O life as futile, then, as frail!
O for thy voice to soothe and bless!
What hope of answer, or redress?
Behind the veil, behind the veil."
The farther explanation given by evolutionists that those ancient forms of life may be the actual ancestors of the present animals, and that through all the ages the Creator was gradually perfecting his work by a series of descents with modification, was probably not before the mind of our ancient Hebrew authority, nor need we attach much value to it till some proof of the process has been obtained from Nature. A farther reason, however, which was intelligible to the author of Genesis, and which is fondly dwelt on in succeeding books of the Bible, depends on the idea that the Creator himself is not indifferent to the marvellous structures, instincts, and powers which he has bestowed upon the lower races of animals. Witness the answer of the Almighty to Job, when he spake out of the whirlwind to vindicate his own plans in creation and providence; and brought before the patriarch a long train of animals, explaining and dwelling on the structure and powers of each, in contrast with the puny efforts and rude artificial contrivances of man. Witness also the preservation, in the rocks, of the fossil remains of extinct creatures, as if he who made them was unwilling that the evidence of their existence should perish, and purposely treasured them through all the revolutions of the earth, that through them men might magnify his name. The Psalmist would almost appear to have had all these thoughts before his mind when he poured out his wonder in the 104th Psalm:
"O Lord, how manifold are thy works!
In wisdom hast thou made them all.
The earth is full of thy riches; So is this wide and great sea, Wherein are moving things innumerable, Creatures both small and great.
There go the ships [or "floating animals"]; There is leviathan, which thou hast formed to sport therein: That thou givest them they gather.
Thou openest thy hand, they are filled with good; Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled; Thou takest away their breath, they return to their dust.
Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created, And thou renewest the face of the earth."
There are, however, good reasons to believe that, in the plans of divine wisdom, the long periods in which the earth was occupied by the inferior races were necessary to its subsequent adaptation to the residence of man. To these periods our present continents gradually grew up in all their variety and beauty. The materials of old rocks were comminuted and mixed to form fertile soils,[96] and stores of mineral products were acc.u.mulated to enable man to earn his subsistence and the blessings of civilization by the sweat of his brow. If it pleased the Almighty during these preparatory stages to replenish the land and sea with living things full of life and beauty and happiness, who shall venture to criticise his procedure, or to say to Him, "What doest thou?"
It would be decidedly wrong, in the present state of that which is popularly called science, to omit to inquire here what relation to the work of the fifth creative day those theories of development and evolution which have obtained so great currency may bear. The long time employed in the introduction of the lower animals, the use of the terms "make" and "form," instead of "create," and the expression "let the waters bring forth," may well be understood as countenancing some form of mediate creation, or of "creation by law," or "theistic evolution," as it has been termed; but they give no countenance to the idea either of the spontaneous evolution of living beings under the influence of merely physical causes and without creative intervention, or of the trans.m.u.tation of one kind of animal into another. Still, with reference to this last idea, it is plain that revelation gives us no definition of species as distinguished from varieties or races, so that there is nothing to prevent the supposition that, within certain limits indicated by the expression "after its kind," animals or plants may have been so const.i.tuted as to vary greatly in the progress of geological time.
If we ask whether any thing is known to science which can give even a decided probability to the notion that living beings are parts of an undirected evolution proceeding under merely dead insentient forces, and without intention, the answer must be emphatically no.
I have elsewhere fully discussed these questions, and may here make some general statements as to certain scientific facts which at present bar the way against the hypothesis of evolution as applied to life, and especially against that form of it to which Darwin and his disciples have given so great prominence.
1. The alb.u.minous or protoplasmic material, which seems to be necessary to the existence of every living being, is known to us as a product only of the action of previously living protoplasm. Though it is often stated that the production of alb.u.men from its elements is a process not differing from the formation of water or any other inorganic material from its elements, this statement is false in fact, since, though many so-called organic substances have been produced by chemical processes, no particle of either living or non-living organizable matter of the nature of protoplasm has ever been so produced. The origin, therefore, of this alb.u.minous matter is as much a mystery to us at present as that of any of the chemical elements.
