" But we may also remember that, as God measures time, "One day
is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day";
"for a thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past,
and as a watch in the night,"
I wonder--as we have read now four times, at the close of each of God's
wonderful days, "The evening and the morning were the first," "the second,"
"the third," "the fourth day"--whether you have stopped to think why the
evening is always put before the morning; surely this way of reckoning time
is very unlike ours.
Is it not so reckoned because as light was made to shine perfectly upon the
earth, when God called it out of the darkness, there was no dawning of that
first day? It began when God said, "Let light be: and light was"; then,
with the gradual disappearing of the light, "there was evening," nothing
being told us about the "unfurled flag" of night, or the dawning of the
second day.
This at least we know, that whether in the beginning, when the strong
foundations of the earth were laid, or during those periods of time when
God was working to bring it into order and beauty, "no touch of man's rude
hand" interfered. The goodness of God was seen in storing it with mineral
treasures for his use; covering it with vegetation which has lived and died
and laid up vast abundance of coal; peopling the air and the waters with
birds and fishes. But with all this man had nothing to do, for one of the
very last acts of Creative Power was that which called him into existence,
and set him, as lord of all, in a place so carefully and wonderfully
prepared for him.
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