THE
IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS;
C    9  _; i?,    7E ~
__    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
OR,
GENESIS AND GEOLOGY.
BY
WILLIAM DENTON.
BOSTON:
PUBLISHED BY WILLIAM DE"TON.
FOR BALE BY WILLIAM WHITE AND COMPANY,
158 WASHINGTON STREET.
1871.  -
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THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS;
OR,
GENESIS AND GEOLOGY.
WE live in the nineteenth century, when science is
abroad knocking at every door, not excepting the
church door; flashing light into the dark corners of
superstition and bigotry, regardless of the hooting of
the owls and the screaming of the bats that inhabit
them. It is useless to lock and bolt the door; for
science carries the club that can demolish every barrier.  In vain you hide in the dark; for her lamp
makes day of the blackest night.  Build t(j the skies,
she will soar and scan the very top stone; dig centre
deep, she will dive to the foundation.  Heaven is not
too high for her fetterless wing, nor the fires of hell hot
enough to prevent her most searching examination.
Stimulated by her example, we are no longer con
tent to crawl at a snail's pace, but have put on the
" seven-leagued boots," and are striding with the
pace of a giant. We have left slavery behind us, with
its terrible curses, - old notions of the earth and
heavens, which lie like bowlders by the wayside, as we
still go marching on.  It is vain for the cynic to sneer
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at, the conservative to lament over, or the sceptic to
deny, thie progressive tendency of the age. It is tritue
as the sun, and resistless as the motion of the planets.
Go, bid the ocean cease to heave,
The rivers cease to flow;
Bid smiling spring retrace her steps,
And flow'rets cease to blow.
Go, drive the wild winds to their home,
The lightning to its nest,Then bid the car of Progress stay,
Whose coursers never rest.
This progressive spirit now manifests itself in theological investigations which can be no longer postponed.
We boldly take up to-day what yesterday refused to
touch.' The Bible can no longer say, "You must niot
look at me save to, bless. I am too sacred to be investigated." For we now say, " What better are you
than others till you are tested?  All pretended sacred
books will claim exemption from criticism on the same
grounds."
"The Bible," we are told, "is from God.  It is all
true, all divine; given to man to be his uniierring
guide. He who made the universe made this book; he
who wrote his name in blazing suns upon the sky wrote
this Bible, or inspired men to write it, who infallibly
recorded what he desired that man should know."
What might we not expect from it, if put in our hands
for the first time? What grand revelations of truth,
- as much superior to any thing that man can write as
the solar system is superior to our clnumsy machinery
for representing it; surpassing mail's lhighlest unassisted
efforts as a living laniidscape does a picture, or  a
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breathing, moving mal  his marble' representative.
We say, "It will, perhaps, tell us the story of the
earth, its fiery birth, and how, during the myriad
ages, it grew to be the noble tree, whose fruit is living,
loving men and women.   It may inform us of the orbs
in space, of the universe lying beyond the range of the
most powerful telescope. It will reveal to us the laws
of health; so that we may secure sound bodies, without
which sound minds are next to impossible.  Its revelations will be as much grander, truer, and more sublime than man's science, as the laws of nature are
superior to our knowledge of them; and, as far as we
are acquainted with-them, we shall find its statements
exactly to agree." Stand aside, vain babblers, God
speaks: be silent, listen, and learn.
We commence with the first verse of the first chapter of Genesis. "In the beginning, God created the
heaven and the earth."
Our knowledge of Nature and her operations compels
us to object to this. Here is Miracle, whom no man
knows, taking the place of Nature, with which we are
all more or less acquainted. Here is the great miracleworker, God, making out of nothing, as the word bara
is generally supposed to mean, all that exists. Grant
this, and we have only solved one problem by creating
a greater.  Whence came this wonderful Being, who
did what in the nature of things seems to be absolutely impossible?   We  cannot help asking, "What
was he doing for that eternity before hlie resolved to
commence the work of creation?". For there must
have been an eternity of duration before the beginning, when there was no heaven, no earth, no any
thing.  When, as the "Rig-Veda" says, -
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" Nor aught, *or naught, existed: yon bright sky
Was not, nor heaven's broad roof outstretched above."
Accept a beginning, and you accept anl eternity of
idleness preceding it, when nothing was done because
there was nothing with which it might be done. A
solitary monarch for an eternity, considering the sort
of kingdom hlie should make, and how that kingdom
rule. 
We can conceive of a boundary to the solar system,
but none to the universe. So we can conceive of a
beginning to the solar system, but none to the matter
of which it is composed; and, when we are introduced
to a beginning, it is as unnatural as for some one to
take us out of the universe, and introduce us to its
commencement.
As far as we can see, the universe is self-sufficient.
It does not need winding up by some outside power,
like a clock, neither did it require some one to make it
originally; and only ignorance of the operation of
natural law ever led any one to talk of a "' beginning,"
or dream of a God who stands outside of nature, and
makes all things by days' works.
But when was this beginning?  One modern wouldbe harmonizer of Genesis and geology assures us that
"there is here no limitation of time, and, therefore,
the expansion of astronomical and geological eons,
cycle upon cycle, finds here the most ample scope.
There was time enough in that' beginning' for the
evolution of the entire solar system from a single
nebulous mass,-supposing that to have been the
condition in which matter was first produced."* But
* Man in Genesis and Geology, p. 13.
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this gentleman finds it convenient to forget that God
himself- taking his view of the Bible- has declared,
in the plainest possible language, when this beginning
was. The creation of heaven was the work of the
second day,-"God called the firmament heaven;"
and we read ini Exod. xx. 11: " For in six days the
Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that
in them is;" and in Exod. xxxi. 17: "In six days the
Lord made heaven and earth; and on tile seventh day
he rested, and was refreshed." Whatever heaven and
earth mean in the one place, we may reasonably coinclude they mean in the other.   But if God made
heaven and earth ill six days, then the beginning, in
which he is said to have made them, must be included
in those six days; for if not, then he did not make the
heaven and earth in six days, as this passage informs
us.
When we have learned that the heaven and earth
were made in six days, we have a key to the time of
the "beginning."  On the last of these six days, Adam
was created; and, in the fifth and sixth chapters of
Genesis, we can learn how many years it is from the
creation of Adam to the Deluge. Adam was one hundred and thirty years old when Seth was born; Seth
was one hundred and five when Enos was born; and
thus we are furnished with the date of the birth of
eight succeeding individuals to Noah, who was six
hundred years old when the Deluge came. Thus we
have the following table:
Aa........................    130
Set.......................    105
1n......................     90
Cia.......................   70
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Adam
Seth
Enos
Cainan 
THE IRIRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
aleel...........           65
...ed............... 162
E.........     65
selah...........          187
Leh.........................            182
.o.a.h.....    600
Total...........    1,656 yrs.
The time from the creation of Adam to the Deluge,
then, is one thousand six hundred and fifty-six years;
and from that time the Bible furnishes us with dates,
by which we learn that the Deluge took place about
four thousand two hundred years ago.   Then  the
creation of man took place, according to the Bible
statement, less than six thousand years ago; and
heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is,"
were created in less than a week before the creation
of man; and this was the" beginning."
But who does not know that this is false?  Owen
says, very justly, that the age of our planet alone, as
indicated by geology, is "a period of time so vast, that
the mind, in the endeavor to realize it, is strained by
an effort like that by which it strives to conceive the
space dividing the solar system from the most distant
nebula." * It would be just as true to say that the
universe is but six thousand miles in diameter, as to
say that it is but six thousand years old. Dr. Buckland, himself a clergyman of the Church of England,
says, "Many extensive plains and massive mountains
form, as it were, the great charnel-house of preceding
generations, in which the petrified exuvia of extinct
races of animals and plants are piled into stupendous
* Owen's Paloeontology, p. 2.
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Mahal:
Jared
Enoch
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Lamec
Noah 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
monuments of the operations of life and death, during
almost immeasurable periods of time." Again he says,
"The truth is, that all observers, however various may
be their speculations respecting the secondary causes
by which geological phenomena have been brought
about, are now agreed in admitting the lapse of
very long periods to have been an essential condition
to the production of these phenomena." Lyell talks of
"myriads of ages" * of geologic time.  Prof. Sedgewick of Cambridge, England, says, " During the
evolution of countless succeeding ages, mechanical andchemical laws seem to have undergone no change; but
tribes of sentient beings were created, and lived their
time upon the earth." t Prof. Hitchcock of Amherst
says, "The globe must have existed during a period
indefinitely long anterior to the creation of man. We
are not aware that any practical and thorough geologist doubts this, whatever are his views in respect to
revelation." t  No geologist pretends to speak of less
than millions of years for the time during which the
various formations that constitute the crust of the
earth were deposited.
As geology demonstrates the great age of the earth,y
so astronomy equally establishes the great age of the
heavenly bodies. Herschell, with his forty-feet telescope, saw nebula whose light, he calculated, must
have travelled for nearly two millions of years before
it reached our planet.~  The nebula must, therefore,
have been in existence nearly two millions of years
before, for their light thus to reach the earth
* Lyell's Principles of Geology, p. 63.
t Discourse on the Studies of the University of Cambridge.
t Geology and Revelation, p. 22.
~ Dr. Pye Smith on Geology, Phil. Trans., 1800.
*  e *.. ~*.-~
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THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
But, in reply to this, we are told by theologians, who
admit the great age of the heaven and earth, that the
days mentioned in Exodus, as also the creative days of
Genesis, were not days of twenty-four hours each, but
periods of time of vast extent. Hugh Miller, in his
"Testimony of the Rocks," says, "I have been compelled to hold that the days of creation were not natural,
but prophetic days, and stretched far back into the
bygone eternity.  That is, the facts of geology had
" compelled" him to give a meaning to the word "day"
thiat he would never have thought of giving to it otherwise. Nearly all would-be harmonizers of Genesis
and geology are now "compelled" to take the same
View, and make the word" day" cover a period millions of years in extent.
"Day," we are told, does not always mean a period
of twelve or twenty-four hours. Very true; and how
do we know when it means that, and when it means
something else? By the way in which it is employed.
If a man says, "I have seen nothing like it in my
day," you understand him to mean that he has seen
nothing like it during his life; but if he says, " I made
that table in three days, commencing each day in the 
morning and leaving off in the evening," who could
dream that he meant three years or thirty years? And
who could consider him a truthful man if hlie did?
On the face of it, an interpretation that makes the
word "day," in the first chapter of Genesis, mean an
immense period of time, is strained and unnatural.
"The evening and the morning were the first day."
But how could the evening and the morning be a
period of millions of years' duration? How could it be
said with any propriety or truth, " Ill six days the Lord
*..  *....
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THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that ill them
is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore God blessed
the seventh day and hallowed it," if each of the six
days were millions of years long, and the seventh evidently a natural day of twenty-four hours? Exod.
xxxi. 17, must be read to signify, "In six periods,
millions of years long, the Lord made heaven and
earth; and on the seventh period, of twenty-four
hours long, he rested and was refreshed!"  The
time of rest is out of all proportion small to the time
of labor; and why should the same word, used in the
same connection, mean in the first part. of the verse
millions of years, and in the last part only twenty-four
hours? Hugh Miller, in order to escape this difficulty,
represents the seventh day as still continuing. "Over
it," hlie says, "no evening is represented in the record as
falling, for its special work is not yet complete." * But
the Bible says expressly, God "rested," and God blessed
the seventh day, because he hadI "rested," not rests;,
and by this rest he "was refreshed;" not, hlie is being
refreshed, as it ought to have been, if God's sabbath
still continues. But Hugh Miller knew, as every geologist knows, that the process of world-making is as,
truly going on to-day as it did during the geologic
ages. And, if God worked then, he works now, and
manifests no disposition to rest and refresh himself.
That an ordinary day was meant is evident from the
amount of work done on some of these days. All
that God is represented as doing on the third day is to
say, "Let the waters under the heaven be gathered
together unto one place, and let the dry land appear."
* Testimony of the Rocks, p. 210.
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THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
And God called the dry land" earth," and the gather.
ing of the waters "seas;" then he said, "Let the earth
bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruittree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself
upon the earth." In both cases,after God had spoken, tlhe
work is represented as being immediately done, -" it
was so." Omnipotence called, anid the world answered.
In the 33d Psalm, we read in reference to the creation
in general, and this day's work in particular, " He
spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood
fast." But, if these days are to represent the geologic
periods, they must have been millions of years long.
"Upward of sixteen millions of years are supposed to
have elapsed since the creation of life upon the earth,"
says Dr. Anderson in his "Course of Creation."  No
geologist call consider the Silurian period as separated
from our own by ally. less time than many millions of
years; and yet no interpretation carries it back earlier
than the second day.  This second day, then, could not
have been less than a period of two millions of years;
and yet, according to this record, all that God did
during this immense period was to utter two sentences
and the two words" earth" and "seas." We thus have -
half a million years for each sentence,and half a million
for each word; or counting the words in Hebrew, the
language which God is supposed to have employed, we
have twenty-five words, and eighty thousand years for
God to utter each word! Who cannot see that anl
interpretation of the word " day" that involves such
an absurdity as this must be false?
