THE CHAPTER OF LIGHT. "Hail, holy Light! offspring of heaven first-born." Shine inward, and the mind, through all her powers On the fifth day or period of this Creation, the Spirit of God had moved upon the face of the waters. The first morning had broken the primeval darkness. The heavenly bodies had begun their measured march. Earth was green with its earliest vegetation. Ocean's tenantry were sporting in its mighty waters. The air had been musical with the first song of morning birds; and every terrestrial creature, except the noblest, had found a home in sea, river, lake, valley, grove, wood, cave, or mountain. But a being was wanted who, in the "silent homage of the heart, and uttered sounds of worship," could glorify aright the common Creator.* God had created a beautiful world. It was a contrivance; but only celestial observers could appreciate its skilfulness. It was a palace; but no sovereign had occupied its * Sanctius his animal mentisque capacius altæ Deerat adhuc et quod dominari in cætera posset B apartments. It was a temple; but no priest had ministered as yet upon its altars. And so, in pursuance of a design formed from eternity, "God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." Accordingly, the dust of the earth was vitalized with the breath of Omnipotence," and man became a living soul." Such, according to Scripture, is the commencement of that strange and stirring tale, the human story. Like a circle, or a line returning into itself, it begins with Paradise, and will end, as regards many of the millions whose history it records, with Paradise again. Much of it is yet untold; but when fully published, it will be found to have divided the life of man, considered collectively, into three successive periods. The first may be called Day; the second, Night; and the third, Day or Night for ever. It is a tale, as all acknowledge, of thrilling interest; and angels, we doubt not, study it with rapt and profound attention. It has a moral whose meaning few can miss, and whose importance none can exaggerate; and is recorded partly in uninspired history and partly in the pages of Divine revelation. But it is just this latter portion of the story which, though written by God Himself, is deemed in these doubting days to be, to a great extent, apocryphal; and the portion whose truthfulness it is one of the objects of these pages to vindicate. There are many volumes in which the rise and fall of earthly kingdoms, and all that concerns us as members of society, are registered. But whatever affects us most, as immortal and responsible creatures, is written in a book which, as the book of all books, is called emphatically the book, or the Bible. This, then, in one sense-and that the highest-may be called Man's Biography. It supplies us with information respecting the antiquity of the human race-its origin-its unity -its cradle-its early happiness-its fatal fall-its first kingdoms-its religious history-and its final destiny. But of these it is only the first five that, in this chapter, are to engage our attention. The Bible, too, has its story; and the singular fortunes of that wonderful volume-its authors, its antiquity, its preservation, its foes, its martyrs, its vicissitudes, its circulation, and its victories-while they helped to substantiate its high pretensions, would constitute a narrative which could hardly be read with indifference.* But as our subject at present is not the history of man's biography, but that of man himself, we begin it with his birth. I. The date of this memorable event is registered in heaven; but on earth is now, and is likely long to continue, the subject of much controversy. The chronology of Scripture is not sufficiently understood to enable us to fix it with precision. The traditions of eastern nations assign to it a fabulous antiquity; profane history is silent respecting the duration of the misty ages of mythology; and the data furnished as yet by archæologists and geologists, are too vague to sustain any but a very conjectural conclusion. The question now so much agitated, whether the antiquity of the human race is not greater than that *The Bible Society has published a well-known work, called "The Book and its Story;" but it is hardly full enough. which the received chronology allows, is by no means new, and many Christian writers-such as Julius Africanus, Eusebius, and Syncellus, have held that the interval between the creation of the world and the birth of the Saviour was greater by many centuries than four thousand years. This opinion was also maintained by Michaelis; and Dr. Pritchard, unable to reconcile the main conclusion of his great work, namely, that all mankind are the offspring of a single pair, with the short period allowed by the received chronology of Scripture for the development of the numerous physical varieties which distinguish the human race, contends that Scripture affords no means of ascertaining how many centuries, or even how many chiliads of years may have elapsed between the creation of man and the arrival of Abraham in Palestine. (See "Physical Researches," Appendix to last volume.) He rejects, however, the vast periods of the Indian and Egyptian fabulists.* There certainly does appear at first to be a convergence of proof from many different lines of argument to this one conclusion-the necessity for some expansion of our recognized chronology. These may be classified under the following heads-ethnological, geological, linguistic, and historical. Under the first may be included the difficulty already noticed of otherwise accounting for all the physical varieties of man, on the supposition of their origin from a single pair. Under the second, the discovery of flint implements in strata and under circumstances which would go to prove that * See also "Hale's Chronology." man was contemporaneous with animals which were extinct it would appear many thousands of years before the historic era. Under the third, the growth of languages; which it is supposed must have occupied a much longer period than agrees with our present chronology. And under the fourth, historical evidence in connection with ancient monuments, national traditions, and the length of time which must have been required for the population, the settled form of government, and the political institutions of Egypt in particular, which existed at the very early period at which they come before us in the clear light of history. But not one of all these arguments can be fairly considered as quite conclusive. The two first, derived from the physical varieties of man, and from geology, assume a fact which can never, perhaps, be thoroughly established; and that is, that the causes of change, as they affect both man and the earth which he inhabits, operate always with the same, or nearly with the same intensity. The linguistic argument ignores the Scriptural account of the confusion of tongues, and is based besides on a mere theory of language-a theory, too, which some of the most distinguished philologists have pronounced untenable; while the historical argument rests upon data most of which must be regarded as obscure and unsatisfactory-fragmentary notices, hieroglyphical inscriptions, lists of kings, (many of whom might have reigned, not successively, but contemporaneously,) mythological sovereigns, and traditions of incredible antiquity originating in national vanity. It should be remembered, too, that there is counter |