recorded in chapter i. vers. 27, 28.

In this view, not only _a_ second narrative, but just the particular
kind of narrative we actually have, is not only natural, but even
necessary. _Before_, we had a general account of how God ordained the
scheme of material-form and life-form on the earth; _now_ we have a
detailed account of how He actually carried out one portion of it--that
one portion we are most concerned to hear about, namely the man Adam,
the progenitor of our own race, of whom came JESUS CHRIST, "the son of
Adam.[1]"

The account is designed to introduce to us the scene of Adam's
birthplace--the Garden of Eden.[2] The mention of a garden, and the
subsequent important connection of the trees of that garden with the
conduct of the man, naturally turn the writer's attention to the general
subject of the vegetation on the earth's surface. He prefaces his new
account accordingly with a brief summary--which I may paraphrase thus
without, I trust, departing from the sense of the original: "Such was
the origin of the earth (and all in it) and of the heavenly host, at the
time when God made them. He had made every plant _before_ it was in the
earth--every herb of the field _before_ it grew" (mark the language as
confirming what I have said--God "created" everything before it actually
developed and grew into being on the earth). "Rain did not then fall (in
the same way as now) on the earth, but the mist that exhaled from the
soil re-condensed, and fell and moistened the ground; but there was as
yet no MAN to till and cultivate the soil."

[Footnote 1: St. Luke iii. 38.]

[Footnote 2: Which had a real historic existence. _Vide_ Appendix A.]

Then God actually formed or fashioned _a man_. It is not now that He
created the ideal form to be produced in due time, but that He actually
formed the individual Adam, and placed him in a garden which He had
prepared for the purpose. All the words used now imply actual
production. The Divine ideal was ready, and the earth-elements (of which
we know man's body to consist) were ready at the Divine word to assume
the human shape. And that done, God "breathed into his nostrils the
breath of life" (mark the direct _act_ on the man himself), and the man
became a "living soul." There is nothing here of the "earth bringing
forth" as in the former narrative. We have the direct act of God, not in
the design only, but in the production of the thing itself.

If this is not a complete