In favor of the idea that day means an indefinite
period of time, we are sometimes told, that, in Gen. ii.
4, the work that is said to have been done inll six days
12 
THE IRRECOlCILABLE RECORDS.
in the first chapter is said to have been done in a day. 
In the day that the Lord God made the earth and
the heavens." But the fact is, we have here a different
account of creation, by another person, who could
probably see no reason why Omnipotence should work
six days; and he, therefore, teaches that the work of
creation was done in one day. This second writer
always calls the Creator Lord God (Jehovah). whereas
the first always says God, or, as it might have been
more properly translated, Gods (Elohlim); and this
second account of creation is in many other respects
quite different from the first.
Before theologians were, like Hlugh Miller, "compelled" to elongate the Genesical days, they acknowledged that neither the Hebrew nor common sense
would admit of any such interpretation of the word
"day" as they now give it.
Thus IHitchcock says, "There is no evidence that
the word' day' is used figuratively in the first chapter
of Genesis, as it is in all other places in Scripture
where it means an indefinite period, except, perhaps,
Gen. ii. 4. On the contrary, the Mosaic description
of the creation appears to be a very simple and perfectly literal history, adapted to the most uncultivated
minds.... " It seems from Gen. ii. 5, compared
with Gen. i. 11, 12, that it had not rained on the earth
till the third day.  If the days were only of twenty-four
hours, this would be very probable, but altogether
absurd if they were long periods.  Such a meaning is
foriced and unnatural, and, therefore, not to be adopted
without a very urgent necessity." * A "' forced and uni
* Hitchcoek's Geology (1853), pp. 294, 295.
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THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
natural" meaning, then, may be given when there is
a "very urgent necessity;" and this is what Hugh
Miller and other harmonizers have felt.
Granville Penn says, speaking of geologists who
enlarge the creative days, "Their theories oblige them
tq seek for much larger measures of time than the
historian supplies;... and therefore they must obtain
that length of time, somehow or other, from the text
of Moses."  iHe adds, "It remains for us to conclude,
with Rosenmuller, upon every ground of sound learning, criticism, and philosophy,'that we are to understand natural days; each of which, commencing from
one evening, is terminated by the next, in which manner the Jews, and many others of the most ancient
nations, reckoned days.' *
In the early editions of" Comstock's Geology "-it
has been dropped from the later -was the following
letter from Moses Stuart, who was professor of sacred
literature in the theological seminary of Andover. He
was a good Hebrew scholar, and wrote a grammar of
that language.
"The inquiries you make concerning the word yam
in Gen. i., I will briefly answer.   It does not sig-n
nify an indefinite period of time, but always some
definite one, when employed, as it is in Gen. i., in the
singular number. It sometimes means a specific day
of the week; sometimes to-day, that is, this day; sometimes a specific day, or season of calamity, joy, parLicular duty, action, suffering, etc.  It is only the
plural, yamin, which is employed for time in an
indefinite way, as,' in many days to come,''days of my
* Mineral and Mosaical Geologies, pp. 162, 163.
14 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
life,' &c. But, even here, the plural in  most cases is
a limited one, -limited by some adjective, numeral,
&c.; and yamin signifies, therefore, a limited portion
of time; often it stands for a year.... When  the
sacred writer ill Gen. i. says, the first day, the second
day, &c., there can be no possible doubt -none, 1
mean, for a philologist, let a geologist think as he may
- that a definite day of the week is meant, which
definite day is designated by the numbers first, second,
third, &c.   What puts this beyond all question in
philology is, that the writer says specifically, The evening and the morning were the first day, the second
day, etc. Now, is an evening and a morning a period
of some thousands of years? Is it in any sense, when
so employed, an indefinite period? The answer is so
plain and certain that I need not repeat it.... If
Moses has given us an erroneous account of the creation, so be it. Let it come out; and let us have the
whole. But do not let us turn aside his language to
get rid of difficulties that we may have in our speculations."
That is honest, that is manly: he meets the subject
fairly, nor attempts  to dodge  the  responsibilities.
Stuart was not, however, a geologist, or hlie would
have known that it was not to get rid of difficulties
that Bible geologists had in their " speculations," that
they resorted to this forced and unnatural definition
of days, but to get rid of difficulties that facts, incontrovertible facts, presented.
If " day" means an indefinite period, in the first chapter of Genesis, - and this is the meaning put upon it
by Bible geologists; for none of them pretend to settle
whether it means exactly two, ten, or twenty million
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years, - why six of them? One indefinite period is
just as long as six. And, as the geologist very well
knows, there are no six periods in the world's history
into which it may be divided any more readily than
into ten, or a still greater number. Lyell reckons
fourteen principal groups of rocks, formed during
fourteen successive periods, and thirty-five subordinate
groups, representing as many periods.* iitcheock
enumerates ten principal geologic periods.t
If each day consisted of an evening and a morning,
as this writer represents, and a day was a period millions of years in duration, then there must have been a
period of darkness about as long as the period of light.
Hiow could the plants made on the third day survive
this million years' night? Or if evening and morning
mean a period of rest and a period of action, as some
have suggested, then there must have been immensely
long periods during which nothing was being accomplished.  How is it that the rocks furnish no record of
them?  And if God rested a million years between
every creative act, what need was there of a seventh
day rest?
"In the beginning," then, was but five thousaiin
eight hundred and seventy-four years ago; and thus
the first verse of the Bible demonstrates that the book
has had an entirely false estimate put upon it, and
that one of its writers, at least, was entirely ignorant
of what he professed to teach:
Some geologists, to harmonize this first chapter of
Genesis with geology, supposed - and some theologians still suppose - that between the beginning
spoken of in the first verse of Genesis, and the chaotic
* Manual of Elementary Geology, pp. 104-107.
t Hitchcock's Gelogy, pp. 98-l100. 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
condition described in the second verse, there was an
unidescribed epoch of immense duration, during which
all the forms existed whose remains are found in the
rocks; and that by some grand convulsion all life was
destroyed, and the world reduced to chaos, out of
which it was brought, and into its present state, in six
literal days, as the account in the first chapter of
Genesis states. This is one of the straws clutched by
drowning theologians to save them from acknowledging
the unscientific, and especially the ungeologic, character of this Genesical cosmogony. C1halmers, Buckland, Sedgewick, Conybeare, Dr. Pye Smith, and
Hitchcock harmonized after this fashion, which supposes a multitude of creations, during millions of years,
for no purpose whatever, and of which the Bible is
entirely silent; and an entire destruction of all beings
that existed previous to the six days' creation, about
six thousand years ago. Dr. Pye Smith, indeed, conceived that it was only a small part of the earth's
surface that was brought into a chaotic state, and
upon which the work of the six days was expended, in
"adjusting and finishing its surface for most glorious
purposes."  He thus expresses himself, -
"This region was first, by atmospheric and geological causes of previous operation, under the will of the
Almighty, brought into a condition of superficial ruin,
or some kind of general disorder, probably by volcanic
agency; it was submerged, covered with fogs and
clouds, and subsequently elevated, and the atmosphere,
by the fourth day, rendered pellucid." * Why did he
not conclude by saying, " Now all this was done that
* Scripture and Geology, p. 275.
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THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by Moses,
saying"-.  The Soul of the universe playing such
fantastic tricks in some obscure corner, and then
trumpeting forth such an utterly false story as this
concerning them! It is, however, in some respects, a
very convenient explanation; for, since the spot cannot be found where this took place, who call deny it?
When Baron Munchausen affirmed his hatchet flew to
the moon, he said those that did not believe it might go
to the moon and see; and those who do not believe the
Rev. Doctor's statement may find the spot where this
took place, - or did not take place,- and contradict
him. If but a portion of the earth, it may have been
a small ten-mile valley; the darkness, a fog produced
by its stream; the formation of light, the day that dispelled the fog; and the creation of the sun, moon, and
stars, merely their appearance in fair weather. This
pretended explanation is too silly for serious consideration, and, in reference to any other subject, would be
laughed at by every sensible person.
Hugh Miller once held the idea of a great blank
between the first and second verses in Genesis, but, as
he says, was " compelled to arrive" at a very different 
conclusion. He says, " It is a great fact, now fully
established in the course of geological study, that between the plants which in the present time cover the
earth, and the animals that inhabit it, and the animals
and plants of the later extinct creation, there occurred
no break or blank, but that on the contrary, many of
the existing organisms were contemporary, during the
morning of their being, with many of the extinct ones
during the evening of theirs. We know, further, that
not a few of the shells which now live oni our coasts,
18 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
and several, even, of the wild animals which continue
to survive amid our tracts of hills and forest, were ill
existence many ages ere the human race began. In.
stead of dating their beginning only a single natural
day, or at most two natural days, in advance of man,
they must have preceded him by many thousands of
years.... The present creation was not cut off
abruptly from the preceding one; but, on the contrary,
it dovetailed into it at a thousand different points. We
are led, also, to know that any scheme of reconciliation which would separate between the recent and
the extinct existences by a chaotic gulf of death and
darkness is a scheme which no longer meets the
necessities of the case. Though perfectly adequate
forty years ago, it has been greatly outgrown by the
progress of geological discovery." *
Prof. Dawson of Montreal says, " Geology testifies
to the gradual introduction of existing forms, species
by species, and to the similar gradual extinction of
previous forms; and the modern world is connected
by one unbroken chain of organic existence with those
pre-Adamite worlds which have passed away." t
Ascending from the early Tertiary beds, which are
certainly separated from our own time by more than
a million years, we find the number of living forms
increasing at every step; so that the geologic past
is only separated from the present by such a gap as
time by its gradual changes has produced.
"In the European Eocene," says Dana, " the fossils
are all of extinct species; in the Miocene, fifteen to
twenty per cent are living; in the older Pliocene,
* Testimony of the Rocks, p. 148.
19
V
t Archaia, p. 864. 
THE I?RECONCILABLE RECORDS.
forty to fifty per cent; in the newer Pliocene, Norwich
Crag, ninety per cent." *   One by one new forms
come in, as the stars appear in the evening sky; the
living species increasing at every step, as they approachli nearer and nearer to man.   There could,
therefore, have been no such chasm of death, separating mall and other living forms from the extinct
species of the previous ages, as these harmonizers
imagine.
"And the earth was without form and void; and
darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit
of God moved upon the face of the waters." - 2d verse.
According to this, the primitive condition of our
planet was one in which it was without form, or, in
other words, without shape, and void or empty. We
can very readily see that there never was a time when
the world was without shape; for the law of gravitation, which gives it its present shape, must be as old
as matter. There never could have been a time when
the world was empty; for this the pressure of the mat..
ter composing the earth must have prevented. But
we are told that the Hebrew words, tohu va bohu, are
not correctly translated without form and void: they,,,
should have been translated "desolate and empty,"
- that is, without an inhabitant. But what an unfortunate thing it is, that God should have written
his word in a language that never was spoken by more
than two or three millions of people at one time, and
hundreds of millions of people, speaking other languages, should be compelled to depend on blundering
translators, or master the intricacies of a dead language.
* Dana's Manual of Geology, p. 524.
20 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
Granting the accuracy of this new translation, we
have a world submerged by water, surrounded by
utter darkness, and the spirit of God, or, as the
original may mean, a mighty wind, muoving over  the
face of the waters. It is now all but demonstrated
that the original condition of our planet was  that
of a fiery, fluid mass.  Prof. James D. Dana, professedly a Christian, says, " The fact of the existence
of the globe at one time in a state of universal
fusion is placed beyond reasonable doubt." * Even
Hugh Miller says, "I must continue to hold, with
Humboldt  and  with  Hutton,  with  Playfail  and
with Hall, that this solid earth was at one time, from
the centre to the circumference, a mass of molteii
matter." t  Mantell informs us, that," from astronomical observations, the original crust of the earth is
supposed to have been a superficial coating of solidified
matter, produced by the cooling of the surfaces of aii
incandescent fluid globe." I Agassiz states, that " Our
knowledge carries us far enough to warrant the assertion that there was a time when our earth was in a
state of igneous fusion, when no ocean bathed it, and
no atmosphere surrounded it, when no wind blew over
it, and no rain fell upon it, but an intense heat held
all its materials in solution."~ In this belief of the
earth's original fiery condition, agree nearly all geologists and astronomers.
There could, therefore, have been no water covering
its surface, and no darkness upon its face; and the
writer could scarcely have more utterly failed to de
*Manual of Geology, p. 134.
f Lectures on Geology, p. 296.
t Wonders of Geology,  p. 31.
~ Geological Sketches, page 2.
21
ow 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
scribe the original condition of the earth, had he
known its real condition, and undertaken to describe
its opposite. Many millions of years, indeed, must
have passed after the formation of the earth, before
water could rest upon its surface, on account of its
extreme heat.
"And God said, Let there be light, and there was
light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and
God divided the light from the darkness. And God
called the light -)ay, and the darkness he called Night;
and the evening and the morning were the first day."3d, 4th, and 5th verses.
