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A List of all the Chinese Characters contained in Dr. Williams' Syllabic

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P. Poletti. 479

Dictionary.

A Week's Prayer for Family Worship in the Colloquial of the Hakka

Chinese.

Rev. Ch. Piton. 239

American Oriental Society, Proceedings at New Haven, Conn., October
26th, 1881.

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Rev. Frank S. Dobbins. 79
Light of Modern Discovery

Cunnigham Geikie, D.D. 158

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Rev. Wm. Muirhead.

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OF

CONSIDERED.

Read before the Peking Missionary Association, November 11th, 1881.

BY REV. G. OWEN.

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Gen. 1. 1.

the origin of things science gives us no information; nor does it
teach us anything positive as to the original condition of things.
Science confines itself to an exposition of such facts as come within
the sphere of observation and experiment and of the laws on which
these facts depend. As to how matter or material things originated
and what was their primal state, science can only speak conjecturally.
Astronomy teaches us the facts and laws of the solar system, but can
tell us nothing positive regarding the origin of the sun, moon, and
stars. Chemistry can resolve the various combinations of matter into
their original elements, but of the sources of these elements or even
the causes of their marvellous combinations, chemistry is silent.
Biology tells us the wonderful story of life and describes for us the
characteristics and functions of the teeming living organisms around
us, but of the origin of life or of any living thing, it can give us no
information. Geology by careful investigation of the stratified rocks,
their mineral composition, lithological order and fossil contents, is
able to trace back the history of the earth through countless ages, but
how this earth originated, what was its earliest condition and what
was its history prior to the deposition of the oldest stratified rocks are
matters of conjecture mainly.

But what science cannot do, or at least has not yet done, the
Bible does. It tells us that "in the beginning God created the heavens
and the earth." The material universe therefore is not eternal: it
had a beginning. What ages have passed away since that beginning,
we have no means of ascertaining. The Inspired Record is silent, and
conjecture is vain. Nor is the universe self-evolved; for God created
it-whether it was formed from materials previously called into

existence and prepared through long ages for the new forms they were then to assume, or whether this was the first creative act, the calling into existence of matter itself, is not expressly stated. The Hebrew word ( bārā) will suit either meaning.

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." By heavens we must here understand the whole ethereal expanse with its countless worlds, and by the earth, this globe on which we stand.

Of this first act of creation science of course knows nothing. It can neither prove nor disprove it, for it lies beyond the region of observation and experiment, nor indeed does it come within the limits of legitimate scientific conjecture.

But this first act of creation was only the initial act of a long series yet to follow. The materials were produced and the forces set in operation, out of which our earth was to grow. It was far from being perfect then. In the second verse we are told: "And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the abyss. And the Spirit of God moved [or brooded] upon the face of the waters." It was "without form and void;" a shapeless, desolate mass as unlike what our beautiful earth is now as a lump of protoplasm is unlike yon strong man or that fair girl.

This description of the early condition of our earth is in striking accord with the nebular theory of La Place which is now generally held by scientific men. That great thinker supposed that the sun and all its attendant planets were originally one huge vaporous body, occupying the whole, or more than the whole, of the space now occupied by the solar system. This nebulous mass by virtue of the rapid motion of its constituent particles and of the mass itself, flashed and glowed like a seven-times heated furnace. In process of time the outskirts of this vaporous mass cooled and as it cooled threw off ring after ring, which, contracting, formed the planets and our earth. In the sun we see what was the centre of that great vaporous body, its original fires still burning.

The earth after its separation from the central body still continued to cool, and, cooling, contracted and solidified. From glowing gas it became a globe of liquid fire. The outer portions further cooling by radiation hardened into a solid crust. From this cooling, but still hot, mass rose continually great clouds of black, seething vapour and enveloped our incipient earth in blackness, or in the language of Scripture "Darkness covered the face of the abyss." The glow of its own internal fires was shut in by its outer crust, while the dense

vapour which hung over it effectually excluded any light from luminous bodies around.

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