The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1907-01-05
In the Religious World
What the Church Folks IRE Thinking
about and Doing. Religious NeWS
EEnn7 .EHeHHauhore

From EVel'yWhere.


seen that new truth has upset, not the
book itself, but only some traditional
interpretations thereof. The essential
and supreme facts of Gods existence
Gods creative acts, of mans creation
and fall, and of divine, personal
Providence, intimately related to hui
man history, still abide unchanged.
a Glimpse of Genesis.
Among countless characterizations
Prof. A H. Sayce, the eminent critic
and archa eOlogist, is worth quoting a
illustrating and Instructive. He says
There is a sense in which we may
still say that it (Genesis) is the oldest
book in the world. The books of
Egypt and Babylonia have, for the
most part, come down to US in a torn
and fragmentary condition. And of
those which are complete. there is
none that compete in either length or
unity of plan with either the Book of
Genesis or the Pentateuch as a whole.
For the books of Moses have been
written in accordance with definite
plan which has been worked out con-
sistently from their beginning to their
end, 1t is just this plan that gives
them their literary form and stamps
them as the first known example of a
literary conception of history. The
history contained in them is no bald
narrative of facts. no mere analystic
record or collection of chronicles; it is
literary history-hiStory, that is to say,
in which the facts have been skiIlfully
fitted into a general scheme and
clothed in a literary dress.
From one point of view, indeed, we
may see in the Book of Genesis a
philosophy of history, in which the
events recorded are used to illustrate
the doctrine that not only has the
world and its inhabitants been created
by the one true God, but that it is also
governed by a process of divine selec-
ton. There has been development and
progress in its history, not through the
blind working of natural selection but
through the intervention of that divine
Creator from whom man derives the
breath of life, and who first fixed the
lines that divide nation from nation
and race from race. 1t is He who has
stamped upon each race and commun-
ity its individual character, selecting
and setting apart from among the
chosen people who should be the bear
ers of his message to the soul and con-
science of man.
First the line of Seth, and then that
OF Shem, narrowing into the family of
A braham, narrowing into the family of
Abraham, and eventually into the de-
ScenddntS OF the younger son of Isaac,
Is shown to have been the human in
strument of the divine purpose. For
the history of which the Book of Gen
esis traces the development is his
tory of progress in spiritual and moral
enlightenment rather than in art or
mechanical science. Civilization is re-
garded on its religious not on its artis-
tic and economical side. For the his
tory of art and mechanical invention
we must turn to other nations than the
1sra elites, other books than those of
Moses; the art and invention form, in
deed, part of the culture which is pre-
supposed by the religious history of
mankind, but it is the religion of civ /
iliZed man, rather than the other ele-
ments in his culture, which the author
of the Pentateuch has primarily in
view The philosophy of history en-
bodied in the Book of Genesis has for
its foundation and starting point Gods
revelation of Himself to the world of
men,"
Dr.. Marcus Dods tersely says that
Genesis was not meant to be a reve-
laion of nature. but a revelation of
God, and the ideas regarding God
which it conveys are just and weigh
ty."
The How and the Who.
Doubtless many teachers of this
story of first things will waste their
opportunity by struggling with the
how and who of creation; and with
trying to explain the six literal days,
when science says this planet has
been about one hundred million of
years getting into shape and reaching
would be to dwell upon the one vital
truth which the narrative itself
throws into high relief, namely, that
God, the personal Jehovah, is the SUI
preme Creator. This is what counts;
it alone affects the moral life of the
tudent.
Concerning the relation of geology
to Genesis, this quotation from Dods
is pertinent: I'VE have thus two his
tories covering somewhat the same
period. We have this brief
sketch in the first chapter of Genesis. |
which can be read and may have been |
written in a few minutes; and we have
the record which has been slowly !
craven on the crust of the earth dur
ing many hundreds of thousands of |
years. Both are from God-the facts
registered by the rocks are as infalIi- |
BILE as anything recorded in Scripture;
they are sacred as Gods own writing |
which has come from His hand with |
out the intervention of any human |
pen. Either record may be misinter- |
preted. The man of science may fail !
to read Alright the facts before his |
eyes; he may omit to see what is ac-