Had such statements been made in any other professedly sacred book, Christians would have regarded
them as sufficient to settle beyond all controversy the
fallible character of the book in which they were
recorded. Light made before the sun, the luminous
centre from which it proceeds. Day before the revolution of the earth upon its axis; for how could the
earth revolve before the sun, whose influence alone
enables it to revolve, had an existence?
How could the earth exist for three days before the
sun, which we have the best of reason to believe is itsparent?   What should we think of a biography in
which the writer informed us, that, when the subject
was three years old, his father was born, and, when he
was thirty years old, his grandfather came into existence? We would laugh, of course. But it is now
almost universally acknowledged that the sun is the
parent of the planets, and consequently of the earth.
Our dependence upon the sun is greater than that of
a child on a parent. A boy lives when his father dies;
but blot out the sun, and the earth would at once
22 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
cease to exist.  The earth's dependence upon the sun
is as absolute as that of the day: let the suni expire,
and both would cease; and before it existed they
never could have been.
"1 God saw the light, that it was good."
Was this, then, the first time that hlie had beheld it?
If not, why tell us that he saw it, and that it was
good?  If this was the first time, he must have dwelt
in eternal darkness: no wonder that he thought the
light was good; but it does seem a wonder that he
did not try the experiment before.
" God divided the light from the darkness."
Previous to this time, then, they must have been
united.  What kind of light could it have been while
it was united with darkness? But darkness, as we
know, is merely produced by the absence of light.
It would have been just as correct to have said, " And
God said, Let there be heat, and there was heat. And
God felt the heat that it was good; and God divided
the heat from the cold.  And he called the heat Fire,
and the cold he called Frost." No New-England boy,
of twelve years of age and ordinary intelligence, would
write such nonsense as this. Wherever light exists, it
is light, and wherever absent it is darkness; and, in the
nature of things, it must ever have been so.
" God called the light -Day, and the darkness he called
Night."
To whom did he call them? what need was there
to call them any thing? When man comes, he will
speak, and give them such a name as pleases him.
What constituted the day before the sun was in
existence? The man who wrote the account probably
had some idea on the subject that seemed rational to
23.
4v 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
him, however absurd in the light of science it may
seem to us.  To get at his idea, we need to consider
the singular notions that obtained previous to the
advent of astronomy. The writer of the first chapter
of Genesis does not appear to have thought that the
sun was the cause of the day. The light and the
darkness were divided before its existence; the light
occupied one half of space, and the darkness the other
half.  These revolved over the earth, -the darkness
and the light,- -   the evening and the morning; " the
light being the day, which the sun was made to rule,
as the moon was made to rule the night, or the darkness.
Ambrose, a celebrated Father of the Christian
Church in the fourth century, says,* " We must
recollect that the light of day is one thing; the light
of the sun, moon, and stars another,- the sun by his
rays appearing to add lustre to the daylight. For
before sunrise the day dawns, but is not inll full refulgence; for the mid-day sun adds still further to itS
splendor."   However childish such notions appear
now, while scripture astronomy was taught and the
facts were unknown, they were doubtless quite com;
mon.
"And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst
of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the
waters." - 6th verse.
The word Bakia, here translated firmament, is thus
defined by Gesenius in his Hebrew lexicon.  " The
firmament, the expanise, of the heavens, which is spread
out, expanded, like a hemispheric arch above the
* Quoted by C. w. Goodwin in Essays and Reviews.
24 
TUE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
earth; splendid and transparent as sapphire, in which
the stars are said to be fixed, and above which the
Hebrews supposed a celestial ocean to exist." It is
derived from a word signifying to spread out, or expand
by beating.   It divided the waters above from the
waters beneath, and must, therefore, have been a solid
vault.  In Job xxvi. 11, it is said to have pillars,
"The pillars of heaven tremble."  It had, as other
Jewish writers teach us, "foundations" and "doors"
(see 2 Sam. xxii. 8, and Ps. lxxviii. 23).  The writer
of the Book of Job says, " Hast thou with him spread
out the sky, which is strong, and as a molten lookinglass?" (Job xxxvii. 18.)  In Isa. xliv. 24, we read,
"I am the Lord, that stretchleth forth the heavens
alone."   On the upper side of it God's throne is
placed (Ez. i. 22-26), and from it God looks down (Isa.
lxiii. 15); at times he shakes the heavens (Hag. ii. 6),
- which, of course, he could easily do by stamping
with his foot, - and stars fall from it upon the earth,
" as a fig-tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is
shaken of a mighty wind" (Rev. vi. 13). In God's
fury, he will roll up the heavens "as a scroll; and all
their host shall fall down, as a leaf fallethl off from the 
vine, and as a falling fig from the fig-tree " (Isa. xxxiv.
4).
Hitchcock acknowledges that the Bible is written
in conformity with such ideas.  He says, "It was the
opinion of the ancients that the earth, at a certain
height, was surrounded by a transparent, hollow sphere
of solid matter, which they called the firmament.
Where rain descended, they supposed it was through
windows, or holes, made in this crystalline curtain
suspended in mid-hIeaven.   To these notions the lan
25 
THE IRRE.:CCILABLE RECORDS.
guage of the Bible is frequently conformed." * Of
course, because its writers did not know any better;
but, in the light of astronomy, how absurd is all this!
There is, as we know, no solid vault, no stars set in it,
therefore no throne of God placed upon it; there
can be no shaking of the firmament, for there ismone
to shake; and the stars could no more fall upon the
earth than a thousand haystacks could fall upon the
point of a pin.
Such were the ideas, generally, of the people of that
age. The Greeks believed that the blue sky was a
solid crystal sphere, to which the sun, moon, and stars
were fixed, and which was constantly revolving. Wlhen
it was discovered that some of the heavenly bodies had
independent motions, they were supposed to be attached
to other spheres, and seen through the nearer transparent spheres; but they do not appear to have believed
that an ocean of water existed above the crystal sphere,
as the writer of the first chapter of Genesis and the
Bible writers generally did. The question naturally
arose in the Jewish mind, How does the rain fall, seeing
that the firmament or heaven beneath the water is
solid? And the answer was, There are windows in it,
and when God wishes it to rain, his place of abode
being oni that side of the firmament, he opens the
windows, and, of course, the water cannot do otherwise than fall. Thus, when God wished to drown the
world, we are told (Gen. vii. 11), that, " the windows
of heaven were opened;" and when the deed was done,
and God desired the land to appear oni which to try
his new experiment, we are informed (Gen. viii. 2),
* Religion of Geology, p. 9.
26 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS..D.
that "thle windows of heaven were stopped."   WlIat
a clumsy explanation of rain! And yet wae are told
that the Soul of the universe dictated such childish
nonsense;  and some  scientific  men  are solemnly
engaged in trying to transmute such base metal iinto
the sterling coin of heaven.  Alas, poor alchemists!
you search in vaiil for the philosopher's stone by
which such a miracle may be performed.
After the Deluge, the people of the earth undertook
to build a tower whose top should "reach unto
heaven." This is not at all surprising, since their
views coincided with the views of the writer. Heaven
could not be very high; and, had it not been for the
misfortune that befell them, they might have reached
it.  But the Lord seems to have been of the same
opilnion; and, to prevent them from scaling his abode,
he confounded their language, so that they could not
understand each other's speech!
" And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be
gathered tolether unto one place, and let the dr:y land
appear; and it was so." - 9th verse.
If the law of gravitation then operated, and without
it the earth could not have existed, the waters must 
have flowed to the lowest places, and this whether they
were " let" or not: and if, by this flowing, they covered
all the land, as is here indicated, the land could only
be made to appear when the waters were gathered
together, by heaping them above their true level; and,
as soon as the miraculous power was withdrawn by
which it was done, the water would cover the land as
before. The only way to " let the dry land appear,"
if it was covered with water, would be to elevate the
land; but of this the writer never seems to have 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
dreamed. He thought, as I remember thinking when
a boy, that the sea is higher than the land, and I wondered what kept it from overflowing.
This represents the water and land as separated at
once, and so continuing; and this less than six thousand
years ago. But geology shows us that the land surface
of the globe has been increasing since a very early
period, and that sea and land have changed places
many times; so that, instead of this being done in a
day, or recently, it took innumerable ages to accomplish
it, and it is still going on.
The conclusions arrived at by geologists are well.
presented by Danla.   " The  continents, while still
beneath the waters, began to take shape.  Then, as
the seas deepened, the first dry land appeared, low,
barren, and lifeless. Unlder slow intestine movements,
and the concurrent action of the enveloping waters,
the dry land expanded, strata formed, and, as these
processes wenlt on, mountains by degrees rose, each in
its appointed place. Finally, in the last stage of the
development, the Alps, Pyrenees, and other heights,
received their majestic dimensions, and the continents
were finished to their very borders." * The oceanw
were, of course, formed by a similar gradual process,
which occupied periods of vast duration.
J. P. Lesley, well known as one of our best practical geologists, says, " The fact is, that no fixed relation
of land and water has ever been established for the
surface of the globe. From the beginning, land and
water have been exchanging places.  Every acre of
the land-surface of the earth, which geology has
* Dana's Manual of Geology, p. 739.
28 
TlHE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS. 
examined, bears indubitable marks of having been
not simply overflowed, but actually created at the
bottom of the ocean."  He adds, "Every part of every
coast of every ocean is either rising slowly from the
waters or sinking slowly into them." *
Agassiz makes a similar statement: " There was an
age in the physical history of the earth when the
lands consisted of low islands, when neithler great
depths nor lofty heights diversified the surface of the
earth."   Then  he tells us, " The patches of land
already raised above the water became so united as to
form large islands.... The size of the islands, their
tendency to coalesce by the addition of constantly
increasing deposits, and thus to spread into wider
expanses of dry land, marked the advance towards the
formation of continents;" then, " Great mountains
bound together in everlasting chains the islands which
had already grown to continental dimensions." t
Instead of the continents being formed in a day,
about six thousand years ago, they have been formiing
since the azoic period, and are not even finished yet.
The ignorance of this Elohistic writer of Genesis is,
however, no greater than that of many of his biblical
successors.  In the 126th Psalm, we read, "To him
that stretched out the earth above the waters;" and
in the 24th Psalm, "The earth is the Lord's:" " lie
hath founded it upon tile seas, and established it upon
the floods." The Jews are told, in the Ten Commandments, that they are not to make the likeness of any
thing that is in the water under the earth,- a very
* Man's Origin and Destiny, p. 48.
t Geological Sketches, pp. 123-125.
29 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
needless command indeed.   The writer of the floodstory could not see much difficulty in drowning the
world, with an ocean above it, and another below it:
the windows of heaven were openedi and let the one
down, and "the fountains of the great deep were broken
up" (Gen. vii. 11), and the waters of the other overflowed even the highest mountains! But the underground ocean has no more existence than the overground ocean; and the interior of our planet is widely
different from the representations of these Jewish
writers.
On the same day that the land and water were
divided, we are informed that " God said, Let the
earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the
fruit-tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in
itself upon the earth; and it was so." - 11th verse.
According to this statement, the first organic existences on this planet were grass, herbs, and fruit-trees,
and they made their appearance less than six thousand
years ago. Nothing could be much farther from the
truth. If it had said that they were the last created,
it would have been much nearer. The lowest rocks in
which fossils are found abound with animal remains; 
and fruit-trees do not appear for vast ages after this,
nor true grasses.
Let us hear the testimony of geology.   " The
Mosaic history represents the vegetable kingdom to
have been created on the third day: but an examination of the rocks shows us that animals were created
as early as vegetables; they are found in the lowest
rocks which contain any remains of organized beings.
We-should expect to find the remains of the plants
which flourished during that long third day; but there
30 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
is, at least, no evidence that the coal vegetation answers
to this description." *  The evidence of Hitchcock is
very similar; and no man could be more anxious to
reconcile "Genesis and Geology" than he; "Moses
describes vegetables to have been created on the third
day, but animals not until the fifth. Hence, about
one-third of the fossiliferous rocks, reckoning upwards,
or these deposited during the first three days, ought
to contain only vegetables.   Whereas, animals  are
found as deep in the rocks as vegetables: nay, in the
lowest group, nothing but animals has yet been
found." t
Although plant-remains have been found in lower
beds since the above was written, it is still true that
nothing but animals have yet been found in the lowest
beds; and no geologist imagines that fruit-trees existed
till millions of years after the appearance of animal
life, while such grass, herbs, and fruit-trees as we are
now familiar with, which the writer of the first of
Genesis evidently meant, did not come into existence
until a recent geological period: yet many of our
existing plants, and even fruit-trees, were in existence
long before man made his appearance. That the herbs
and fruit-trees, represented as created on the third day, w
were these now existing, is evident from the fact, that,
in the 29th verse, God is represented as giving them
to man and beast for food.
Hugh Miller wishes to make us believe that this
third day's works is represented by the fossil plants
of the carboniferous period; but, when he forgets his
* Gray and Adams's Elements of Geology, p. 342.
t Hitchcock's Elementary Geology (1853).