2. Though some animals and plants are very simple in their visible structure, they all present vital properties not to be found in dead alb.u.minous matter, and no mode is known whereby the properties of life can be communicated to dead matter. All the experiments. .h.i.therto made, and very eminently those recently performed by Pasteur, Tyndall, and Dallinger, lead to the conclusion that even the simplest living beings can be produced only from germs originating in previously living organisms of similar structure. The simplest living organisms are thus to science ultimate facts, for which it can not account except conjecturally.
3. No case is certainly known in human experience where any species of animal or plant has been so changed as to a.s.sume all the characters of a new species. Species are thus practically to science unchangeable units, the origin of which we have as yet no means of tracing.
4. Though the general history of animal life in time bears a certain resemblance to the development of the individual animal from the embryo, there is no reason whatever to believe that this is more than a mere relation of a.n.a.logy, arising from the fact that in both cases the law of procedure is to pa.s.s from the simpler forms to the more complex, and from the more generalized to the more specialized. The external conditions and details of the two kinds of series are altogether different, and become more so the more they are investigated. This shows that the causes can not have been similar.
5. In tracing back animals and groups of animals in geological time, we find that they always end without any link of connection with previous beings, and in circ.u.mstances which render any such connections improbable. In the work of our next creative day, the series of animals preceding the modern horse has been cited as a good instance of probable evolution; but not only are the members of the series so widely separated in s.p.a.ce and time that no connection can be traced, but the earliest of them, the _Orohippus_, would require, on the theory, to have been preceded by a previous series extending so far back that it is impossible, under any supposition of the imperfection of our present knowledge, to consider such extension probable. The same difficulty applies to every case of tracing back any specific form either of animal or plant. This general result proves, as I have elsewhere attempted to show,[97] that the introduction of the various animal types must have been abrupt, and under some influence quite different from that of evolution.
These are what I would term the five fatal objections to evolution as at present held, as a means of accounting for the introduction and succession of animals. To what extent they may be weakened or strengthened by the future progress of science it is impossible to say, but so long as they exist it is mere folly and presumption to affirm that modern science supports the doctrine of evolution. There can be no doubt, however, that the Bible leaves us perfectly free to inquire as to the plan and method of the Creator, and that, whatever discoveries we may make, we shall find that his plans are orderly, methodical, and continuous, and not of the nature of an arbitrary patchwork.
Though science as yet gives us no certain laws for the introduction of new specific types, it indicates certain possible modes of the origination of varieties, races, and sub-species of previously existing types. One of these is that struggle for existence against adverse external conditions, which, however, has been harped upon too exclusively by the Darwinian school, and which will give chiefly depauperated and degraded forms. Another is that expansion under exceptionally favorable conditions which arises where species are admitted to wider new areas of geographical range and more abundant and varied means of sustenance. Land animals and plants must have experienced this in times of continental elevation; marine animals and plants in times of continental depression. Another is the tendency to what has been called reproductive r.e.t.a.r.dation and acceleration which species undergo under conditions exceptionally unfavorable or favorable, and which in some modern aquatic animals produces differences so great that members of the same species have sometimes been placed in different genera. Lastly, it is conceivable that species may have been so constructed that after a certain number of generations they may spontaneously undergo either abrupt or gradual changes, similar to those which the individual undergoes at certain stages of growth. This last furnishes the only true a.n.a.logy possible between embryology and geological succession.
While, however, science is silent as to the production of new specific types, and only gives us indications as to the origin of varieties and races, it is curious that the Bible suggests three methods in which new organisms may be, and according to it have been introduced by the Creator. The first is that of immediate and direct creation, as when G.o.d created the great Tanninim. The second is that of mediate creation, through the materials previously existing, as when he said, "Let the land bring forth plants," or "Let the waters bring forth animals." The third is that of production from a previous organism by power other than that of ordinary reproduction, as in the origination of Eve from Adam, and the miraculous conception of Jesus. These are the only points in which its teachings approach the limits of speculations as to evolution, and they certainly leave scope enough for the legitimate inquiries of science.[98]
CHAPTER XI.
THE HIGHER ANIMALS AND MAN.
"And G.o.d said, Let the land bring forth animals after their kinds; the herbivora, the reptiles, and the carnivora, after their kinds; and it was so. And G.o.d made carnivorous mammals after their kinds, and herbivorous mammals after their kinds, and every reptile of the land after its kind; and G.o.d saw that it was good.
