The Creation

In the Book of Genesis the six successive days of Creation part themselves into two grand divisions, namely:—(1) Life under cosmic light, and (2) Life under the light of the sun. On the third day we have vegetation of the earth under cosmic light, which fully answers to the period of the coal plants of the carboniferous era. On the fourth day (Gen. i. 14) God made the sun and the moon, to be "for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years." The sun, then, is the standard for our computation of time; and the first "year" of the world, as we understand the word year, must have commenced with the creation of the sun. According to our system of astronomy the earth revolves round its own axis once in twenty-four hours, producing day and night; and round the sun once in the year, producing the four seasons: therefore, before the creation of the sun, the days of twenty-four hours each had no existence.