31 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
theology, he tell us, that in the carboniferous period,
"so far as appears, neither flock nor herd could hlave
lived on its greenest and richest plains:" nor does even
the succeeding flora, that of the oblite, " seem to have
been in the least suited for the purposes of the shepherd
or herdsman.   Not until we enter on the tertiary
periods do we find floras amid which manl might have
profitably labored as a dresser of gardens, a tiller of
fields, or a keeper of flocks and herds." Our principal
fruits, he informs us, were only introduced "a short
time previous to the appearance of man," and the true
grasses scarcely appear in a fossil state at all.  "They
are peculiarly plants of the human period." * Again
he says, the plants of the carboniferous period are,
"save in size and bulk, a poor and low flora after all....
We fail to meet a single dicotyledonous plant onl which
an herbivorous mammal could browse;... not a single
fruit have we yet found good for the use of manl."
To say, then, that this third day's creation refers to
the plants of the carboniferous period is to do the
greatest violence to fact, as his own statement, made
when the necessity of harmonizing the facts of geology
with the fictions of Genesis was not present to his
mind, abundantly proves.
Long ages before our grasses, herbs, and fruit-trees
existed, the seas so swarmed with mollusks that their
shells made rocks thousands of feet in thickness; fishes
of varied forms dwelt in the waters; reptiles as bulky
as young whales peopled the ocean, and swarmed ol
the land; huge birds fished in the tepid waters, and
beasts roamed over the land in search of their prey:
* Testimony of the Rocks, p. 78.
32 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
but of all these, and of the immense ages during which
they existed, this Genesical cosmogonist knows, of
course, nothing at all, and consequently says nothing.
If God created the plants of the carboniferous
period on the third day, who created those of the
oolitic period, which are entirely distinct from those
of the carboniferous, not one species being common
to both. If they were created without the necessity
of God saying any thing, why could not those of the
carboniferous, which are decidedly inferior to them, be
made without God's speaking? But the plants of the
early tertiary are distinct from those of the oolite, and
those of the present from those of the early tertiary,
each formation having  characteristic  forms.   And
who made all these? and why was God silent, in his
account of creation, about the most important portions
of his work?
"And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament
of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let
them be for signs and for seasons and for days and
years; and let them be for lights in the firmament of the
heaven to give light upon the earth." "And God made
two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and
the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give
light upon the earth." —14th, 15th, 16th, and 17th
verses.
Nothing in this whole account so strikingly displays the ignorance of the writer as this. The earth
has existed for three days, a solitary body ill the universe; light is created, evening and mornIing, day and
night are established; even grass, herbs, and fruittrees called into existence; and now tile sun, mooc,
3
33 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
and stars are made for the especial benefit of the
earth, when nearly all that they could do for it has
been miraculously accomplished without them. The
sun is to rule the day, and the moon to rule the night:
but what the stars were for, the writer seems to have
been unable to conjecture, so he merely says, " the stars
also;" for the words "he made" have no corresponding words in the Hebrew. Five days were spent
by Omnipotence in making  this little world and its
organized existences; and in a part of one day thousallds of millions of suns were created, -some of them
much larger than our sun, while that is more than a
million times larger than the earth, - and this apparently with a very slight effort. Nearly a week in making and adorning this dew-drop world, and a boundless
ocean of stars poured out at a breath, and dismissed
with the careless remark, "the stars also."  Could
this writer have had the most distant idea of the
hundred million suns, that we call stars, which are
visible through a powerful telescope? No man who
had ever looked through one could have written in
that fashion.
God made them, and cc set " them in the firmament 
of the heaven.  They were not" set," then, when they
were first made: this was an after-work. Where were
the sun, moon, and stars, before they were " set" ill
the firmament of the heaven?  This firmament, we
must remember, divides the waters that are above from
the waters that are on the earth (7th verse). But
the waters above are held in the clouds: the firmament
whicll separates between the water in the clouds and
that in the seas must, therefore, be below the clouds.
And since the clouds in fine weather are only five or
34 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
six miles high, the firmament of lheaven, when most
distant from the earth, cannot be more than five or
six miles above the level of the sea; and the suIi,
moon, and stars, being " set" in it, cannot be at a
greater distance: and when the clouds are lower, as
they are in dull weather, the sun, moon, and stars
cannot be near as far from the earth even as that; so
that in balloons we might readily visit them! All the
Bible writers, indeed, seem to have regarded the stars
as shining points, and confounded them with the
meteors, whose shining track is so frequently seen on
the evening sky.
Just two days before the creation of man, sun,
moon, and stars are created, according to this writer;
and yet in the Pottsdam sandstone, at the base of the
Silurian formation, deposited ages before man's appearance, we find slabs of rock on whose surface are
sun-cracks and ripple-marks, demonstrating the existence of sun and moon, and showing the operation
of both.
Oni the fifth day, God is represented as saying,
"Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creatures that have life, and fowl that may fly above the
earth, in the open firmament of heaven." - 20th verse.
How indefinite is all this! And it is not the ilidefiniteness of knowledge, which desires to relieve the
reader of the burden of detail which greater definiteness might produce; but it is the indefiniteness of
ign,loranlce, which, for want of knowledge, cannot make
itself understood, even by a multiplicity of words.
"The moving creatures that have life" include, of
course,  mammals, birds, reptiles, fishes, and  all
animals below them, for they all have life, and move;
35 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
but this is not what the writer meant, or he would not
have represented a separate creation of birds, beasts,
and men. What, then, did he mean? In Gen. vii. 21,
the same word, sheretz, translated here, "moving creature," is translated " creeping thing," and evidently
refers to reptiles. In Lev. xi. 10, the same word is
employed to signify all mollusks, articulates, and radiates of the water: " Whatsoever hath not fins and
scales in the seas and the rivers, of all that swarm in
the waters [all the sheretzim of the waters], they shall
be an abomination unto you." In the same chapter,
29th and 30th verses, the weasel, mouse, tortoise,
ferret, chameleon, lizard, snail, and mole, are called
" sheretzimn of the land."  In the 41st and 42d verses
of the same chapter, the word is again used: " And
every sheretz that creepeth on the earth shall be
an abomination unto you; it shall not be eaten:
whatsover goeth upon the belly, and whatsoever goeth
upon all four, or whatsoever hath more feet among all
creeping things that creep upon the earth."  ~Sheretz
here includes serpents, worms, snails, and flies, spiders,
myriapods, and crustaceans, because they have more
than four feet.   What  a medley! -radiates,  mol- 
lusks, articulates, reptiles, weasels, mice, ferrets, and
moles, but not rats, squirrels, or beavers. The use
of terms so indefinite in their nature shows the complete ignorance of the writer on all matters relating to
zoology. Taking the definition of the word given, as
Christians generally believe, by God himself, on the
fifth day were created invertebrate animals, including
mollusks, crustaceans, and insects, and fishes, reptiles,
I)irds, small mammals, and great whales, since in the
l1st verse we are told that God created on the same
36 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
day great whales; or, one day before man's appearance
on the planet, shells, insects, fishes, Teptiles, birds, and
whales were  created.   Every  geologist knows  that
such a statement is nearly as incorrect as words can
make it. All these forms of life existed for immense
periods of time before mall. We find fossil shells as
low as the base of the Silurian formation, fishes in the
upper Silurian, insects in the Devonian, reptiles at
the base of the carboniferous formation, birds in the
oolite, small mammals ill the lias, and whales in the
cretaceous. I need tell no person, who is at all familiar with geology, that even the most recent of these
formations is separated from man's first appearance by
more than a million years.
But the record teaches that these various forms
were all made on the same day, or, according to the
would-be harmonizers, in the same period. But this
statement is equally false. Mollusks and fishes, that
are here placed together, are separated geologically by
a time sufficient to lay down the whole of the lower
Silurian rocks, which are, in several places, miles in
thickness; shells and great whales, which are represented as created on the same day, have no less than
six grand geologic periods intervening; and, even if we
consider, as some harmonizers do, that tanninirm, the
word translated " great whales," should have been
translated "sea-monsters," and, therefore, refers to the
sea-reptiles of the Jurassic period, there would still be,
separating them from the earliest shells and crustaceanls, the enormous period necessary to lay down four
i,itervening geologic formations.
The record also teaches that shells, crustaceans,
fishes, birds, anid exlales were created two days after
37
ow 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
grass, herbs, and fruit-trees. HIad they been created
as near together as this, it would, of course, have been
impossible for the geologist to tell which came first.
But it is quite certain that shells, crustaceans, and
fishes were in existence long before there were any
fruit-trees; and, before such fruit-trees existed as we
are now familiar with, all these forms of animal life
existed for immense ages, and were in the greatest
abundance.
No man strove more than Miller to reconcile the
teachings of geology with the statements of Genesis;
yet he is constantly compelled to acknowledge what is
in deadly conflict with them. Of the oldest organic
period, the Silurian, he says, "It seems to have been,
for many ages together, a creation of mollusks, corals,
and crustacea. At length, in an upper bed of the system, immediately under the base of the old red sandstone, the remains of the earliest knowu-fishes appear.
The rocks beneath this ancient bone-bed have yielded,
as I have already said, no trace of any plant higher
than the thallogens, or, at least, not higher than the
zosteracea,- plants whose proper habitat is the sea." *
Shells, corals, and fishes existed, then, when the highest land-plants were sea-weeds; but it was long after"
this before reptiles, or great whales, or birds, appeared.
On the sixth day, God said, "Let the earth bring
forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and
creeping thing, and beast of the earth, after his kind."
And, apparently towards evening of that day, God said,
"Let us make man."-  24th and 26th verses.
* Testimony of the Rocks, p. 90.
38
I 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
We have here the last day's work, - cattle, creeping
things, beasts, and men.  Less than six thousand years
ago, cattle, creeping things, beasts, and men, first
came into existence. Is this correct? In no sense.
First, the order is wrong: it should have been creeping
things, beasts, cattle, and men.   But why introduce
creeping things, when reptiles had already been included in the fifth day's work? This Genesical cosmogonist is so loose a writer, that it is difficult to say.
Hle may have included aquatic reptiles in the sheretz which " the waters brought forth abundantly;"
and reptiles may be meant by the creeping things
created on the sixth day. With either meaning, it was
a mistake to put creeping things after cattle, and be;
fore beasts; for land reptiles existed as early as the
carboniferous period, and cattle not before the tertiary, and even the earliest small pouched mammals
of the trias were two geological periods more recent
than the earliest land reptiles. Reptiles preceded birds;
other beasts preceded cattle, or ruminating mammals;
while reptiles, beasts, cattle, and men, here said to
have been created on the same day, or same period
according to the harmonizers, are separated geologically by enormous periods of time. Reptiles, carboniferous; first mammals, or beasts, trias; first cattle,
miocene tertiary; and first men, pliocene tertiary.
Miller ranges vertebrates chronologically ill the following order: first fishes, next reptiles, then birds, then
marsupial mammals, and lastly true placental mammals,
ages before man.*
In Genesis, we have first, cattle, reptile, beast, man;
* Testimony of the Rocks, p. 119.
39
.W 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
second, beast, cattle, reptile, man.   In geology, fish,
reptile, bird, beast, cattle, man.   Between the first
reptile and first known mammal or beast is nearly the
whole of the carboniferous period, and the entire Permian; and between the first reptile and the first man,
six grand geologic periods. The man who can reconcile the statements of the first chapter of Genesis with
the teachings of geology would find no difficulty in
reconciling the story of " Sinbad the Sailor" with the
facts of geography.
"So  God created man in his own image, after his
own likeness." -27th verse.
Then God must be in the image of man. Is it possible that this could have been the meaning of the
writer? I think there can be no doubt of it in the
milds of those who can look at the matter in an unprejudiced light. In the fifthi chapter and first verse,
which was probably written by the same hand, we
read, "in the likeness of God made he him."   He
certainly did not mean that man was made in the
moral or spiritual likeness of God, for this would be to
make man God also; but his physical frame was similar to that of the form of God. God, then, - Jehovalh,
the God of the Jews, -was in the image of a man: he
had, as the Bible writers teach us, eyes, nose, mouth,
lips, loins, bowels, and hair; he breathed into man's
nostrils, he spoke, he walked, he wrestled, " came
down" and showed Moses a part of himself.  The
Jewish Jehovah was simply a magnified man, sometimes visible, but generally invisible; and the infirmities of men seem to have marked him as strongly
as they did the men who made him.  Nature, I need
hardly say, knows no such molster: the rocks bear no
40 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
witness of him; the heavens reveal no such idol, and
display none of his handy-work; nor does the earth
any of his day's work. Geology can find as much
evidence of Jove or Brahma in the various formations
as of Elohim or Jehovah.
But man was made, according to this statement, less
than six thousand years ago.   Thlis is as far from
being correct as the rest of the statements of this
singular chapter. Baldwin says, " It is now as certain as any thing else in ancient history, that Egypt
existed as a civilized country not less than five thliousand years earlier than the birth of Christ." *  But
this is nearly one thousand years before the creation
of man, according to Genesis; yet Egypt was then a
civilized country.
