reath, as it passes by, until the whole heaven, one scarlet
canopy, is interwoven with a roof of waving flame, and tossing vault
beyond vault, as with the drifted wings of many companies of angels;
and then, when you can look no more for gladness, and when you are
bowed down with fear and love of the Maker and Doer of this, tell me
who has best delivered this His message unto men!

[17] I forget now what all this is about. It seems to be a recollection
of the Rigi, with assumption that the enthusiastic spectator is to stand
for a day and night in observation; to suffer the effects of a severe
thunder-storm, and to get neither breakfast nor dinner. I have seen such
a storm on the Rigi, however, and more than one such sunrise; and I much
doubt if its present visitors by rail will see more.

26.[18] The account given of the stages of creation in the first
chapter of Genesis is in every respect clear and intelligible to the
simplest reader, except in the statement of the work of the second
day. I suppose that this statement is passed over by careless readers
without any endeavour to understand it, and contemplated by simple and
faithful readers as a sublime mystery which was not intended to be
understood. But there is no mystery in any other part of the chapter,
and it seems to me unjust to conclude that any was intended here. And
the passage ought to be peculiarly interesting to us, as being the
first in the Bible in which the heavens are named, and the only one in
which the word "Heaven," all-important as that word is to our
understanding of the most precious promises of Scripture, receives a
definite explanation. Let us therefore see whether, by a little
careful comparison of the verse with other passages in which the word
occurs, we may not be able to arrive at as clear an understanding of
this portion of the chapter as of the rest. In the first place the
English word, "Firmament," itself is obscure and useless; because we
never employ it but as a synonym of heaven, it conveys no other
distinct idea to us; and the verse, though from our familiarity with
it we imagine that it possesses meaning, has in reality no more point
nor value than if it were written, "God said, Let there be a something
in the midst of the waters, and God called the something, Heaven." But
the marginal reading, "Expansion," has definite value; and the
statement that "God said, Let there be an expansion in the midst of
the waters, and God called