stake what is meant when allusion is made to "the day in
which God made the heaven and the earth." No one falls into doubt when
the "days" of the prophets are spoken of--any more than they do now when
a man says, "Such a thing will not happen in my _day_."

Whenever in Daniel, or in similar prophetic writings, the term "day" is
used in a peculiar sense as indicating a term of years, we have no
difficulty in recognizing the fact from the context and circumstances of
the narrative; nor am I aware that any controversy has ever arisen
regarding the use of the term "day" _in any passage of Scripture
excepting in this_.

This fact alone is suspicious; the more so, because there is absolutely
nothing in the context to indicate that anything but an ordinary day is
intended. Not only so, but there _is_ in the context something that does
very clearly indicate (and I think Dr. Reville is perfectly justified in
insisting on this) that an ordinary terrestrial day is meant. One of the
primeval institutions of Divine Providence for men, my readers will not
need to be reminded, was that of a "Sabbath," which any one reading the
text would understand to mean a day, and which the Jews--the earliest
formal or legal recognizers of it--_did_ so understand, and that under
direct Divine sanction.

If the _days_ of Genesis mean indefinite periods of aeonian duration,
how is the seventh _day_ of rest to be understood?

But even if these difficulties are overcome, absolutely nothing is
gained by taking the day to be a period.

I presume that the object of gaining long periods of time instead of
days in reading the Mosaic record, is to assume that the narrative means
to describe the actual production on the earth of all that was created;
in other words, to assume a particular meaning for the words "created,"
"brought forth," &c and then to make out that if a whole age is
granted, Science will allow us a sequence of a "plant age" a "fish and
saurian age," a "bird age," and a "mammalian age";--that is, in general
terms and neglecting minor forms of life. But then _to make any sense at
all with the verses_ we are bound to show that each age preceded the
next--that one was more than partly, if not quite completely,
established _before_ any appearance of the next.

It is to this interpretation that Professor Huxley alludes when he says,
in his first article,[1] "There must be some position from which the
reconcilers of Science and Genesis will n