Lenormant, in his " Manual of the Ancient History
of the East," though anxious to make his readers believe that the Bible and history are in perfect harmony,
acknowledges that "undoubtedly, positive facts prove
that the antiquity of man on the earth is much greater
than has been inferred from an inexact and too narrow
interpretation of the Biblical narrative." t He places
the first dynasty of Egyptian kings at 5004 B.C., or
one thousand years before the creation of man, according to Genesis.:  He acknowledges that the same
system of writing existed then tiat was in use thousands of years afterward, ~ and that there are no indications of any interruption produced by a deluge,
which, according to the writer in Exodus, covered the
tops of all mountains, and destroyed all life onl the dry
land, yet never disturbed the Egyptians!
* Prehistoric Nations, p. 32.
t Manual, p. 197.
41
aw
t Manual, p. 39.
~ Ibid, p. 205. 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
Sir Charles Lyell * gives us a period of more than
a hundred thousand years from the present, for the
time when the primitive men of France lived, whose
remains have been found in the valley of the Somne,
with those of extinct elephants, lions, bears, hyenas,
&c.  Ansted, in his " Earth's History," says, "It
would appear that the lowest human remains must be
of a date carrying us back a quarter of a million of
years." t  Page tells us, "There is the amplest evidence of man having been an inhabitant of Western
Europe for ages preceding the popularly received
chronology."' t
But the popularly received chronology is that of the
Bible, founded on the statements in Genesis; and, when
the one falls, the other cannot stand. Man, according
to Lyell, Ansted, and Page, - men pre-eminent in geological ability and carefulness of statement,- was on
the planet many thousands of years before the earth
had an existence, according to the writer in the first
chapter of Genesis.
Broca, the anthropologist, says," Man has left traces
of his existence, marks of his industry, and remains of
his body, in geological strata, the antiquity of which is
beyond computation."  He adds, "A person may easily
convince himself that six thousand years constitute
but a short moment in the life of humanity." ~
Lesley says, "My own belief is but the reflection of
the growing sentiment of the whole geological world,
- a conviction strengthening every day, as you may
* Antiquity of Man, p. 204.
t Earth's History, p. 185.
:t Man: Where, Whence, and Whither, p. 183
~ Anthropological Review, 1868, p. 47.
42 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
with little trouble see for yourselves by glancing
through the magazines of scientific literature, - that
our race has been upon the earth for hundreds of
thousands of years." *
Adam proves to be a very recent production, created
by some unknown Jewish writer, and takes his place
with King Arthur, Captain Gulliver, Robinson Crusoe,
and other fictitious characters.
By what possibility can we account for the present
varieties of the human race, supposing them to be all
descended from a pair created but six thousand years
ago?  The author of "Manl in Genesis and Geology,"
though writing to harmonize science and Scripture,
acknowledges that "the unchanged  appearance of
leading types of mankind, as far back as we can trace
these in history, requires a considerable extension of
time to account for their origin, provided we adhere to
the physiological unity of the race. Upon Egyptian
monuments that date back from one thousand four
hundred to two thousand years before Christ, the negro
is depicted with color and features as marked and
characteristic as he exhibits at this day. When did
this type originate, which has remained unchanged for
more than three thousand years? If the type itself was
a gradual product of time, how much time, before the
date when it begins to appear upon Egyptian monuments, was necessary to establish its marked and unvarying features?   According to a tablet of Sethos
I., the Egyptians divided mankind into four principal
races, -the Red (Egyptians), the Yellow (Ammon.
ites), the Black (Negroes), and the White (Lybianls)
* Man's Origin and Destiny, p. 66.
43
ow 
44         THE IRRECONCILABLE L ECORDS.
If all mankind were descended from a single pai, --
and again, if the whole peopled earth was destroyed
by the flood, with the solitary exception of the family
of Noah, - how much time was required to originate
peculiarities of race, which can be traced back without
variation through the whole known course of history?
In the present state of scientific knowledge, this whole
subject is wrapped in obscurity." *
Had it been a Hindoo sacred book, instead of a
Christian one, that declared that the first human beings were created six thousand years ago, and that all
their descendants, except one family, were destroyed
by a flood a little more than four thousand years ago,
Dr. Thompson would not have found any thing
"wrapped in obscurity."  He would have said, "The
fabulous character of these pretended sacred narratives
is apparent at a glance; and it is inconceivable how men
of intelligence can accept for truth such impossible
stories."
But the facts stated by Dr. Thompson are not nearly
as serious as some that may be told. In the fifth
Egyptian dynasty, in the reign of King Pepi, inscriptions were made which represent the " negroes"'"s
immediately adjoining the Egyptian frontier." t Yet
this dynasty is placed by Lenormant at from 3703 B.C.
to 4235 B.C.  The negroes were in existence, then,
more thain a thousand years before the Deluge, and
even before the biblical time of the creation of manl;
for Pepi ruled near the commencement of this dynasty.
Can ally thing more clearly indicate the utter falsity
* Man in Genesis and in Geology, p. 101.
t Lenormant's Manual of the Ancient History of the East, p. 211. 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDDS.
of the Genesical story, than that its believers and
advocates are compelled to acknowledge such damaging facts as these?
Gliddon tells us that it is " asserted by Lepsius, and
familiar to all Egyptologists, that negro and other races
already existed in Northern Africa, on the upper Nile,
2300 B.C." * But this is only forty-eight years after
the Deluge. What color was Noah? What were his
sons like? How could they in forty-eight years form
"races " which  have continued for four thousand
years?
But Lepsiust also tells us that African languages
were in existence as early as B.C. 3893; but this
takes us within one hundred and eleven years of
the creation of man. What language did Adam
speak?
Again Lepsius says, " We are still busy with structures, sculptures, and inscriptions, which are to be
classed, by means of the now more accurately determined groups of kings, in an epoch of highly flourishing civilization, as far back as the fourth millenium
before Christ. We cannot sufficiently impress upon
ourselves these hitherto incredible dates.  The more
criticism is provoked by them, and forced to serious
examination, the better for the cause.":
But this is within four years of the Bible date of
creation. And yet this does not carry us back to the
first Egyptian kings, as we have already seen. And
when we arrive at Menes, the first king of Egypt, Dr.
Thompson  acknowledges that "we find already an
empire consolidated from previous distinct govern
* Types of Mankind, p. 181.           t Ibid., p. 86.      t Ibid., p. 60.
45
ow 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
ments, and capable of building the great city of Mem
phis, with its magnificent temples and towers, and its
huge dyke that turned the course of the Nile." *
And prior to all this, and long prior, was the " stone
ages" of Egypt, of which, says Wilson, "we detect
evidences, old as the date of their civilization appears."t
Quite recently, indeed, weapons in abundance, belonging to this early Egyptian period, have been found.
Six thousand years is but as yesterday, compared with
the length of time that man has been on the globe,
existing, too, as races differing as widely from each
other as they do to-day.
"Th us the heavens and the earth were finished, and
all the host of them, 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." - 2d chap.
1st and 2d verses.
When was the earth finished? When did the rivers
cease to run, the glaciers to slide, the waves of the
ocean to heave? When did the wheels of the universe
stop, that God might rest? Ever the sun shines, the
rain falls, the rivers flow, the cataract leaps, the waves
dash; sediment is swept down by innumerable strean"
to fill the ocean depths, and lay the foundation of cointinents yet to be; earthquakes shake, and volcanoes pour
out lava-streams now, as all these agents operated miliions of years ago. Geology teaches clearly, that, just
as the world was being made in the ages past, so is it
being made to-day; and, if God was at work then, he is
equally at work now. But the God that this writer
* Man in Genesis and Geology, p. 100
t Prehistoric Annals of Scotland, p. 41.
46 
THE IRIECONCILABLE RECORDS.
believed in was evidently a large man, who worked
with muscles, stood off to see the effect as a sculptor
might do, and could not refrain from anl exclamation
of delight as he saw the result of his labor; who became fatigued on Friday evening, after such an arduous
week's work, and needed Saturday for repose; which
repose the author of Exodus assures us refreshed him
(Ex. xxxi. 17).
Looking at the account of creation as given in the
first chapter of Genesis, and the first three verses of
the second chapter, we see, that, when compared with
the teaching of geology, every entire statement that
is made is false.  No man can take a single sentence
in the account in its connection, and show its harmony
with the revelation of science; and, had it been the
cosmogony of any other sacred book than tlhe Bible,
such men  as Miller,  Hitchcock, Buckland, Guiyot,
Pye Smith, Dana, and Dawson, who have wasted
their time illn trying to perform the impossible, would
have considered it a disgrace for any geologist to
demean his science by attempting to harmonize its
teachings with such childish statements.
Present it to us as the speculation of some early
writer, who strives with his limited knowledge to conceive how the universe came into its present condition,
and we can, of course, accept it as such, and treat it
accordingly: then the geologist will no more apologize for the discrepancies between his science and
Genesis than the geographer because he has found no
such country as Brobdignag and LilipuLt, or the historian because his history of the East does not agree
with the statements in the "Arabian Nights' Entertainmenits."
47
jw 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
Taking the views that were held by the people
generally at the time the story was written, we can
see how the writer came to make it as we find it.
The earth was then regarded as the most important
body of the universe; the stars were shining points,
and the sun and moon about as large as they look to
be: and the whole account reflects this view. The
earlh being the largest and most important body, in
the writer's estimation, the most time must be given
to it: hence, Omnipotence spends five days in making
our planet and its inhabitants, but makes the rest of
the universe, compared with which the earth is less
than one of the invisible atoms comprising the air
we breathe, in a single day. He makes the earth before the sun, moon, and stars, because they are so
much less than the earth, and are only made to administer to it.  He shrinks from having his God work in
absolute darkness, so he has the production of light as
the first operation of creative power after the production of the earth. He does not make light proceed from
the sun, and form the day, because he did not know
that the sun was the cause of the day, but supposed it
to hold the same relation to the day that the moon
does to the night; for he says, "the sun to rule the
day, and the moon to rule the night," the sun no more
producing the day than the moon does the night.
The firmament, in which the sun, moon, and stars are
"set," must, of course, be made before the bodies
which are to be set in it; and since the firmament holds
up an ocean of water, - necessary, as he supposed, to
account for rain, -before the firmament was made,
that ocean of water must have been upon the earth;
hence "the deep," spoken of in the second verse.
48 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
Provision must now be made for the living creatures
that are to dwell upon the earth. The first thing of
necessity is the formation of dry land; without it
plants could not exist, and animals could not, therefore,
subsist upon them.  This thought, in the mind of the
writer, leads to the first part of the third day's work,
- the gathering together of the waters, and the forma tionl of the sea and the dry land. Some have won dered that plants should be represented as being
created in the third day, and the sun not till the
fourth. There is, however, no difficulty, when we con sider the opinions of the writer. Day and night were
ill existence, an ocean of water had been elevated
above the firmament, so that light and water for the
use of plants could be readily supplied; the dry land
was there, and he very naturally finishes the day's
work by making grass, herbs, and fruit-trees. They
must be made before the animals that are to feed upon
them, and he could find no better time to make them
than this. It was a matter of indifference when the
suni, moon, and stars should be created; and the writer,
having concluded to finish with the creation of man,
gives us, as the fourth day's work, the creation of the
heavenly bodies.   Then very naturally follows the
creation of fishes, birds, and beasts, all being prepared
for them, and manil last, as God's most perfect work,
and needing all that had been previously done.
The carelessness of the writer, and the utter absence
of all scientific accuracy in his arrangement, is evident
from the fact that the order in which God calls for the
appearance of living forms is not always the order in
which they are said to have appeared.   Thus God
says, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving
4
49
AW 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
creature that hath life (sheretz), and fowl; but GCod
created great whales (tanninim), never mentioned in
the call, then every living creature that moveth which
the waters brought forth abundantly, and lastly fowls.
God says, "Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing and
beast of the earth after his kind; " but they are represented as being made in very different order. God
made first the beast of the earth, then cattle, and
lastly creeping things. In the command, it is cattle,
creeping thing, beast; in the creation beast, cattle,
and creeping thing.
The errors of omission in this account of creation
are nearly as,great as its errors of commission. It
says not a word of the original fiery condition of the
earth, or of its gradual cooling, resulting in the upheaval of the land and the formation of the mountain
chains. It consequently says nothing of the gradual
development of the continents, of the gradual increase
of land-surface from one geological period to another,
but represents the present land-surface of the globe
as made in one day and by one miraculous act.
It says nothing of the immense age of the earths
which is essential to enable us to understand the
operation of the causes that brought it into its present
condition, and, in the absence of this, accounts by
miracle for what we now know to have been the
product of law, operating during periods of adequate
extent.
Dana says, "1 We assume that the forces in the world
are essentially the same through all time; for these
forces are based on the very nature of matter, and
could not have changed. The ocean has always had
50 
IHE  IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
its waves, and those waves have ever acted in the same
manner. Running water oni the land has ever had
the same power of wear and transportation and
mathematical value to its force. The laws of chlemistry, hleat, electricity, and mechanics, have been the
same though time."*  Hitchcock agrees with him:
"The same general laws appear to have always prevailed in the globe, and to have controlled the changes
which have taken place upon and within it.  We
come to no spot, in the history of the rocks, in which
a system different from that which now prevails appears to have existed." t
Thie same general laws, and the forces in the world
always the same, that must have been done by law,
and gradually, which is represented in Genesis to have
been done at once, and by miracle.
