Honolulu star-bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1912-2010, 1915-11-06
Heaven and Earth
Once Non-Existent
ev Rev. a. o. Shaw. 3. 3.

announcement Of a truth which no
process of reasoning could have
reached, and with the declaration of
fact that no philosophy could ever
Rave unveiled. Nothing can exceed
the grandeur of this opening verse
of the Bible, In the beginning God
created the heavens and the earth. I"
Nothing surpasses the appropriate
ness of the words as an introduction
to the Bible.
This verse stands as a distinct and
independent sentence and affirms that
the heavens and the earth were Great
ed by God, not from elements pre-
yiously existent, but created from
nothing. His creative act was quite
distinct and long anterior to the acts
included in the six days of creation"
and which begin with the emergen-
cies of light and darkness at the third
verse.
The earth and the heavens then had
a beginning" Such is the first great
truth taught us in the Bible-a truth
which the nnaided wisdom of man fail
ed to discover or even conceive.
The ancient schools of philosopny,
without any exception, held that mat
ter was eternal To. them ii appeared
an absurdity to suppose that anything
could be created or produced from
nothing. Know first of all, said
Epicurus, that nothing can spring
from nonentity." Plato declared mat
ter to be co-existent with God. Nor
has this doctrine of the aneients been
without its advocates In modern times,
some of whom have maintained, not
only that the globe itself has been
eternal, but also that there have, ex-
listed upon it an endless series of men,
of beasts, of birds and of fishes. But
the verse before us affirms, in the
beginning God created the heavens
and the earth
To beginning all things around US,
above us, beneath us, carry us back.
That the earth, its vegetation and
living inhabitants have not always en-
listed from eternity is proven by this
argument, viz: 1. Order. 2 Design.
3. Adaptation of means TO ends
Therefore the earth and its produc-
tions must be the work of an intelli-
gent Being, and consequently must
have had beginning. Whatever the
DRY we may PROFOUND for the earth's
creation, we cannot get away from the
fact that the crust of the earth is
solid rock. And whatever theory we
may adopt to account for its origin,
granite must have preceded stratified
rocks, for these, as is evident and
universally admitted, were originally
formed out of crystalline particles,
and stratified rocks must have proceed
ed the soil, which is composed out of
them and rests upon them. And the
soil must have preceded vegetation.
for this grows out of it. And vege-
tation must have preceded animals, as
these subsist upon it.; no living thing
being capable of extracting its food
directly from the ground.
Hence, all animals, all vegetation,
all soils and all stratified rocks must
have had beginning, for each of
these has derived its existence from
what was in being before it. -
1t plainly appears, therefore, that
the eternal theory of series of men,
plants and animals must have been
simply impossible.
Geology also brings from the depths
beneath other testimonies, strong as
the rocks. that the whole system OF
visible things on earth had begin
ming. Every step in our descent
through the solid crust of the globe is
suggestive of a beginning, for every
thing speaks of derivation. Each rock
points downward to its source, and We
can trace the lineal extraction of each
successive stratum.
Hugh Miller, speaking of the more
ancient animal organizations, says:
Each of the extinct groups we find
had beginning and an end There is
not in the wide domain of physical
science q more certain fact, and every
species of the groups which now exist
had, like their predecessors on the
scene, their beginning also"
The infinite series of former advo-
Gates of former times can have no,
place in modern science. ALI organic
existences, recent or extinct, veget.
able or animal, have their beginning.
There was a time when they were
not The geologist can indicate that
time, If not by years, at least by pc
RODS, and show what its relations
were to the periods that went before
and that came after.
Astronomy, likewise, reads to us
from the heavens, geometrical de-
of this fundamental
truth. The solar system is a magni-
ficent clockwork of unfailing perfec-
tion. All its stupendous parts infiu-
ence and are influenced by one anoth-
er, and yet all move in absolute har-
mony.
Every orb has its magnitude set of
by scale, its materials weighed in
its distance measured by a 1
line, and its velocity regulated by an
infallible law.
And in the celestial marching our
planet has its place. fitting therein as
a wheel into a wheel in the works of
a chronometer. A mere glance at this
wonderful system instantly lodges
within the mind that it is
the continuance of infinite skill and
the work of infinite power, and con-
- ksF,an IL