rel with it, whatever
skepticism they may entertain as to the greater general completeness
of the inspired record.

Another point which deserves a passing notice here is the theory of
Dr. Kurtz and others, that the Mosaic narrative represents a vision of
creation, analogous to those prophetic visions which appear in the
later books of Scripture. This is beyond all question the most simple
and probable solution of the origin of the document, when viewed as
inspired, but we shall have to recur to it on a future page.

But with respect to the precise origin of this cosmogony, the question
now arises, Is it really in substance a revelation from God to man? We
must not disguise from ourselves that this deliberate statement of an
order of creation in so far challenges comparison with the results of
science, and this in a very different way from that which applies to
the incidental references to nature in the Bible. Further, inasmuch as
it relates to events which transpired before the creation of man, it
is of the nature of prophecy rather than of history. It is, in short,
either an inspired revelation of the divine procedure in creation, or
it is a product of human imagination or research, or a deliberate
fraud.

To no part of the Bible do these alternatives more strictly apply than
to its first chapter. This "can not be history" in the strict
acceptation of the term. It relates to events which no human eye
witnessed, respecting which no human testimony could give any
information. It represents the creation of man as the last of a long
series of events, of which it professes to inform us. The knowledge of
these events can not have been a matter of human experience. If at all
entitled to confidence, the narrative must, therefore, be received as
an inspired document, not handed down by any doubtful tradition, but
existing as originally transfused into human language from the mind of
the Author of nature himself. This view is in no way affected by the
hypothesis, already mentioned, that the first chapters of Genesis were
compiled by Moses from more ancient documents. This merely throws back
the revelation to a higher antiquity, and requires us to suppose the
agency of two inspired men instead of one.

It would be out of place here to enter into any argument for the
inspiration of Scripture, or to attempt to define the nature of that
inspiration. I merely wish to impress on the mind of the reader that
without the admission o