J. M. Woodman

“ The morning of each day is a complete contrast to its own evening; and yet the morning of that day is only the evening of the day following. The morning of the sun, with hosts of God’s angels rejoicing, is only the evening of the prospective globe, upon whose disk shall be perfected, in knowledge and true holiness, beings in God’s own image. The sun has perfected his day, in which Moses beholds the evening of the second.
3. He is looking at our system, as from the voids of space, as a whole; with its gathered sun and its immense ring of prospective planets. ”

“ It shall devour the strength of his skin, even the firstborn of death, it shall devour his strength. His confidence shall be rooted out of his tabernacle. His remembrance shall perish from the earth. He shall be driven from light into darkness, and chased out of the world. He shall neither have son or nephew among his people.” Isaiah, quoting the sentiment, asks, “Who shall declare his generation, for his life was taken from the earth?” ”

“ Without motion, light was impossible; without centers, gravitation had not commenced. Such was matter in the darkness of chaos without form, called night. A force from without must overcome inertia, and give birth to form, light, heat, gravitation, and power at the same time. This power is brought to our view in the following sublime sentence: “And the Spirit of the Lord moved upon the face of the waters” (fluids) . Gravitation acts instantaneously throughout space. Therefore the gathering of any one center as a sun, would necessitate the gathering of every central sun in relative accord. ”

“ Satan takes the first statement, God the latter. Satan affirms that a sudden reverse of fortune will change the aspect of Job’s piety, and he will then curse God to his face. Great principles are best tested by suffering. Nor is it necessary that every one should suffer in the same direction to show forth the same. The world is full of delegated suffering; the few for the many, and sometimes one for all. Job is the right man in wealth, station, influence, and habits of mind to personify piety in its relation to the world’s progress. ”

“ When we consider that our sun now turns on its axis only once in twenty-seven days, we conclude that a vivid imagination must have supplied the machinery necessary for such astounding results in the very face of forbidding facts. This theory made no provision for the encircling waters, sufficient to wrap the entire surface of the globe three miles deep, nor for the enveloping atmosphere. Gradually this ancient theory has been modulated into the Nebulous Theory. ”

“ Science would suggest, that, if a ponderous globe, as our sun, should gather in a field of gases, though trillions of miles in diameter, all gases, within its drawing sphere, must either go toward the sun, or be thrown around it in a circle. Such was the ring of waters, or fluids, first called a firmament. A most minute directing of Providence is here suggested. It extended to each molecule of gas, and its appropriate place was determined. Before that grand movement of the Spirit of God, there was nothing with which to measure duration, and time had not commenced. No centers—no gravitation. ”

“ Science claims that the present pointing of the pole of the Earth, and its inclination to the ecliptic, could not produce such a warm climate as the Earth once enjoyed. This fact, in connection with the Earth covered with ice, at a remote period of the past, confounds the mere seeker of cause in nature’s laws. The ancient pole-pointing is sung by Job. According to his description of light and darkness, one pole of the Earth must have pointed directly to the sun throughout the year. ”

“ The theory of the continued increase of heat, according to the ratio noticed as you sink a shaft a few hundred feet into the Earth’s crust, if it proves anything proves too much, and is therefore false. Experiments extensively made in the Virginia mines of Nevada, and particularly in the Foreman Shaft, show the increase to be very uneven; differing from one degree in twelve feet to one in two hundred feet. It even grows colder as you descend some kind of rock, a degree in one hundred feet. The degree of heat is always regulated and gauged by the rock you pass. ”

“ Unaided nature leaves man to seek first causes only by hypotheses. As might be expected, on the same subject scientists widely differ in theory. Such reasoning must ever leave a large margin for opinion.
Notwithstanding the uncertainty of all such modes of reasoning, still that hypothesis must ever possess the greatest weight, that best accords with the largest number of existing facts. ”

“ Each stands as a part of a great whole; that the true student of nature may be thoroughly furnished with proper text books, which, when rightly understood, are conjointly harmonious, 101connected, and exhaustive. If man would attain even the faintest ability to measure the “footprints of God” in nature, or fathom the relation of first causes in creation, he can ill afford unacquaintance with either book. The Bible is given as a supplement to God’s voice in nature. Creation, shown in harmony with the testimony of the rocks, confirms the testimony of Moses. ”

“ Heat, sufficient to warm an arctic atmosphere, if coming from the ground, would destroy all animal life, either of water or land. Geologists agree that it has not been affected so much as one degree for the last four thousand years. But we have positive proof that these animals existed down to the period of human existence. They probably have not been exterminated five thousand years. Internal heat cuts no figure in their existence. Only one hypothesis accounts for these tropical phenomena, viz., a land hemisphere, with pole in the center, pointing directly to the sun. ”

“ Most geologists are dissatisfied with the fire theory, and are looking about for a revolution in the teaching of the science. Professor 29Norton said, “We are upon the eve of a perfect revolution in the science of geology.” Agassiz said, “The Plutonic theory loses ground as soon as brought to scientific tests.” Again he uttered with decided emphasis, “If the center of our earth were molten lava, as hot as represented, a crust of rock fifty miles thick would melt, and, in the space of a few hours, fall into the great sea.” ”

“ In such case we should expect to find the under rock a broken mass of displaced lava. But we find the granite to have been so calmly deposited in water, and it retains its place so well, that we split it with the rift of sugar pine. Geologists estimate the earth’s crust from fifty to one hundred miles thick. Upon the Neptunian theory we at least have seventy-five miles without a particle of lava, or so much as the scratch of an iceberg. The early geologies spoke of dykes of lava, injected into granite. The furnace shows these to be water seams. No well attested lava has ever been found there. ”

