Of this period natural science gives us no intimation. In the earliest geological epochs organic life, dry land, and an atmosphere already existed. At the period now under consideration the two former had not been called into existence, and the latter was in process of elaboration from the materials of the primeval deep. If the formation of the atmosphere in its existing conditions was, as already hinted, a result of the gradual cooling of the earth, then this period must have been of great length, and the action of the heated waters on the crust of the globe may have produced thick layers of detrital matter destined to form the first soils of the succeeding æon. We know nothing, however, of these primitive strata, and most of them must have been removed by denuding agencies in succeeding periods, or restored by subterranean heat to the crystalline state. The events and results of this day may be summed up as follows:
"At the commencement of the period the earth was enveloped by a misty or vaporous mantle. In its progress those relations of air and vapor which cause the separation of the clouds from the earth by a layer of clear air, and the varied alternations of sunshine and rain, were established. At the close of the period the newly formed atmosphere covered a universal ocean; and there was probably a very regular and uniform condition of the atmospheric currents, and of the processes of evaporation and condensation."
But while we must affirm that no idea of a solid atmospheric vault can be detected in the Bible, and while we may also affirm that such an idea would have been altogether foreign to its tone, which invariably refers all things not to secondary machinery, but to the will and fiat of the Supreme, we must not forget that a most important moral purpose was to be served by the assertion of the establishment of the atmospheric expanse. Among all nations the phenomena of the atmosphere have had important theological and mythological relations. The ever-changing and apparently capricious aspects of the atmosphere and its clouds, the terrible effects of storms, and the balmy influence of sunshine and calm, deeply impress the minds of simple and superstitious men, and this all the more that in their daily life and expeditions they are constantly subjected to the effects of atmospheric vicissitudes. Hence the greatest gods of all the ancient nations are weather-gods—rulers of the atmospheric heavens—displaying their anger in the thunder-storm and tornado. It is likely that in most cases, as in many barbarous tribes of modern times, these weather-gods were malevolent beings contending against the genial influences of the heavenly Sun-god; but in nearly every case their supposed practical importance has elevated them, as in the case of the Olympian Zeus, the Scandinavian Thor, and the American Hurakon, to the place of supreme divinity. This was one of the superstitions which the Hebrew monotheism had to overcome. Hence the atmosphere is affirmed to be under Jehovah's law, and all its phenomena are attributed to his power. The value of this as cutting at the root of the most widespread superstitions it is easy to understand, and it has a farther value in teaching that even the apparently unstable and capricious air is a thing established from the first and amenable to the ordinance of God. How difficult it has been to eradicate superstitious views of the atmosphere may be learned from the fact that St. Paul, in writing to the enlightened citizens of Ephesus, could speak of the power which the heathen worshipped as the "Prince of the powers of the air," and it is also evidenced by the abundant notions of this kind which have survived from the Middle Ages among the more ignorant part of the people even in lands called Christian.
While, however, the Bible affirms the atmosphere to be subject to law, it does not carry this into the domain of physical necessity, and affirm with some modern materialistic philosophers that it is useless to pray for rain. It is God who gives rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, and what he gives he can withhold. Perhaps no part of our subject can better than this illustrate the rational distinction between a mere physical fatalism, or a mere superstitious fear of capricious nature, and that belief in a divine Lawgiver which lies between these extremes. Modern science may smile at the poor Indian, who in his fear invokes Hurakon or Tlaloc or the terrible Thunder-bird, and may even despise that nobler worship of the great Phoenician Sun-god, the source and fountain of all light and life; against which, though it was the grandest of all the old idolatries, Elijah waged war to the death. But may it not equally deride the faith of Elijah himself, when, after three years of drought, he prayed in the sight of assembled Israel for rain? It may do so if physical law amounts to an invariable necessity, and if there is no supreme Will behind it. But if natural laws are the expression of the divine will, if these laws are multiform and complicated in their relations, and regulate vastly varied causes interacting with each other, and if the action and welfare of man come within the scope of these laws, then there is nothing irrational in the supposition that God, without any capricious or miraculous intervention, may have so correlated the myriad adjustments of his creation as that, while it is his usual rule that rain falls alike on the evil and on the good, he may make its descent at particular times and places to depend on the needs and requests of his own children. In truth the belief in law is essential to the philosophical conception of prayer. If the universe were a mere chaos of chances, or if it were a result of absolute necessity, there would be no place for intelligent prayer; but if it is under the control of a Lawgiver, wise and merciful, not a mere manager of material machinery, but a true Father of all, then we can go to such a being with our requests, not in the belief that we can change his great plans, or that any advantage could result from this if it were possible, but that these plans may be made in his boundless wisdom and love to meet our necessities. There is also in the Bible the farther promise that, if we are truly the children of God, regulating our conduct by his will and enlightened by his spirit, we shall know how to pray for what is in accordance with his divine purpose, and how to receive with gladness whatever he sees fit to give. While, therefore, the Biblical doctrine as to natural law emancipates us from fears of angry storm-demons, it draws us near to a heavenly Father, whose power is above all the tempests of earth, and who, while ruling by law, has regulated all things in conformity with the higher law of love. When God had made the atmosphere, he saw that it was good, and the highest significance is given to this by the consideration that God is love. The position of the Bible is thus the true mean between superstitions at once unhappy and debasing, and a materialistic infidelity that would reduce the universe to a dead, remorseless machine, in which we must struggle for a precarious existence till we are crushed between its wheels.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE DRY LAND AND THE FIRST PLANTS.
"And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of waters called he seas; and God saw that it was good.
"And God said, Let the earth bring forth the springing herb, the herb bearing seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit, after its kind, whose seed is in it on the earth: and it was so. And the earth brought forth the tender herb, the herb yielding seed, and the tree bearing fruit whose seed is in it, after its kind; and God saw that it was good."—Genesis i., 10, 11.
These are events sufficiently simple and intelligible in their general character. Geology shows us that the emergence of the dry land must have resulted from the elevation of parts of the bed of the ancient universal ocean, and that the agent employed in such changes is the bending and crumpling of the outer crust of the earth, caused by lateral pressure, and operating either in a slow and regular manner or by sudden paroxysms. It farther informs us that the existing continents consist of stratified or bedded masses, more or less inclined, fissured and irregularly elevated, and usually supported by crystalline rocks which have been produced among them, or forced up beneath or through them by internal agencies, and which truly constitute the pillars and foundations of the earth. These elevations, it is true, were successive, and belong to different periods; but the appearance of the first dry land is that intended here.