were created; and so says modern science, and must say of
ultimate particles determined by weight and measure, and incapable of
modification in their essential properties--"They have the properties
of a manufactured article."[29]

"In the beginning were forces," says yet another. True, says Genesis;
but all forces are one in origin--they represent merely the fiat of
the eternal and self-existent. So says science, that force must in the
ultimate resort be an "expression of Will."[30]

"In the beginning was Elohim," adds our old Semitic authority, and in
him are the absolute and eternal thought and will, the Creator from
whom and by whom and in whom are all things.

Thus the simple familiar words, "In the beginning God created the
heaven and the earth," answer all possible questions as to the origin
of things, and include all under the conception of theism. Let us now
look at these pregnant words more particularly as to their precise
import and significance.

The divine personality expressed by the Hebrew Elohim may be fairly
said to include all that can be claimed for the pantheistic conception
of "dynamis," or universal material power. Lange gives this as
included in the term Elohim, in his discussion of this term in his
book on Genesis. It has been aptly said that if, physically speaking,
the fall of a sparrow produces a gravitative effect that extends
throughout the universe, there can be no reason why it should be
unknown to God. God is thus everywhere, and always. Yet he is
everywhere and always present as a personality knowing and willing.
From his thought and will in the beginning proceeded the universe. By
him it was created.

What, then, is creation in the sense of the Hebrew writer. The act is
expressed by the verb _bara_, a word of comparatively rare occurrence
in the Scriptures, and employed to denote absolute creation, though
its primary sense is to cut or carve, and it is indeed a near relative
of our own English word "pare." If, says Professor Stuart, of Andover,
this word "does not mean to create in the highest sense, then the
Hebrews had no word by which they could designate this idea." Yet,
like our English "create," the word is used in secondary and
figurative senses, which in no degree detract from its force when
strictly and literally used. Since, however, these secondary senses
may often appear to obscure the primitive meaning, we must examine
them in detail.

In the first chapter of Genesis