ason why a revelation from God must deal with the origins of
things, is that such revelation is, like creation, in its own nature
progressive. It is given little by little to successive generations of
men, and must proceed from the first rudiments of religious truth
onward to its higher developments with the growth of humanity from age
to age. Hence the teachings in the early chapters of Genesis are of
the simplest and most child-like character, and the first of these
early teachings is necessarily that of God the Creator, just as our
elementary catechisms for children have been wont to begin with the
question, "Who made you?" In this way man is led in the most direct
and simple way to the feet of the Universal Father, and a foundation
is laid whereon further religious teaching adapted to the growth of
the individual mind and to the growing complications of human society
can be built. But again, alike in the earliest and simplest as in the
more advanced states of the human mind, if spiritual things are to be
taught, it must be through the medium of material things. We have no
language to express in any direct way spiritual truths; they must be
given to us in terms of the natural. We have not yet learned the
tongue of the immortals, and probably can not learn it in this world.
The word "spirit" itself, which we borrow from the Latin, the Greek
_Pneuma_, the Hebrew _Ruah_, primarily all agree in signifying breath
or wind. We have to speak of our own breath when we mean our spiritual
nature, of God's breath when we mean his spiritual nature, and so of
all other things not obvious to our senses. There is constant danger
in this that the material shall be taken for the spiritual of which it
is the symbol, the figure for the reality, the creature for the
Creator, and this danger is best counteracted by a decided testimony
in relation to the origin of all material things in the will of the
spiritual and eternal God. Thus the Bible writers are enabled to use a
free and bold manner of speech respecting divine things. Their
expressions at one time appear pantheistic and at another
anthropomorphic; they see God in every thing, and use with the utmost
freedom natural emblems to indicate his perfections and procedure, and
our relations to him. In this way there is life and action in their
teaching, and it is removed as far as possible from a dry, abstract
theology, while equally remote from any tinge of idolatry or
superstition.

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