"And G.o.d said, Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, and over the herbivora and over all the land. So G.o.d created man in his own image, in the image of G.o.d created he him; male and female created he them. And G.o.d blessed them; and G.o.d said, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
"And G.o.d said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for food, and to every beast of the earth and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat; and it was so. And G.o.d saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And evening and morning were the sixth day."--Genesis i., 24-31.
The creation of animals, unlike that of plants, occupies two days.
Here our attention is restricted to the inhabitants of the _land_, and chiefly to their higher forms. Several new names are introduced to our notice, which I have endeavored to translate as literally as possible by introducing zoological terms where those in common use were deficient.
1. The first tribe of animals noticed here is named _Bhemah_, "cattle"
in our version; and in the Septuagint "quadrupeds" in one of the verses, and "cattle" in the other. Both of these senses are of common occurrence in the Scriptures, cattle or domesticated animals being usually designated by this word; while in other pa.s.sages, as in 1 Kings iv., 33, where Solomon is said to have written a treatise on "_beasts_, fowls, creeping things, and fishes," it appears to include all the mammalia. Notwithstanding this wide range of meaning, however, there are pa.s.sages, and these of the greatest authority in reference to our present subject, in which it strictly means the herbivorous mammals, and which show that when it was necessary to distinguish these from the predaceous or carnivorous tribes this term was specially employed. In Leviticus xi., 22-27, we have a specification of all the Bhemoth that might and might not be used for food. It includes all the true ruminants, with the coney, the hare, and the hog, animals of the rodent and pachydermatous orders. The carnivorous quadrupeds are designated by a different generic term. In this chapter of Leviticus, therefore, which contains the only approach to a system in natural history to be found in the Bible, _bhemah_ is strictly a synonym of _herbivora_, including especially ungulates and rodents.
That this is its proper meaning here is confirmed by the considerations that in this place it can denote but a part of the land quadrupeds, and that the idea of cattle or domesticated animals would be an anachronism. At the same time there need be no objection to the view that the especial capacity of ruminants and other herbivora for domestication is connected with the use of the word in this place.
2. The word _remes_, "creeping things" in our version, as we have already shown, is a very general term, referring to the power of motion possessed by animals, especially on the surface of the ground.
It here in all probability refers to the additional types of terrestrial reptiles, and other creatures lower than the mammals, introduced in this period.
3. The compound term (_hay"th-eretz_) which I have ventured to render "carnivora," is literally animal of the land; but though thus general in its meaning, it is here evidently intended to denote a particular tribe of animals inhabiting the land, and not included in the scope of the two words already noticed. In other parts of Scripture this term is used in the sense of a "wild beast." In a few places, like the other terms already noticed, it is used of all kinds of animals, but that above stated is its general meaning, and perfectly accords with the requirements of the pa.s.sage.
The creation of the sixth day therefore includes--1st, the herbivorous mammalia; 2d, a variety of terrestrial reptilia, and other lower forms not included in the work of the previous day; 3d, the carnivorous mammalia. It will be observed that the order in the two verses is different. In verse 24th it is herbivora, "creeping things," and carnivora. In verse 25th it is carnivora, herbivora, and "creeping things." One of these may, as in the account of the fifth day, indicate the order of _time_ in the creation, and the other the order of _rank_ in the animals made, or there may have been two divisions of the work, in the earlier of which herbivorous animals took the lead, and in the later those that are carnivorous. In either case we may infer that the herbivora predominated in the earlier creations of the period.