It is silent regarding the innumerable species of
animals and vegetables which existed and perished
before the present species came into existence; these
forms regarding which it is silent having been, without
doubt, much more numerous than those at present
existing. Of these Hitchcock says, "There have been
upon the globe, previous to the existing races, not less
than five distinct periods of organized existence; that
is, five great groups of animals and plants, so completely independent that no species whatever is found
in more than one of them, have lived and successively
passed away before the creation of the races that now
occupy the surface. Other standard writers make the
number of these periods of existence as many as
twelve.":  Who created all these?
* Dana's Manual of Geology. Introduction, p. 7.
t Religion of Geology, p. 20.  t Ibid., p.22.
51
lw 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
There is no mention of the processes by which mieis
of. sedimentary rocks  composing  the earth's cllult
have been deposited, nor of the fossils imbedded iii
them, -texts in the earthly scriptures pregnant with
such important meaning to those who properly study
them.
It does not inform us concerning man's gradual development from so rude a beginning as our recent
archeological and geological discoveries demonstrate;
and his gradual brain-development, as indicated by his
constantly improving skull, and the consequent advance in art and science, during a period that can only
be rudely estimated at hundreds of thousands of years.
It does not inform us of the different centres of
animal and vegetable life; every continent and large
island having living forms that are peculiar to it, which
could not have been the case had the accounts of creation and the Deluge been true.
It manifests the most entire ignorance of all the
great facts of astronomical science; does not speak
of the motions of the heavenly bodies, nor even of that
of the earth, which produces day and night; but otherwise accounts for them by a bungling and altogether
unnecessary miracle.
In short, it evinces in every verse the absolute
ignorance of the writer on the subject that he professes
to teach; and it would be easier to harmonize with the
revelations of science the Hindoo cosmogonies, given
in their sacred writings: they at least give us time,
so essential in the operation of nature.
If the account of creation and development that
geology gives is true, then this account in Genesis cannot be.
52 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RpECORDS.
Genesis teaches that the world was made less than
six thousand years ago: geology and astronomy that
it canie into existence many millions of years ago.
Genesis asserts that the entire universe was made in
six days: geology proves that our planet has been incalculable ages in arriving at its present condition.
Genesis teaches that the earth was in existence three
days before the sun, moon,.and stars, and that these
were made less than six thousand years ago: astronomy and geology demonstrate that the earth could not
have been in existence before the sun, and that the
sun, moon, and stars must have existed for incalculable
ages.
Genesis testifies that God created the firmament on
the second day, that this firmament divided the waters
which were under from those that are above, and that
on the fourth day the sun, moon, and stars were set in
it; and that this took place within six thousand years:
science reveals to us that no such firmament exists,
that the atmosphere divides the waters above from
those beneath, as. it has done for an incalculable period,
and that the heavenly bodies are not set in it, and never
could have been.
Genesis declares that grass, herbs, and fruit-trees
were the first created organic existencies, and that
they were created three days before man and one day
before the sun: geology proves that corals, shells,
crustaceans, and fishes existed long before grass, herbs,
and fruit-trees; that grass, herbs, and fruit-trees were
on the earth long before man, but could not have been
in existence before the sun, which shone on the lifeless
globe for ages.
In Genesis, we read that great whales, fishes, and
53
4w 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
birds were made on the same day, and this one day
before man's creation: geology teaches that fishes were
here long before fowls, fowls long before whales, and
all these ages before man.
Genesis says that cattle, creeping things, beasts, and
man were all made on the same day: geology, that
creeping things were here millions of years before
beasts, beasts before cattle, and all these long before
man.
Genesis represents man as having been made less
than six thousand years ago, in the image of God:
science teaches that man has been here for a much
longer time, and that the early man was in the image
of the brute, and has grown into his present manly
appearance.
Although there is not a single statement in this
Genesical account of creation that is absolutely true,
when taken in its connection, there are some truths
incidentally told, - that is, they may be gathered from
the narrative, but they are such as any one might have
supposed.
The first is, that there was a time when no life existed upon the earth.                                 w
Second, plants and animals were produced before
men.
Third, there was dry land before plants grew upon
it.
Fourth, fishes and birds were in existence before
beasts.
It would be difficult to find in any document, ancient
or modern, as many affirmative statements and as 1;tile
truth as in this narrative.
" But geologists declare that there is the most pe rfect
54 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECOPDS.
harmony between the teachings of Genesis and geology.
Dana says,' The record in the Bible is, therefore, profoundly philosophical in the scheme of creation which it
presents. It is both true and divine. It is a declaration
of authorship, both of creation and the Bible, on the first
page of the sacred volume.' " *
And yet Dana, though he tells us that the Bible
record is true and divine, and that the Author of creation is the author of the Bible, says that the account
of creation in Genesis " is brought out in the simple and
natural style of a sublime intellect, wise for its times,
but unversed in the depths of science which the future
was to reveal. The idea of vegetation, to such a one,
would be vegetation as he knew it; and so it is described." t But what becomes of the divinity of the
author?  Was the "Author of creation" unversed in
the depths of science which the future was to reveal?
The author of Genesis, according to Dana, mistook the
sea-weeds of the Silurian period for the grass, herbs,
and fruit-trees of the recent tertiary, - a mistake that
no boy of ten years of age and of ordinary intelligence
could make. Did God know no better than that?
Or did his inspiration fail to save Moses from makingi
such a gross error? What, then, was it worth? If it
did not save him in tlis instance, which we have dis
covered, how often did it fail where we have no means
of discovering? If Moses blundered in reference to
earthly things, with which he was familiar, how can
we trust his statements about heavenly things, of
which he knew nothing? If the Bible has failed so
utterly to give to a single human being an accurate
* Manual of Geology, p. 746.
55
lw
t Ibid., p. 744. 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
knowledge of the creation of the earth, may it not
have failed as utterly in its descriptions of God, devil,
heaven, hell? And when science walks into the domain theological, as it must, will it find the Bible
statements on these subjects just as false? and will there
be as much need of pettifogging, that would disgrace a
tenth-rate lawyer, to harmonize its theological statements, as there is now to harmonize its geological?
No doubt.
Yes, Dana is right, when he says that the author of
the account in Genesis was " unversed in the depths
of science."  He was not even versed in its shallows:
every statement he has made proves it; but how that
account can be true and divine which is thus acknowledged to be false, it, perhaps, requires an intellect
versed in the depths of orthodox theology to discover.
He says, "A Deity working in creation like a daylaborer, by earth-days of twenty-four hours, resting at
night, is a belittling conception, and one probably
never in the mind of the sacred penman."   It is,
indeed, a belittling conception, but the probability is
altogether in favor of its being in the mind of the penman, sacred or otherwise. If God was never fatiguedq
how could he rest? And what necessity was there for
a day of rest? How could he, as the writer of Exodus
asserts, rest and be " refreshed?" Was this, too, written
in the "simple and natural style" of an intellect
"unversed in the depths of science?"  It looks very
much like it, and, indeed, so does the whole book.
But what are we to think of those geologists, who, in
the light of the facts of their science, assure their
readers that the account in Genesis is " profoundly
t)philosophical," " true and divine," at the same time
56 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RLCORD)S.
acknowledgiing that it is no such thing?  What kind
of an example do such professors set before the young
men in college, who look up to them for guidance, and
regard them as models? Is it any wonder that chicanery, sham, lies, and hypocrisy abound in society,
when our students are brought up under the inistruction of such men as these?  One of the greatest evils
inflicted upon us by the popular orthodox view of the
Bible is the special pleading, hypocrisy, and even
wholesale lying, which it engenders. The consequences
to society, the wreck of conscientiousness and manlliness, are fearful to contemplate.
It is refreshing to meet with an honest, outspoken
man like Lesley, who says, "There is no possible alliance between Jewish theology and modern science.
They  are irreconcilable enemies.   Geology, in  its
present advancement, cannot be brought more easily
into harmony with the Mosaic cosmogony, than with
the Gnostic, the Vedic, or the Scandinavian." *
"But Hugh Miller harmonized Genesis and geology."
If you had said he tried, and, failing, put an end to
his life, you would have been much nearer the truth.
Miller's explanation is, that God presented a series -
of visions of creation to Moses, as "successive scenes
of a great air-drawn panorama," t or "a diorama, over
whose shifting pictures the curtain rose and fell six
times ill succession." God, then, undertook to teach
Moses by a panorama or diorama, constructed for this
purpose, Moses being the only spectator, how the work
of creating the heavens and the earth was accom
* Man's Origin and Destiny, p. 45.
t Testimony of the Rocks, p. 196.
57 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
plished. Moses, h9wever, led away by appearances,
supposed that to have been done in six days which
was millions of years in being accomplished; for Miller
acknowledges that " there is nothing more probable,
however, than that even Moses himself may have been
unacquainted with the extent of the periods represented
in the vision; nay, he may have been equally unconscious of the actual extent of the seeming days by
which they were symbolized." *
That is, they seemed to be days, and he took them
to be days.
Hie thinks the first scene presented to Moses was
that of the azoic period, the first day; second, the
Silurian and Devonian periods; third, the carboniferous period; fourth, the Permian and triassic periods;
fifth, the oolitic and cretaceous periods; and, sixth, the
tertiary period; each scene corresponding to each day's
work.
Since the azoic period includes the whole time up to
the production of life, it ificludes the vast ages, probably
longer than all the time that has transpired since,
during which the earth was so intensely heated as to
shine in the heavens like a sun. The panorama opens
with the shoreless fiery sea of this period, the most
striking thing that could be presented, yet Moses never
mentions it. Could the artist have neglected to insert
it? Hle observes, when the world has cooled sufficiently, the expanse of waters and the cloudy sky, and,
the sun being invisible, lie supposes it is uncreated; and
what light he beholds he thinks was created by miracle,- an error the proprietor of the panorama never
corrected.
* Testimony of the Rocks, p. 206.
58 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
From the second scene, corresponding  with the
Silurian and Devonian periods, he fancies that a solid
firmament was created, which lifted up a large ocean
of water and held it over the earth; but he never sees
the radiates, the mollusks, some of which, such as the
orthoceratites, were sixteen to twenty feet long, whose
remains have made rocks thousands of feet in thickness, in the Silurian formation; he never notices the
fish, bony-plated monsters, that swarmed in the oceandeep of the Devonian; he beholds not the plants,
which, before the close of the Devonian, had attained
the size of respectable trees.   All these, which no
modern artist would leave out of his panorama, the
divine artist unaccountably neglected to represent; or
did he fail sufficiently to illumine the scene, so that
Moses could behold it, or was Moses so careless that he
did not notice them while that portion of the panorama
was passing? At all events, of these he says not one
word.
When the curtain uprises on the third day, Moses
beholds the great carboniferous forests of the coal
measures, - miles of tree-ferns with their feathery
tops, reed-like calamites over immense marshes, lepidodendrons with their scaly trunks and hairy branches,
and the columnar sigillaria, forming together such a
scene as mortal mani never beheld before; but Moses,
poor man, thinks he sees the grasses and herbs on which
the sheep and cattle of Midian fed, and the vines, figtrees, date-trees, melons, cucumbers, and grains of
Egypt, and, as soon as the curtain drops, writes this
terrible blunder for the benefit of the ignorant millions
yet to be born. It would have been well if the exhibiter had made some verbal explanations as the
59
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i 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
panorama unrolled, or looked over the notes of his
solitary spectator. It might have suggested improvembnts before the next exhibition to some Moses of
another planet.
On the fourth day, represented by the Permian and
trias, the sun shines out clear and warm, as Miller is
pleased to imaginie, for the first time. Moses is so
dazzled that hlie sees nothing else during the whole
day; and, in the evening, he beholds, also for the first
time, the moon and stars.  Not having seen these
heavenly bodies before, he fancies they were just made,
and writes, "on this day God made sun, moon, - the
stars also." During these two periods (Permian and
trias), immense and strange reptiles moved over the
land, fish innumerable swarmed in the waters, birds as
high as young giraffes stalked along the shores, and
even small mammals fed upon the insects that teemed
in the tropical forests; but of all these, Moses, so
blinded by excess of light, sees nothing, and consequently says nothing.
On the fifth morning, Moses observes what had
escaped his notice for three days, -the waters alive
with fish; he sees, too, the aquatic reptiles that he had
not observed on the preceding day, and he now supposes them to be great whales: he still fails to see the
land reptiles; but the birds, that he did not see yesterday, he observes, and then writes down, at the conclusion of the day's performance, "great whales, other
water animals, and fowls created this day." Another
sad mistake.
The curtain rises for the sixth and last time, and
reveals a perfected world; and Moses again supposes
that what he sees, and had not previously observed,
60 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
must have been created on that day, and writes, " cattle, beasts, creeping things, and men created this day,"
though creeping things and beasts had been presented
before.