“ For aught we now know, the starting of animal life was in the time of the deposit of the Gneiss rock—here we find shells. From here onward was heard the voice of God, “Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life.” This life, at first, was very simple; and small as simple. It required only the nourishment derived from water for its support. No animals of any considerable size are found until vegetables were furnished for their food. ”

“ The vision, from contemplating matter as divided into systems, now changes to prospective Earth, as yet without form. If the lack of form constituted its evening, then, when it gains a form, it will be its morning. The gases that were to form earth, then lay diffused in the firmament ring. ”

“ The very calculations which science has given us bring the deadly gases very near to the time given in Genesis for the creation of our present race.
The volcanic periods of the world’s history argue against the early habitation of the Earth by man. Every volcano is a vent for the escape of deadly gases, caused by the consumption of oils and coal in the Earth’s strata. ”

“ Since the sun is the only source of permanent natural light within our system, and since Moses had made light to contrast with the darkness of chaos in the first day, it seems strange that any intelligent reader should understand him to speak of the bringing into existence of the great orb of light the fourth day. Shining in on the earth is all that is noted. ”

“ The fact of all the great upheavals of plateaus and mountains having been this side the Carboniferous system of deposit, where the burning material, sufficient to produce volcanic effect, was extracted from the air and laid down as rock, argues in favor of a power much nearer than force, generated from a primeval sea of lava. Burning coal as a source of heat, and steam as a power, are ample to account for every volcanic disturbance, however it may have been modified by electric forces. ”

“ But what was a white-hot globe of lava doing, while water and ice were tearing and grinding its lower crust to powdered sand? We have secondary granite, but its structure is very different from primitive granite. Besides containing hard pebbles and boulders of other stone, it is friable, and easily disintegrated under exposure. It is a bad theory that is driven to such unheard-of suppositions for its support. Nothing is more evident, if the granite is the under rock, and sedimentary, as represented and known to be, than 23that the Plutonic theory is completely without foundation. ”

“ Of the two forces meeting us in life, inviting our attention and co-operation, one must and but one can, at the same time, receive our homage. The one inclines you to and gives you credit for all good; the other inclines you from and gives you no credit for any good. The princely man of the Orient is suddenly confronted with absolute bankruptcy and bereavement of all his children, without the chance of speaking the parting good-bye. Satan expected the question settled in his favor, by a sudden outburst of passion, in vindictive hate to God. ”

“ But this is not the historic action of volcanoes; one emits while another sleeps.
It is a historic fact observed within the present 21century, that a volcanic mountain rose up from a comparatively level plane in Mexico, in one night, to the height of 1,695 feet. On the assumption that lava comes from the center of the earth, why should not the above pressure have found the weaker crust, and Nevada have been the place of eruption instead of Mexico? and why should not the three hundred open vents of Earth have emitted lava at the same time? The theory will not bear philosophic tests. ”

“ A far more formidable enemy, in the person of Elihu, is about to arise. He represents Secular Education, in unbelief of the inspiration of God, or the existence of true piety. He reasons that all men are essentially alike, imperfect; that heredity, inclination, education and surrounding circumstances account for all the difference in men. That Job, having claimed upright intentions before God, has committed a grave offence. ”

“ It is not yet a settled question that the air, for any number of thousands of years before Adam, was sufficiently cleared of deadly gases as to admit of human breathing. On looking upon the coal veins of Pennsylvania, we need no argument to show that man could not have breathed the carbon that hung in the air of that period of deposit. The mute faces of the coal beds of Ohio forbid man’s existence then, although these succeed the former by millions of years. Geologists agree that the Pacific deposits of coal have been this side of the great upheavals of the large mountains. ”

“ Darwin says: “Some of our brethren have tried by experiments, to prove 126spontaneous life from inorganic matter, but they have failed, and, from the nature of the case, they must ever fail.” “There must have been a first life, I think five forms, I know there must have been one from which life could proceed.” Special providence again is needed to start life. The same principle would apply as many times as the earth may have lost its living forms. ”

“ The second day of creation ends without a “footprint” for the unassisted geologists to trace. Well may Job refer man to the voice of the Lord for the wisdom of first cause and the early changes of matter. ”

“ His harp seemed attuned in the most exquisite niceness of poetic finish, to that class of modern pretenders who talk of the fullness of nature’s laws, while they disbelieve in the existence of nature’s God. ”

“ With the present inclination of the Earth’s pole to the elliptic no such quantity of ice can possibly occur. No iceberg has ever yet been seen in tropical waters. There never yet has been enough at one time within historic note, to counteract the influence of the Gulf Stream about Norway and Iceland.
How different the ancient drift! Then the ice penetrated all open seas, caused by submergence. It plowed alike the Brazilian mountains, the Sierra Nevada, and the Appalachian. It chilled the seas to the very center of the submerged hemisphere ”

“ The furnace is found to be the best general test of the origin of rock. Lava, having been in a melted state, will not disintegrate up to the melting point, but, as a rule, will readily melt at the white heat. Granite, the slates, marble, and rock in general, of a sedimentary formation, will disintegrate at a comparatively low heat, but they will not melt, except with alkaloids, or flux, and then only at a very high degree of heat. This 24test shows all the primitive rock, including injected seams, to have been formed in the sea, with no heat to change their structure since. ”

“ This nucleus drew matter direct to itself from all parts of our system. Other portions revolving were thrown off, and formed new centers for planetary gathering, as they respectively took up their orbicular march about the sun. This fiery mist is supposed to have come together in a heated state. The planets, at least, have since been cooling, though as yet having but a thin crust.” To this theory of primeval heat, in some form, all our text books conform. A theory so long and so universally accepted might be supposed to have some solid facts upon which to rest. ”