It is almost unnecessary to say this period corresponds with the Tertiary or Cainozoic era of geologists. The coincidences are very marked and striking. As already stated, though in the later secondary period there were great facilities for the preservation of mammals in the strata then being deposited, only a few small species of the humblest order have been found; and the occurrence of the higher orders of this cla.s.s is to some extent precluded by the fact that the place in nature now occupied by the mammals was then provided for by the vast development of the reptile tribes. At the very beginning of the tertiary period all this was changed; most of the gigantic reptiles had disappeared, and terrestrial mammals of large size and high organization had taken their place. Perhaps no geological change is more striking and remarkable than the sudden disappearance of the reptilian fauna at the close of the mesozoic, and the equally abrupt appearance of numerous species of large mammals, and this not in one region only, but over both the great continents, and not only where a sudden break occurs in the series of formations, but also where, as in Western America, they pa.s.s gradually into each other. During the whole tertiary period this predominance of the mammalia continued; and as the mesozoic was the period of giant reptiles, so the tertiary was that of great mammals. It is a singular and perhaps not accidental coincidence that so many of the early tertiary mammals known to us are large herbivora, such as would be included in the Hebrew word _bhemah_; and that in the book of Job the hippopotamus is called _behemoth_, the plural form being apparently used to denote that this animal is the chief of the creatures known under the general term _bhemah_, while geology informs us that the prevailing order of mammals in the older tertiary period was that of the ungulates, and that many of the extinct creatures of this group are very closely allied to the hippopotamus. Behemoth thus figures in the book of Job, not only as at the time a marked ill.u.s.tration of creative power, but to our farther knowledge also as a singular remnant of an extinct gigantic race. It is at least curious that while in the fifth day great reptiles like those of the secondary rocks form the burden of the work, in the sixth we have a term which so directly reminds us of those gigantic pachyderms which figure so largely in the tertiary period. Large carnivora also occur in the tertiary formations, and there are some forms of reptile life, as, for example, the serpents, which first appear in the tertiary.
I may refer to any popular text-book of geology in evidence of the exact conformity of this to the progress of mammalian life, as we now know it in detail from the study of the successive tertiary deposits.
The following short summary from Dana, though written several years ago, still expresses the main features of the case:
"The quadrupeds did not all come forth together. Large and powerful herbivorous species first take possession of the earth, with only a few small carnivora. These pa.s.s away. Other herbivora with a larger proportion of carnivora next appear. These also are exterminated; and so with others. Then the carnivora appear in vast numbers and power, and the herbivora also abound. Moreover these races attain a magnitude and number far surpa.s.sing all that now exist, as much so indeed, on all the continents, North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia, as the old mastodon, twenty feet long and nine feet high, exceeds the modern buffalo. Such, according to geology, was the age of mammals, when the brute species existed in their greatest magnificence, and brutal ferocity had free play; when the dens of bears and hyenas, prowling tigers and lions far larger than any now existing, covered Britain and Europe. Mammoths and mastodons wandered over the plains of North America, huge sloth-like Megatheria pa.s.sed their sluggish lives on the pampas of South America, and elephantine marsupials strolled about Australia.
"As the mammalian age draws to a close, the ancient carnivora and herbivora of that era all pa.s.s away, excepting, it is believed, a few that are useful to man. New creations of smaller size peopled the groves; the vegetation received accessions to its foliage, fruit-trees and flowers, and the seas brighter forms of water life. This we know from comparisons with the fossils of the preceding mammalian age.
There was at this time no chaotic upturning, but only the opening of creation to its fullest expansion; and so in Genesis no new day is begun, it is still the _sixth day_."
The creation of man is prefaced by expressions implying deliberation and care. It is not said, "Let the earth bring forth" man, but let us form or fashion man. This marks the relative importance of the human species, and the heavenly origin of its n.o.bler immaterial part. Man is also said to have been "created," implying that in his const.i.tution there was something new and not included in previous parts of the work, even in its material. Man was created, as the Hebrew literally reads, the shadow and similitude of G.o.d--the greatest of the visible manifestations of Deity in the lower world--the reflected image of his Maker, and, under the Supreme Lawgiver, the delegated ruler of the earth. Now for the first time was the earth tenanted by a being capable of comprehending the purposes and plans of Jehovah, of regarding his works with intelligent admiration, and of shadowing forth the excellences of his moral nature. For countless ages the earth had been inhabited by creatures wonderful in their structures and instincts, and mutely testifying, as their buried remains still do, to the Creator"s glory; but limited within a narrow range of animal propensities, and having no power of raising a thought or aspiration toward the Being who made them. Now, however, man enters on the scene, and the sons of G.o.d, who had shouted for joy when the first land emerged from the bosom of the deep, saw the wondrous spectacle of a spiritual nature a.n.a.logous to their own, united to a corporeal frame constructed on the same general type with the higher of those irrational creatures whose presence on earth they had so long witnessed.
