apor
which cause the separation of the clouds from the earth by a layer of
clear air, and the varied alternations of sunshine and rain, were
established. At the close of the period the newly formed atmosphere
covered a universal ocean; and there was probably a very regular and
uniform condition of the atmospheric currents, and of the processes of
evaporation and condensation."

But while we must affirm that no idea of a solid atmospheric vault can
be detected in the Bible, and while we may also affirm that such an idea
would have been altogether foreign to its tone, which invariably refers
all things not to secondary machinery, but to the will and fiat of the
Supreme, we must not forget that a most important moral purpose was to
be served by the assertion of the establishment of the atmospheric
expanse. Among all nations the phenomena of the atmosphere have had
important theological and mythological relations. The ever-changing and
apparently capricious aspects of the atmosphere and its clouds, the
terrible effects of storms, and the balmy influence of sunshine and
calm, deeply impress the minds of simple and superstitious men, and
this all the more that in their daily life and expeditions they are
constantly subjected to the effects of atmospheric vicissitudes. Hence
the greatest gods of all the ancient nations are weather-gods--rulers of
the atmospheric heavens--displaying their anger in the thunder-storm and
tornado. It is likely that in most cases, as in many barbarous tribes of
modern times, these weather-gods were malevolent beings contending
against the genial influences of the heavenly Sun-god; but in nearly
every case their supposed practical importance has elevated them, as in
the case of the Olympian Zeus, the Scandinavian Thor, and the American
Hurakon, to the place of supreme divinity. This was one of the
superstitions which the Hebrew monotheism had to overcome. Hence the
atmosphere is affirmed to be under Jehovah's law, and all its phenomena
are attributed to his power. The value of this as cutting at the root of
the most widespread superstitions it is easy to understand, and it has a
farther value in teaching that even the apparently unstable and
capricious air is a thing established from the first and amenable to the
ordinance of God. How difficult it has been to eradicate superstitious
views of the atmosphere may be learned from the fact that St. Paul, in
writing to the enlightened citizens of Ephesus,