain, the ear would be conscious of no sound, whether the soft wash of the waves along the shore, or the mighty roll of the thunder through the sky. On the other hand, none of these voices could reach the brain if God had not "planted the ear," and formed it so perfectly to receive the waves of sound which, striking upon its delicate little "drum," cause it to vibrate, and so are passed on by the nerve which takes messages to the brain. For it is the brain which takes charge of every "impression" conveyed to it by eye, ear, hand, nose, or palate; but how these impressions conveyed to the brain give rise to what we call "thoughts" and "ideas"—this is one of the secret things which belong to God, and of which He has not allowed the wisest man to say, "Oh yes, I understand all about it!"
And there is another secret thing which cannot be explained. The heart has been called "the fountain of life," because by it the blood, which is the life of the body, is kept in continual motion, and sent to every part. How little we think of it! But whether we are waking or sleeping, at work or at rest, this busy fountain still goes on playing. We may hear the throb of it, as it strikes against the chest, in its ceaseless working; and we may count these regular "beats," and find that there are about seventy-five of them every minute. It has been calculated that during an ordinarily long life there are three thousand millions of beats without a break. But what has set this fountain at work? and what keeps it going night and day without any thought or care of ours, all our life long? Of all this it can only be said, "We do not know; we cannot find out. God in His wisdom has so ordered it."
Many years ago a doctor, who had observed very carefully, and thought much about what he observed, found out that every time the heart beats, the blood rushes from it into a great curved tube called an artery, and so passes through tubes which, like the nerves, are constantly becoming finer and finer, to every part of the body.
He also discovered that the blood takes its journey back again to the heart by a different road: it does not return through these tubes, but through softer ones, called veins. Thus far he could go, and the story of the "circulation" of the blood is very interesting; but the cause of the heart's perpetual motion, and the blood's continuous flow, this he could not discover.
Is it not wonderful to think that this rapid motion of the fountain within us goes on so noiselessly that even a baby whose little heart has only just begun to beat, is not disturbed by it, as he sleeps in his cradle?
To all the "higher animals" God has given both heart and brain. He has also given them, in more or less degree, that mysterious sense of which we have spoken before, and of which we have had so many proofs; a sense which is not at all dependent upon reason or intellect, but is found in a less degree in men than in animals to which reason has not been given.
We have before noticed that by instinct and memory all the wants of the brute creation are met; God has given them all that they need to teach them to live, each in its own life, after its kind, and to provide for their young ones; but He has not given to the "beasts that perish" the power of, as we sometimes say, "putting this and that together," nor, as far as we know, of learning by experience; although it does seem as if the spiders, in making their webs, improve by practice.
Instinct teaches every living thing to get its own food, choosing that which is suited to itself, and rejecting that which is not. It teaches the bird or the insect to seek out a fit place in which to deposit its eggs, or to make a nest or "homie" for them, even before they are laid; and it can teach even such a free creature as a bird to leave for a time its airy life, and to sit patiently upon its eggs, even carefully turning them, as if it knew that the life of the unfledged nursling within the shell-wall depended upon its being kept warm.
Instinct leads the butterfly, as we have seen, to lay its eggs upon the leaf of the very tree upon which the caterpillar, when hatched, will feed—though its own food has been taken from flowers.
Instinct guides the swallow in its flight, as it leaves us in the autumn for the shores of Africa; and the redwing on its way from its summer home in the far North to winter in our warmer country—each arriving in its appointed season.
[Illustration: THE SWALLOW.]
And so, as we study the habits of birds and beasts, we see how instinct everywhere guides and directs them; but what this sense is we cannot tell. It has been well remarked, that all that can rightly be said of it is, that it is "a guide which God, in His care for His creatures, has given them, and caused them to obey."
We also noticed in reading these verses that until man was formed, there was no lord over the Creation, but that to Adam God gave dominion over all; nothing was expected, and he was owned as head, God Himself bringing the creatures to him that they might receive their names from him, though Adam himself was still under God, and every benefit with which the Creator loaded him, only left him so much more bound to own His right over him.
As God has made us for Himself, He has given to every man, even the rudest savage, something within him which reminds him of One to whom he of right belongs; however far he may have got away from Him, or may have tried to satisfy his conscience—that "eye of the soul"—by seeking to please some idol-god which he has made for himself.
God has also given proof of His "eternal power and Godhead" by "the things that are made"—His glorious works in Creation.
Listen to what a Red chief, far away in North America, said to a missionary the other day:—
"I have long lost faith"—this was his confession—"in the old paganism. They know I have not cared for the old religion. I have neglected it. And I will tell you, missionary, why I have not believed in our old paganism for a long time.
[Illustration: NORTH-AMERICAN INDIANS.]