Man was to rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and the _bhemah_ or herbivorous animals. The carnivorous creatures are not mentioned, and possibly were not included in man"s dominion. We shall find an explanation of this farther on. The nature of man"s dominion we are left to infer. In his state of innocence it must have been a mild and gentle sway, interfering in no respect wilts the free exercise of the powers of enjoyment bestowed on animals by the Creator, a rule akin to that which a merciful man exercises over a domesticated animal, and which some animals are capable of repaying with a warm and devoted affection. Now, however, man"s rule has become a tyranny. "The whole creation groans" because of it. He desolates the face of nature wherever he appears, unsettling the nice balance of natural agencies, and introducing remediless confusion and suffering among the lower creatures, even when in the might of his boasted civilization he professes to renovate and improve the face of nature.
He retains enough of the image of his Maker to enable him to a great extent to a.s.sert his dominion, and to aspire after a restoration of his original paradise, but he has lost so much that the power which he retains is necessarily abused to selfish ends.
Man, like the other creatures, was destined to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth. We are also informed in chapter second that he was placed in a "garden," a chosen spot in the alluvial plains of Western Asia, belonging to the later geological formations, and thus prepared by the whole series of prior geological changes, replenished with all things useful to him, and containing nothing hurtful, at least in so far as the animal creation was concerned.
These facts, taken in connection, lead to grave questions. How is the happy and innocent state of man consistent with the contemporaneous existence of carnivorous and predaceous animals, which, as both Scripture and geology state, were created in abundance in the sixth day? How, when confined to a limited region, could he increase and multiply and replenish the earth? These questions, which have caused no little perplexity, are easily solved when brought into the light of our modern knowledge of nature. 1. Every large region of the earth is inhabited by a group of animals differing in the proportions of identical species, and in the presence of distinct species, from the groups inhabiting other districts. There is also sufficient reason to conclude that all animals and plants have spread from certain local centres of creation, in which certain groups of species have been produced and allowed to extend themselves, until they met and became intermingled with species extending from other centres. Now the district of Asia, in the vicinity of the Euphrates and Tigris, to which the Scripture a.s.signs the origin of the human race, is the centre to which we can with the greatest probability trace several of the species of animals and plants most useful to man, and it lies near the confines of warmer and colder regions of distribution in the Old World, and also near the boundary of the Asiatic and European regions.
At the period under consideration it may have been peopled with a group of animals specially suited to a.s.sociation with the progenitors of mankind. 2. To remove all zoological difficulties from the position of primeval man in his state of innocence, we have but to suppose, in accordance with all the probabilities of the case, that man was created along with a group of creatures adapted to contribute to his happiness, and having no tendency to injure or annoy; and that it is the formation of these creatures--the group of his own centre of creation--that is especially noticed in Genesis ii., 19, _et seq._, where G.o.d is represented as forming them out of the ground and exhibiting them to Adam; a pa.s.sage otherwise superfluous, and indeed tending to confuse the meaning of the doc.u.ment. 3. The difficulty attending the early extension of the human race is at once obviated by the geological doctrine of the extinction of species. We know that in past geological periods large and important groups of species have become extinct, and have been replaced by new groups extending from new centres; and we know that this process has removed, in early geological periods, many creatures that would have been highly injurious to human interests had they remained. Now the group of species created with man being the latest introduced, we may infer, on geological grounds, that it would have extended itself within the spheres of older zoological and botanical districts, and would have replaced their species, which, in the ordinary operation of natural laws, may have been verging toward extinction. Thus not only man, but the Eden in which he dwelt, with all its animals and plants, would have gradually encroached on the surrounding wilderness, until man"s happy and peaceful reign had replaced that of the ferocious beasts that preceded him in dominion, and had extended at least over all the temperate region of the earth. 4. The cursing of the ground for man"s sake, on his fall from innocence, would thus consist in the permission given to the predaceous animals and the thorns and the briers of other centres of creation to invade his Eden; or, in his own expulsion, to contend with the animals and plants which were intended to have given way and become extinct before him. Thus the fall of man would produce an arrestment in the progress of the earth in that last great revolution which would have converted it into an Eden; and the anomalies of its present state consist, according to Scripture, in a mixture of the conditions of the tertiary with those of the human period. 5. Though there is good ground for believing that man was to have been exempted from the general law of mortality, we can not infer that any such exemption would have been enjoyed by his companion animals; we only know that he himself would have been free from all annoyance and injury and decay from external causes. We may also conclude that, while Eden was sufficient for his habitation, the remainder of the earth would continue, just as in the earlier tertiary periods, under the dominion of the predaceous mammals, reptiles, and birds. 6. The above views enable us on the one hand to avoid the difficulties that attend the admission of predaceous animals into Eden, and on the other the still more formidable difficulties that attend the attempt to exclude them altogether from the Adamic world.
