ay against these results; it will not reject
the information of man as to the {295} succession and the modalities in the
appearance of the single elements of the world, which it receives from
natural science, and will not expect it by means of a special supernatural
manifestation; it will willingly accept it from natural science, and simply
make use of it in such a way that in nature and its processes it also
perceives a manifestation of God. Now, when it examines the different
Biblical accounts of creation as _to their religious substance_, it will
find in them such a pure and correct idea of divine nature and divine
action--such a pure conception, equally satisfying to mind and to science,
of the nature of man, of his position in nature, of the nature and
destination of the two sexes, of the ethical nature and the ethical
primitive history of man,--it will especially have to acknowledge in the
Biblical account of creation, in spite of all points of collision with the
cosmogonies of paganism, such an elevation above them, such an exemption
from all _theogony_, with which heathen cosmogonies are always mixed up,
that we are perfectly right in perceiving in these records the full and
unmistakable elements of a pure and genuine stream of manifestation, which
pours into mankind.

So far we find ourselves in full harmony with a theology which, in the
manner indicated, reconciles the religious interest with the historical and
critical interest. We find the points of view to which this perception
leads, represented with special clearness and attractiveness in Dillmann's
Revision of Knobel's "Commentar zur Genesis" ("Commentary on Genesis"),
Leipzig, Hirzel, 1875.

But it seems to us that a readiness to be just to historical criticism and
impartial exegesis has hindered {296} theologians occupying this standpoint
from being just also to _the religious element_, in its full meaning, in
reference to a very important part of the Mosaic account of creation, in
which the author of it shows quite a decided religious interest. We mean
the _six days of creation_, together with the _seventh day_, the divine
Sabbath. Theologians became too quickly satisfied with the exegetical
perception of these seven days, as creative, earthly days, of twenty-four
hours; and this hindered them from assigning to the religious meaning the
full importance which these days have in that record. That the idea and the
number of the days in that account have