But how did Moses obtain his idea of what was done
on the seventh day? Did the curtain rise, and show
the Creator resting upon a flowery bank after his
arduous week's work?
If any such "panorama" or "diorama" was presented to Moses, it was a most signal failure. Never
did panorama so belie its name and derivation. It so
utterly failed in every instance to indicate accurately
what was done, that Moses mistook its meaning every
time, and not a human being on the planet had the
slightest conception of what was meant by it, till geology raised the curtain of the ages to some purpose; for
the dumb rocks revealed what the talking Elohlim,
even by the aid of a panorama, could not accomplish.
Great names lead people to imagine they see wisdom
ill the most childish and nonsensical things, or IHugli
Miller's pretended explanation would have been blown
to atoms in the storm of ridicule it would have created.
The Gods turning showmen, and to such poor purpose,
surpasses even the freedom with which Homer treats
the Grecian divinities.
But Genesis furnishes us with a second account of
creation, differing very widely in many respects from
the first. This commences with the fourth verse of the
second chapter, and introduces us to another Creator,
Jehovah, who is here styled Lord God.
These are the generations of the heavens and of the
earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord
God made the earth and the heavens, and every plant
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THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
of the field, before it was in the earth, and every herb of
the field before it grew: for the Lord God had not caused
it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till
the ground.  But there went up a mist from the earth,
and watered the whole faee of the ground. - GEN. ii.
4, 5, 6.
Here there is no such mistake as making the earth,
and day and night, and evening and morning, before
the sun; but there are errors nearly if not quite as
grave. The heaven and the earth are made at the
same time, the earth destitute of all organic existences,
waiting for the Omnipotent Mechanic to furnish them:
which he does in a very ungodlike manner; for he
makes every plant before it is in the earth, and every
herb before it grows. The writer of the first account
of creation was a natural poet; the organ of ideality
in his brain must have Been comparatively large. We
read his account, and we imagine the profound darkness, that the aching eye strives in vain to pierce; we
can hear the Master's voice,that nothing can disregard,
"Light be," and see the flashing glory that shoots
across the illimitable sea of darkness, and reveals the
chaotic earth beneath us.  Again we hear, "Let them
earth bring forth grass, herbs, and trees;" and, as
the omnific word resounds, the naked earth starts into
life and beauty at a bound, a wave of living green
rolls round the globe, and on a thousand hills the
lordly pines their nodding branches rear: false enough,
but still poetic. But-the writer of the second account,
poor, narrow-headed bungler, has God, mechanic-ike,
make oaks, elms, palms, and pines, and stick them in
the ground; and, then, lest they should fail to grow,
he makes a mist to water the whole face of the
ground.
62 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
This writer has plants and herbs made before any
form of animal life.  We have seen how contrary this
is to tile revelations of geology. In addition to this,
it had not rained upon the earth up to the time of
the production of plants and herbs. This we know to
be a great mistake.  I have in my cabinet "Devonian
rain-prints."  They are commonl in the carboniferous
formation; and yet both were deposited ages before
our present plants came into being. The first writer
shrank from telling how God made man. He knew,
that, in doing so, he must certainly take that fatal step
from the sublime to the ridiculous. The second writer
has no such scruples: hence he says, --
"And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the
ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,
and man became a living soul. -7th verse.
If a mall wishes to obtain a conception of the silliness
of this narrative, let him try to actualize this process
of man-making.   Where did this take place?  In
Egypt, where the raw material is so abundant? Did
Jehovah mix it to a proper consistency for sticking
together by the application of water, so large a proportion of which enters into the composition of human
bodies? Did he mould it into a human form as a
sculptor does his clay model? Did he use his fingers
merely, or had he tools specially adopted to the purpose? When he breathed into his nostrils, did he
place his mouth to the nose of the clay man, and did
this transform the clay into flesh, blood, bones, muscles,
sinews, nerves, and brain? Let this story be told to
alny scientific man for the first time, and would he not
laughl at it, and regard it as he would "Jack and the
Bean-stalk"? Of course he would. And is this story
63 
THE IRRECONCILABLE R.ECORDS.
any better for being old or long-believed, or because
an unknown, ancient Jew tells it, and people in the
days of the world's ignorance swallowed it?
According to the Elohistic writer of Genesis, God
made man on the sixth day, male and female; and
doubtless  the  Jehovistic  writer intended  to have
the two sexes made on the same day, though not at
the same time; but in his ignorance gives Adam a job
that must have taken several days to accomplish,
before Eve, "the mother of all living," was formed.
"And out of the ground the Lord God formed every
beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought
them unto Adam, to see what he would call them: and
whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was
the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle,
and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the
field.- 19th and 20th verses.
The Elohistic writer makes birds on the fourth day,
and beasts on the fifth, both before man; but the
Jehovistic makes man first, then birds and beasts.
The species of birds are estimated by ornithologists at
eight thousand; the known land mammals or beasts
are very nearly two thousand. These are all made,
out of the dust of the ground, then brought to Adam,
who names them. Let us realize the magnificent conception of this writer! Out of the ground Jehovah
makes two pairs of ponderous elephants; for there
are two species, the finest proboscidian pachyderms
the world ever beheld. He leads or drives them to
Adam.   Adam  says Asiatic elephant  to the one,
Indian elephant to the other, or something just as
good; and away they mnarch to the nearest wood,
which must have been at no great distance.  Jehovah
64 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
now finishes, and calls Adam's attention to, fourteen
splendid rhinoceroses, - for there are seven species,
- ripping up the bushes with their horns as they
walk along. Adam, endowed with miraculous wisdom, gives appropriate names to every species; and
away they go to the nearest river, which must have
been convenient. Next come a host of bears, black,
brown, white, grizzly, cinnamon, growling till Adam
names and permits each to go-to its congenial home.
But here is a difficulty: the grizzly bear belongs
to America.   How  shall it reach its proper place
of abode? The white bear can only live in the vicinity of the sea, and in a high northern region. Did
Jehovah carry or send the animals to their appropriate
places after Adam  had named  them?  If so, the
amount of work done on this day must have been
enormous. The gorilla and the chimpanzee to Western
Africa, the orang-outang to Borneo and Sumatra, the
spider-monkeys to South America, the buffalo and
opossum to North America, a hundred and thirty
pouched mammals to Australia, wingless birds to New
Zealand, rheas to Patagonia, and an innumerable
multitude besides, - all to be conveyed to their respective places of abode, where, as geologists know, similar animals have existed for ages.
Unless the animals were conveyed from the spot as
soon as Adam  named them, think what the colnsequence must have been. Besides the inappropriate
temperature to which many animals must have been
subjected, how long would some of these animals
exist in the presence of others?  An immense menagerie, in which lions, tigers, sheep, wolves, rabbits,
hyenas, eagles, rats, cats, mice, pigeons, hawks, buz
7 
65
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THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
zards, vultures, condors, fowls, cormorants, owls,
crows, geese, ducks, swans, swallows, king-fishers,
penguins, ostriches, and thousands of others, are all
turned loose! Hiow long would the herbivora live
that had been made and named, unless an extra number had been produced?   And, if an extra number
was produced, then the amount of labor on that
remarkable day must have been much greater; and all
this done before Eve was created.  If each one was
made in Jehovah's dust-shop, brought to Adam, and
named in one minute,- and certainly there could have
been no idle time under such circumstances,- then it
took over one hundred and sixty-six hours to do it;
and if Jehovah and Adam worked for ten hours a day,
- and they did not probably work longer, before
Avarice was born to drive the toiler, - then they were
sixteen days and six hours in doing the work, during
which time Adam was the sole human occupant of the
globe.
The beasts and birds could not, of course, remember
the names that Adam gave them; it would have been
utterly useless to name them, unless some one did
write them down, or remember them; hence Adam 
must have written down or remembered the ten thousand names given to all beasts and birds: but Adam
was lnaked, destitute of pen, ink, and paper; and he
must, therefore, have remembered them. But, to remember them, his memory must have been a miraculous one; yet of what possible use was it?
This story is not more ridiculous than false.  Beasts
and birds existed as early as the ool51ite at least, and
during every succeeding geologic period, representing
untold ages, to man.
66 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
"And the Lord God said, It is not good that the
man should be alone  I will make him an helpmeet for
him.  And  the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall
upon Adam, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs,
and closed up the flesh instead thereof: and the rib
which the Lord God had taken from man made (or, as
it reads in the margin, he builded) he a woman, and
brought her unto the man." -  GEN. ii. 18, 21, 22.
Was not Jehovah aware that it would be bad for
man to be alone when he made him? Was not the
necessity just as great for a helpmeet when he was first
created as at any future time?
But why did this writer represent man as first created, and woman as an after-thought, -a help to man,
only necessary because man could not be comfortable
without her? We can readily find the spirit that inspired him, in the disposition that the stronger sex
among all barbarous and semi-barbarous nations has
.-ad to trample upon the rights of the weaker. We
may see the influence of the same unholy spirit in the
curse pronounced upon woman, put by this writer
into the mouth of Jehovah, "Thy desire shall be to
thy husband, and he shall rule over thee;" and in the
foolish and brutal command of Paul, "Let the woman
learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not
a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the main,
but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then
Eve" (1 Tim. ii. 11-13).   What a reason!  Had
this domineering, self-styled apostle but studied science
half as much as he had old Jewish traditions, hlie would
have learned that the best of every thing has ever been
the most recent; and, if woman was the last made, it
is good evidence that she is superior to manl. If woman
67
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THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
had written the Bible, how different all this would
have been!
The making of man was ridiculous enough; but the
making of woman is still worse. Adam cast into a
deep sleep, mesmerically, anesthetically, or otherwise,
- and a very deep sleep it must have been, - Jehovah
opens his side,- whether with his finger, a knife, or
some surgical instrument, we are not informed,- takes
out one of his ribs. Was the vertebra attached to it,
and that transformed into the skull? Does he hold
the bloody rib in his hand? or does he lay it on the
ground, and say "Abra-ca-dabra hi presto change,"
and in an instant does the crooked, gory bone become
a fair, erect, and lovely woman? As likely so as not,
taking this story for truth. And then Adam wakens to
find the desire of his soul gratified; and, having named
so many animals, the habit is now strong in him, and
he says, "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of
my flesh: she shall be called woman because she was
taken out of man."  But how le knew what took place
while he was ill a deep sleep we are not informed.
Possibly Jehovah communicated it to him in a private
conversation; or did he discover that a rib was lackimg, and surmise the rest?
God having created mail and woman by miracle, - a
God, too, who is altogether independent of law,- what
splendid specimens of the race they must have been!
"The loveliest pair
That ever yet in love's embraces met:
Adam, the goodliest man of men since born
His sons; the fairest of her daughters, Eve."
As Miller says, " Adam, the father of manakind, was
68 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
no squalid savage of doubtful humanity, but a iiot)le
specimen of man; and Eve a soft Circassian beauty,
but exquisitely lovely beyond the lot of fallen humani
ty." And this is reasonable. Made in the image of
God, turned out of his own workshop, -the work intrusted to no apprentice or even journeymanl,-they
must have been the most magnificent and beautiful
pair that ever trod the earth. And their intellectual
capacity must have been in harmony with their physical perfection. The one indeed necessarily accompanies the other. No curse was pronounced on man's
intellect in consequence of the fall: it seems rather to
have increased his intelligence. Of his childrenl, one
becomes a shepherd and the other a farmer; very honorable pursuits, and both indicating a position far in
advance of the savage state. In the seventh generation from Adam, which could not have been more than
three hundred years, we find his descendants living in
tents, playing on harps and organs, and working ill
brass and iron (Gen. iv. 16-22).
What says archeology of the condition of manl at an
early period of his history? It is now well known,
that in every country where stone, copper, tin, and
iron are found, that man in his development has passed
from a primitive barbarous condition through the ages
of stone, bronze, and iron, in each of which his weapons and utensils have been made of these materials;
and each of these ages has continued for many thlousands of years.
Of the "primeval Briton," Daniel Wilson, professor
of history in University College, Toronto, says, " Intellectually, he appears to have been in nearly the lowest
stage to which an intelligent being can sink.  Morally,
69
AV 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
he was the slave of superstitions, the grovelling character
of which can be partially inferred from the indications
of his sepulchral rites. Physically, he differed little
in stature from the modern inheritors of the same soil;
but the form of skull indicated diverse ethnical relations.  His cerebral development was poor; his hallds,
and probably his feet also, were small; while the
weapons with which he provided himself for the chase,
and the few implements that ministered to his limited
necessities, disclose only the first rudiments of that
inventive ingenuity which distinguishes the reason of
manl from the instincts of the brutes." *
Of the stone period, during which these primeval
Britons lived, he says, " We are furnished with satisfactory evidence of a thinly-peopled country, occupied
by the same tribes, with nearfy unchanging habits, for
many ages." t Were these wild savages that for ages
inhabited Great Britain the descendants of Adam and
Eve, between Cain and Tubal Cain, that had wandered
off from Asia to the British Isles? The mouldiest theological fogy will hardly take such a position.