They also ill.u.s.trate the geological fact that many animals, contemporaneous with man, extend far back into the Tertiary period.
These are creatures not belonging to the Edenic centre of creation, but introduced in an earlier part of the sixth day, and now permitted to exist along with man in his fallen state. I have stated these supposed conditions of the Adamic creation briefly, and with as little ill.u.s.tration as possible, that they may connectedly strike the mind of the reader. Each of these statements is in harmony with the Scriptural narrative on the one hand, and with geology on the other; and, taken together, they afford an intelligible history of the introduction of man. If a geologist were to state, _a priori_, the conditions proper to the creation of any important species, he could only say--the preparation or selection of some region of the earth for it, and its production along with a group of plants and animals suited to it. These are precisely the conditions implied in the Scriptural account of the creation of Adam.[99] The difficulties of the subject have arisen from supposing, contrary to the narrative itself, that the conditions necessary for Eden must in the first instance have extended over the whole earth, and that the creatures with which man is in his present dispersion brought into contact must necessarily have been his companions there. One would think that many persons derive their idea of the first man in Eden from nursery picture-books; for the Bible gives no countenance to the idea that all the animals in the world were in Eden. On the contrary, it a.s.serts that a selection was made both in the case of animals and plants, and that this Edenic a.s.semblage of creatures const.i.tuted man"s a.s.sociates in his state of primeval innocence.
The food of animals is specified at the close of the work of this day.
The grant to man is every herb bearing seed, and every fruit-tree.
That to the lower animals is more extensive--every green herb. This can not mean that every animal in the earth was herbivorous. It may refer to the group of animals a.s.sociated with man in Eden, and this is most likely the intention of the writer; but if it includes the animals of the whole earth, we may be certain, from the express mention of carnivorous creatures in the work of the fifth and sixth days, that it indicates merely the general fact that the support of the whole animal kingdom is based on vegetation.
A most important circ.u.mstance in connection with the work of the sixth day is that it witnessed the creation both of man and the mammalia. A fict.i.tious writer would probably have exalted man by a.s.signing to him a separate day, and by placing the whole animal kingdom together in respect to time. He would be all the more likely to do this, if unacquainted, as most ignorant persons as well as literary men are, with the importance and teeming mult.i.tudes of the lower tribes of animals, and with the typical ident.i.ty of the human frame with that of the higher animals. Moses has not done so, we are at liberty to suppose, because the vision of creation had it otherwise; and modern geology has amply vindicated him in this by its disclosure of the intimate connection of the human with the tertiary period; and has shown in this as in other instances that truth and not "accommodation"
was the object of the sacred writer. While, as already stated, many existing species extend far back into the tertiary period, showing that the earth has been visited by no universal catastrophe since the first creation of mammals; on the other hand, we can not with certainty trace any existing species back beyond the commencement of the tertiary era. Geology and revelation, therefore, coincide in referring the creation of man to the close of the period in which mammals were introduced and became predominant, and in establishing a marked separation between that period and the preceding one in which the lower animals held undisputed sway. This coincidence, while it strengthens the probability that the creative days were long periods, opposes an almost insurmountable obstacle to every other hypothesis of reconciliation with geological science.
At the close of this day the Creator again reviews his work, and p.r.o.nounces it good. Step by step the world had been evolved from a primeval chaos, through many successive physical changes and long series of organized beings. It had now reached its acme of perfection, and had received its most ill.u.s.trious tenant, possessing an organism excelling all others in majesty and beauty, and an immaterial soul the shadow of the glorious Creator himself. Well might the angels sing, when the long-protracted work was thus grandly completed:
"Thrice happy man, And sons of men, whom G.o.d hath thus advanced, Created in his image, there to dwell And worship him, and in reward to rule Over his works in earth, or sea, or air, And multiply a race of worshippers Holy and just; thrice happy, if they know Their happiness and persevere upright."
The Hebrew idea of the golden age of Eden is pure and exalted. It consists in the enjoyment of the favor of G.o.d, and of all that is beautiful and excellent in his works. G.o.d and nature are the whole.