"I hear God in the thunder, in the tempest, and in the storm; I see His power in the lightning that shivers the trees into kindling-wood; I see His goodness in giving us the moose, the reindeer, the beaver, and the bear; I see His loving-kindness in giving us, when the south winds blow, the ducks and geese; and when the snow and ice melt away, and our lakes and rivers are open again, I see how He fills them with fish. I have watched these things for years, and I see how every moon of the year He gives us something; and He has so arranged it that, if we are only industrious and careful, we can always have something to eat.
"So, thinking about these things which I had observed, I made up my mind years ago that this Great Spirit—so kind and so watchful and so loving—did not care for the beating of the conqueror's drum, or the shaking of the rattle of the medicine man. So for years I have had no religion.
"Missionary, what you have said to-day fills my heart, and satisfies my longings. It is just what I have been expecting to hear about the Great Spirit. I am glad you have come with this wonderful story; stay as long as you can." [Footnote: From By Canoe and Dog-Train, p. 119.]
Nothing more than the fact that man was made, not like even an angel or an archangel, but in the image of God, is needed to show how far beyond and above every creature he was; and, as no creature owed so much to the Creator, none was responsible to Him in the same way. No one had any right over him except the One who had made him for Himself, his Creator, without whom he would not have been.
"The ox knoweth its owner, and the ass his master's crib." (Isa. i. 3.)
God has made the animals faithful and affectionate, and there are many true and touching stories of the way in which they have attached themselves to those who have cared for them. A dog will devote itself to its own master, and even give its life for him; but no mere animal has that within him which can have to say to God and be in relationship with Him. And how sad it is to think that the only creature of God who could know Him is the one who has turned away from Him and listened to the spoiler!
At the beginning God could say of all Creation "very good"; though there is a wonderful beauty still—beauty everywhere if we have eyes to see it—He cannot say "very good" where decay, pain, sorrow, death are all around; where we grow weak and old, and even while we are young and strong, the most pleasant things tire us; where hatred and envy, shame and fear—all the sad feelings brought by sin—exist in the heart of the last and best of His creatures, to whom His voice and His presence once brought only joy. "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin." And who can say how terrible has been the change thus wrought?
Sad indeed is the wreck which Satan has made of God's fair Creation, but a sadder wreck still is the man whom He made upright; and yet the day is surely coming when round and round the throne of "Him that liveth for ever and ever" shall echo and re-echo the words, "Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power; for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created."
God does not mend things, but replaces what has been spoilt or marred by something far better. Even the poor earth, so ruined by sin and its consequences, He will not mend; but He will make "new heavens and a new earth" (never more to bear the marks of the spoiler's hand) "wherein dwelleth righteousness."
But before the new heavens and new earth are created, a great deal will take place upon this earth of which we have been speaking. The Jews, now scattered in every land, will pass through much trouble, the lost tribes will be found and restored, and the Lord will put down all His enemies, and "reign in righteousness" as King over His once again united people Israel. There will be a thousand years of wonderful peace, and Jerusalem will be the centre of earthly blessing; for He says of it, "The name of the city from that day shall be 'Jehovah Shammah' (the Lord is there)" (Ezek. xlviii. 35); and again, "They shall call thee 'the city of the Lord'"; and "Thou shalt call thy walls 'Salvation,' and thy gates 'Praise'" (Isa. lx. 14-18).
Those who know the Lord Jesus Christ as their Saviour now, will be with Him when He thus reigns over the earth, for they will be caught up to be with Him for ever, before the time of trouble (followed by earthly blessing) begins. In those thousand years of peace even the animals which have so long suffered through man's sin and oppression will share in the rest of that happy time, and God's ancient people Israel, once more dwelling safely in their own land, will sing many of the Psalms in His Word for joy and happiness.
The following hymn speaks of that good time which is surely coming:—
"Hail to the Lord's Anointed,
Great David's greater Son!
Hail, in the time appointed,
His reign on earth begun!
He comes to break oppression,
To set the captive free,
To take away transgression,
And rule in equity.
"He shall come down like showers
Upon the fruitful earth,
And love, joy, hope, like flowers,
Spring in His path to birth;
Before Him on the mountains,
Shall peace the herald, go,
And righteousness in fountains
From hill to valley flow.
"Kings shall fall down before Him,
And gold and incense bring;
All nations shall adore Him,
His praise all people sing;
For He shall have dominion
O'er river, sea, and shore,
Far as the eagle's pinion
Or dove's light wing can soar.
"O'er every foe victorious.
He on His throne shall rest;
From age to age more glorious,
All blessing and all-blest;
The tide of time shall never
His covenant remove;
His name shall stand for ever,
That name to us is Love."