"However our pride may revolt at the fact, we are
forced to acknowledge that man, as he stepped at first
upoin this part of the earth (France), bore, in his instincts, his passions, and his wants, no small resemblalce to the brutes. Fire was still unknown to him:
his teeth show that he drew his nourishment from roots
and other growths of the soil; and, when he began to
use flesh for food, he must have devoured it raw....
A skin, stripped from the beasts he had slain, formed
the clothing of the primeval European.  His limbs were
* The Prehistoric Annals of Scotland, p. 40.
70
t Ibid, 801. 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
exposed to the incelemencies of the weather; and when
-lie would seek rest or protection from the cold, or from
wild animals, his necessary resort was to the forest, or
to dark cavities in the earth." * Here is no Adam,
the most perfect man; no Abel, keeping sheep; no
Cain, building a city; no Tubal Cain, shaping brass
and iron.
Could the descendants of Noah have forgotten all
the arts practised by them at the building of Babel's
tower, and sunk into such savages as these? The period when they existed is too ancient, if other considerations did not forbid.
The calculations of the Swiss archeologists indicate
that men inhabited Switzerland from six to seven
thousand years ago, who used polished-stone implements.t Could these have been descended from a pair
created long after they were in existence? Yet we
know that this people that used polished-stone weapons
were preceded by a ruder people, who used unpolished stone weapons; and there is good evidence to show
that they existed for an immense period.  The paleolithic-stone age, as it has been termed, is now acknowl edged by most archaeologists to be of tens of thousands
of years duration. The skulls belonging to this period
generally indicate small mental capacity, and are ac companied with prognathous jaws, which must have
made their possessors as ugly as they do the brutal
savages of Australia to-day.
This Genesical story represents man in the full pos.
session of language: from the first, Adam and Eve ull
derstood all that God said, and they spoke as appro
* Smithsonian Report, 1867, p. 336.
t Lubbock's Prehistoric Times, p. 320.
71
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THE IRR.ECONCILABLq RECORDS.
priately to him as hle did to them. But how could a
mani understand a language before he had heard it
spoken. And how could he utter sentences before he
had spoken words? Did Jehovah practise schlool-teaclhing as well as panorama-showing, - certainly quite as
creditable a business,-and give Adam and Eve at least
the rudiments of the Hebrew language? In the very
nature of things, language must have grown, from the
simplest beginnings to the condition in which we find
it among the most ancient nations; and this is the
opinion generally, if not universally, entertained by the
students of language at the present time. Their views
are expressed in " Chambers' Encyclopedia;" article,
philology.  "Every thing tends to show that language
is a spontaneous product of human nature, - a niecessary result of man's physical and mental constitution."
If every thing tends to show that language is a spontaneous product of human nature, then every thing
tends to show the falsity of the Bible account of Adam's
naming the animals, and of his conversations wi::
God and his wife, when there could have been no time
for the natural formation of a language.
"The first rudiments of language," says the philCogist, John Crawford, "must have consisted of a few
articulate sounds, in the attempts made by the speechless but social savages to make their wants and wishes
known to each other; and, from these first efforts to
the time when language had attained the completeness which we find it to have reached among the
rudest tribes ever known to us, countless ages we
must presume to have elapsed."
The writer of the second account of creation represents the serpent as condemned to walk upon its belly,
72 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
*
in consequence of its having tempted Eve to eat of the
forbidden fruit. It is evident, then, that the serpent
must have walked in some other way previous to this
curse. But geology reveals to us the existence of the
serpent, similar in its form to that of the present time,
as early as the eocene tertiary. If the serpent, millions
of years before the creation of man, moved as serpents
move now, it is evident that their present mode of
progression cannot have been produced by any curse
of Jehovah.
This writer also represents the death of human beings
as a result of the curse pronounced upon them in consequence of their disobedience. The New Testament
indorses the statement:  "By one man, sin entered
into the world, and death by sin" (Rom. v. 12).  "By
man came death" (1 Cor. xv. 21). But if this was the
case, if Adam had not sinned, his body would have been
immortal. No fires could have burned him, no floods
have drowned him, no poison affected him, no accident
jured him; for, if hle could be injured, a repetition
of injuries of sufficient extent would have injured him
beyond recovery. Gunpowder could not have hlarmed
him; or, if a bomb-shell could have blown him to pieces,
his constitution must have been such that the scattered
pieces would instantly return, and make the mail whole.
He must, indeed, have been as impenetrable and as indestructible as an ultimate atom. But how could a
humnan being, constituted as we are, be so different in
his capacities? No flesh-and-blood mail could this
have been.   And this explains the whole mystery.
Adam never had an existence, save in the brain of
the Hiindoo dreamer who originally created him,
and the people who have since then believed in what
73
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THE IRRECONCILABLE RECOBDS.
the Hinldoo created and the Jewish cosmogonist ac
cepted, and, with some modifications, foisted upon the
Jewish people, and subsequently on the Christian. He
is a mythical man, and could, therefore, be and do what
the Bible states as readily as Hercules could bring the
three-headed dog from the infernal regions, and Atlas
support the world upon his shoulders.
"But the Bible was never intended to teach  mnen
science."
The Bible does, however, profess to tell, and very
definitely, how the world was made; and, if it is not
done scientifically, it must be done falsely.
Suppose a man should undertake to tell where the
important organs of the body are situated, and he informs us that the heart is under the right arm, the
stomach under the left, and the liver at the back of the
neck; and, when you bring up these gross blunders, he
answers, "Oh, I did not intend to teach physiology! "
You reply, "You undertook to tell where the important organs of the body are situated, and this you
could onuly do by stating the facts as physiology states
them; and, failing to do this, you made gross misstatements." So we say of these accounts in Genesis: tlh
writers undertook to tell the order in which the heavens, the earth, and its varied organic existences, came
into being; td, failing to do this geologically, they did
it falsely.
" God dealt wi?h the Jews as with children: he spoke
of things, -ot as they existed, but as they appeared.
What could ihe i9norant Jews have known of the Silurian and Devoni,tn p,eriods, the ichthyosaurus and the
ramphorhyneh4.,&8 2f 1r   could they have credited the
revelations of ie,g, i they had bees made    to them.
74 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
1he world would never have received such a revelation.*
But what intelligent father would treat his children
in such a manner as that? A father wishes to convey
to his children a knowledge of the form of the earth.
It appears to be flat. They cannot understand how persons can live on the other side of it, if they are told
that it is round; and, in short, they never could receive
such a statement. So he says, " My dear children, the
world on which we live is flat, - flat as the table from
which you eat your dinner." What a foolish father that
would be! His children will learn the facts some time,
and then they must despise him. But what better is
Jehovah? The delicate Jewish stomach could not bear
the truth, so he fed them on falsehoods; gave them to
understand that the earth was the largest and most
important body in the universe; told them that grass,
herbs, and fruit-trees came into existence before the
sun, and that there were three evenings and mornings
before the sun was created; told them that it had not
rained upon the earth till just before man's appearance, and that all things were created less than six
thousand years ago; well knowing that all this was
false, and that science would some day make it manifest. If a revelation from God can only perpetuate
the errors of the people to whom it is given, it had
better not be given; for it then gives the highest possible sanction to error, and prevents the discovery of
truth. Had it not been for these Genesical fables, we
should have been much farther advanced in geological
knowledge to-day.
* See Miller's Testimony of the Rocks, pp. 191, 192.
75
lW 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
"But the Bible, to give a full scientific description
of the creation of the world and its inhabitants, must
have been as large as a mountain; and no man could'
have read it in a life-time."
It is not necessary that its description should be full:
it might be correct, and no longer than it is at present.
Suppose that it had read something like this, -how
differently scientific men would have regarded it.
1. Millions of ages ago, the heavenly bodies and the
earth came into being, -the sun many times larger than
the earth, which turns over and revolves around it;
and thus day and night and the seasons are produced.
2. At a very early period in the earth's history, it
was a fluid mass of matter, exceedingly hot, and surrounding it was a very large atmosphere.
3. In process of time, the earth became cool enough
for a rocky crust to form upon its surface.
4. As yet, there was no water on the earth; but it
continued to cool till the water condensed upon its surface from the great atmosphere above: the hollows of
the earth were filled and the oceans came into being.
5. For vast ages, rain fell from the clouds upon the
dry land, and rivers carried down sediment into the
seas, at the bottom of which it was laid, where it
hardened in time into rocks many miles in thickness.
6. At first, the land-surface of the earth was small;
but, as the earth continued to cool, its crust contracted,
hills and mountains were produced, and continents
gradually formed.
7. Life began in the ocean, simple forms of animals
and vegetables side by side together.
8. And the waters brought forth abundantly,corals, living in stony habitations, jointed animals
76 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
with shelly coverings, and mollusks that clung to the
rocks, -fed on the sea-weeds, and swam by myriads in
the waters.
9. They grew and multiplied for such a vast period,
that their remains, at the bottom of the seas, made
rocks thousands of feet in thickness.
10. Then the waters brought forth fishes, - strange
fishes with bony coverings,- new corals, shells, and
jointed animals; and, on the dry land, moss-like plants
and ferns grew; and, by the river-side and in the
marshes, reeds sprang up.
11. Creeping things also made their appearance, and
reptiles crawled and hopped over the ground.
12. Multitudes of trees sprang up, so that the dry
land and the marshes were covered. Ferns and reeds
and club-mosses, tall in stature, grew and fell; and their
bodies made, when covered with sediment, beds of coal,
fuel for the coming days.
13. And all the early forms of life perished one by
one, and one by one new forms took their places; and
life appeared in successively higher forms from age to
age.
14. Birds of strange forms, some of them very reptile-like, abounded, many of them of gigantic size.
15. Mammals appeared, but they were at first small
in size and few in number; and gigantic sea and land
reptiles, so that both land and water swarmed with
them.
16. Mammals appeared, in constantly-increasing
numbers and of larger size, from age to age; and the
land was everywhere occupied by them.
17. Man at last came into being, low and brutal,
and slowly advanced to a more perfect form.
'77
VW 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
18. Tile world is stili pr)gressing; and the future will
find it greatly superior as al abode of human beings.
This is, of course, but the imperfect account of a
fallible man, from a necessarily imperfect understanding of the geological record; a4i vet it is vastly superior in accuracy to the account it Genesis.  What a
perfect account might have been written'by the infallible God! an account that would have carried colnviction to the minds of millions, and the strongest
conviction to the most scientific; becoming stronger
and clearer as our knowledge of the earth's past history
increased.
But, if the account of creation given in Genesis is
false, then the commandments said to have been given
to Moses on Mount Sinai, which indorse that account,
never came from God; and the Pentateuch is a merely
human production, of no more authority than the account of creation itself.   But, with the Pentateuch,
away go all the Old-Testament books; for they indorse
it, and argue from it. It is impossible that the spirit
of truth could have inspired men to build upon and
indorse the terrible falsehoods of the Pentateuch.  But,
when the Old Testament is gone, how much of the
New remains? Jesus appeals to the Old Testament,
urges his claims on the strength of its statements; and
the evangelists and apostles everywhere recognize its
authority as fully as our orthodox ministers do to-day.
All that we can do, then, in the light of absolute fact, is
to accept the Bible only as the statements of men, iii
many cases lamentably ignorant of what they pretended to teach, and of no more authority than the writings of Mohammed or Joseph Smith.
"But what harm does it do to believe these olal recordsg.
78 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
They have comforted the souls of  countless millions:
why disturb our peace with these new ideas?"
Is falsehood, then, as good as truth?  Is it equally
beneficial to the soul?  Then welcome the dark ages
burn our libraries, close our schools, shut up our halls,
and let us set up the statue of a hog, and make that,
henceforth, our God.   If nothing is to be disturbed
that comforts people, how wrong Christian missionaries
act, who are constantly disturbing the comfortable
faiths of the heathen among whom they operate!
We are here to discover the truth on all possible subjects; to teach it, to live it, receiving the blessing of
that angel which feeds man's soul with appropriate
food, strengthens his faculties by applying them to
noble purposes, crowns his days with that delight which
universally springs from well-doing, and assures him,
when this life is over, of a life of continued progress
hereafter.
We have been too long bound by the pretended revelations of this Jewish story-book. It has led us to
believe in an angry, cruel, and revengeful God; all
almost omnipotent Devil, and an unending hell of
misery unutterable. We have spent our time in harmonizing its contradictions, in comparing its discrepancies, and seeking to evade their significance; in
treasuring its rubbish in our souls, as the credulous Catholics hug to their breasts chips of dirty wood for fragments of the true cross, and in making it a stumblingblock in the way of our advancement ill knowledge.
Thanks to science, the Bible now takes its true position,- a record of man's religious notions in a time of
ignorance; henceforth, every man deciding for himself
what it is worth, and using it accordingly. All that is
.''': "
.~
79
ow 
THE IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS.
true in it will still remain, and be more acceptable.
when dissociated from the fables and filth that have
done so much to obscure it. The night of gloom and
superstition will pass away, and the sun of science
bless the world with his reviving beams.
80
W_
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