loss and
not by gain_. It is degeneration and not upward evolution that is now
opened up before our astonished eyes by this peep into the ultimate
laboratories of nature; and he is surely a blind observer who cannot
read in these facts the grand truth that all this substance called
matter with which science deals in her manifold studies must at some
time in the past, I care not when, have been _called into existence in
some manner no longer operative_. The past eternity of matter, as well
as its progressive development from the simple to the complex, seems
manifestly out of consideration in view of the facts as we now know
them. There is no ambiguity in the evidence. So far as modern science
can throw light on the question, there must have been a real Creation of
the materials of which our world is composed, a Creation wholly
different both in kind and in degree from any process now going on.

IV

A supposed objection has been raised to this view, based on the vastness
of the universe as we now know it. Whether or not the universe is really
infinite in extent, it is certainly of an extent that is practically
infinite, so far as our powers of observation or of reasoning are
concerned. But this practically infinite universe is not a bit harder to
account for than would be a definitely limited universe, say of the size
of our solar system. If the spectroscope shows that the far distant
parts of the universe contain many of the same elements as are found in
our solar system, we need not be surprised, since all are alike the
work of the same Creator. Nor would this fact that the universe seems to
be composed of similar materials throughout tend in any way to prove
that all these parts of the universe were brought into existence at the
same time, nor yet that our solar system was refashioned out of some of
the common stock of the universe already on hand, as the nebular
hypothesis supposes. For all that we can tell to the contrary, it would
seem probable that the materials of our solar system were called into
existence expressly for the position they are now occupying; and this
seems to be the plain import of the record in Genesis. Of one thing,
however, we can be certain,--these materials must at some time have been
called into existence by methods or ways that are no longer in operation
around us. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."

V

Some remarks are necessary here regarding the homogeneousn