The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-12-12
DR, DICKINSON ON
 WORLD'S CREATION Genesis Should Not be Regard ed as Scientific Treatise WORLD GODS GIFT TO MAN Man Should Rule the World Justly and Enjoy Gods Goodness,
 Which ls' Stamped on Eevery
 Feature of the Universe.
WORLD GODS GIFT TO MAN

I
 the First Baptist church, lad as the theme for his morning sermon, "The Goodness of God in the creation of the world His text was taken from Genesis 1:s1, And God saw everything that he made and behold 1t was very good"
 He spoke as follows:
 This beautiful, clear and stately nar- rative has been twisted and distorted into manifold and meaningless Jargon by the jugglery and literalistic interpretations of those who would read into 1t all man. ner of vagaries and scientific specula- tions
 But the text refuses to submit to any such violence. in straining its language to convey a content. foreign to its au- thor's meaning and purpose. Any man with any degree of literary sense can see that this author never intended to write a science of Cosmogony, and that if he had done so, no one under the sun would have been competent to appreciate it be- fore the rise of geology and astronomy | years, if indeed they even now could.
 The effort to read modern science into this passage is gratuitous and wanton and is to be deplored. This passage was not written as a bulletin for scientific schol- ars, but as a religious literature for peo- pie of good average common sense. It's purpose is to teach all men that God made the ordered universe so that it was good for men made in His own im- age As a writing 1t must be judged and read in line with It's own manifest pur- pose. To attempt to harmonize this pass age with modern cosmogonies evolution ary or other, is as out of place as an eff fort to read the sermon on the mount into the philosophy of Hegel. You do not need science to understand thls nar- rative. but only sacred communion sense.
 Mystery of Creation.
 The mystery of creation is like all other mysteries insoluable to men. The origin of evil, of matter of mind, of everything, is only relatively known to us. and this knowledge is abundantly sufficient for practical purposes of life. Yet the human mind has always struggled with these
 
 vain. Every people when 1t reached men, tai maturity has grappled with the prob lem of the genesis of the ordered uni- verse and has its cosmogony
 We find such schemes among the ancient Babylonians Phoenicians, Persians, Greeks, Egyptians and Indians yelled in crude myths and vagaries of imagina- tion. But this narrative stands out single and alone, free from the mythical, gro- tesque or fantastic, but simple, sober, clear and true. Here God does not in and with creation develop Himself as in other mythical cosmogonies, but stands out in His sublimity, spirituality and goodness. and complete before creation and inde- pendent of it He speaks the ordered uni | verse into existence out of his goodness The author does not begin with the origin of matter, for it Is his purpose simply to tell of the creation of "the heavens and the earth" Hebrew phrase which means the ordered universe or corners. So we ought to read lin the be- l ginning when God created the heavens and the earth-and the earth was waste and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep and the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters-then god said, etc." So he starts with chaos void and waste, and the breeding spirit of God as assumed and tells how. out of His goodness God spoke it into an order ed world.
 He mentions no intermedions or methods | by which God acted and the narrative | for It's own purpose needs not that the details of how His commanding voice acted should be inserted. Such would | have made the record too extended to be edifying. It is sufficient for him that God said and 1t was so.
 Arrangement of Passage. There are some striking literary fea- lures in the composition. CD The crea- tion is presented in eight stages. each in- troduced by "and God said.' These in turn are grouped into two sets to the fifth, and second to the 9th, etc. Then 1t is again and somewhat arbitrarily divid- ed into six sections, assuming to the days of the week, each closing with the re- frain "and there was evening and there was morning day one, two, etc." It is highly probable that the narrative once existed without those least diversions which were added by an editor.
 The majority of critical students now hold that the narrative was given in present form in the Babylonion captivity and is a part of a record written by the priests which runs through the entire Hexatench as one of it's components. Yet 1t is reasonably certain that if this mar rative in it's present form come from the Jews in the Babylonion captivity, it is in- dependent of the Babylonion creation Eponyrus. which were discovered in. the library of Ashenbonipal, some thirty years ago.
 It represents an independent tradition