Walter did not answer at once, so his mother said, "That all seems very plain to me now, although I was somewhat confused before."
The pastor turned a smiling face to her and nodded his head approvingly; he was now quite at his ease again, and did not look for any further trouble. Then turning to Walter, he was a little surprised to see him looking flushed and excited, so said, "Well, Walter, what are you thinking about?"
The boy looked up and said, "I was trying to think, when God started His second creation, for He had finished His first one on the sixth day and rested from His work on the seventh day, and here seems to be a record of something He created after He had finished."
Had a bomb shell exploded in the room, it would not have surprised and shocked the pastor and his wife so much as that which they had just heard; and coming just at the time when the pastor thought he was making everything clear and plain, it confused him terribly, and in his ears kept ringing what Walter had said: "I was trying to think, when God started His second creation, for He had finished His first one on the sixth day and rested from His work which He had made, on the seventh day." What could this mean; where did Walter get these queer thoughts from; were they in reality queer? The idea of a second creation was absurd, yet the Bible said, Genesis 2. 1, "thus the heavens and earth were finished and all the hosts of them." There it was plain enough, it spoke both of heaven and earth, "and on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made." Did God make a mistake in the first creation and so start in again to rectify His mistake? Impossible. God was, is, and always will be all-knowing; this precluded all chance of Deity making a mistake. Was the Bible wrong in this particular instance, if so, might it not all be wrong? This thought made the good man's heart stand still. No, no, it could not be; it must be some slight error in the translation or something of that kind—yes, it must be; how was it that he had never seen it before? Then he became conscious that his wife was asking him some question.
"James," he heard her say, "are there really two creations, one spiritual and the other material?"
What should he answer? He never was so at a loss for a reply in his whole life; there was his son and his wife, both apparently depending on him for an explanation, and he absolutely incapable of making a rational one. And then he remembered that he had said it didn't make any difference to him what part of the Bible they started with, as he was very familiar with it all. At length he said: "I don't seem capable of clear thought to-night; I think we had better stop for this time, and we will begin at this same verse to-morrow night."
Walter was sorry to see his father so confused and perplexed, and tried to think of some way to help him arrive at the truth. He was afraid to say much for fear of awakening his father's suspicion, for if his father had the least idea that he had secured his information from the Christian Science text-book, "Science and Health," with key to the scriptures, he would not have allowed him to ask any more questions, nor even voice any of his thoughts, on the subject.
Walter decided to try to show his father a way out of his dilemma, so he said: "Father, don't you think your explanation about that mist that is spoken of in Genesis, 2. 6, being a fog is wrong?"
"What else could it be, Walter?"
"Have you ever noticed, father, that this particular verse starts in with a 'but'? It reads, 'But there went up a mist,' it does not say, 'God made a mist to rise from the earth.'"