thought! 
  Proprietor of immortality! 
  Glory ineffable!  Bliss underived! 
  Of old Thou build’st Thy throne on righteousness,
  Before the morning Stars their song began,
  Or silence heard the voice of praise.  Thou laid’st
  Eternity’s foundation stone, and saw’st
  Life and existence out of Thee begin.

  —­Pollok

[Illustration]

CHAPTER II

String 1:  Creation

The subject of creation here treated relates particularly to the earth and the creatures of the earth, the chief one of which is man.  We will not attempt to discuss at length the creation of other planets, nor of the other creatures.  Attention is merely called to the Scriptural statement that the beginning of God’s creation was the Logos, which term is translated in our Bibles “the Word”.  The record reads:  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with [the] God and the Word was [a] god”. (John 1:1) God is a name applied to Jehovah, the Almighty One.  It is sometimes applied to other mighty ones also; whereas the name Jehovah applies exclusively to the great eternal God.  The Logos, the Word, was a god, a mighty one.  “The same was in the beginning with God.  All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made.”  He was Jehovah’s great active agent in the creation of all things created.

[29]Since the Bible was written for man’s benefit, the Genesis account of creation has to do with man and his place of habitation.  There we read:  “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”.  He created the sun, for light by day; and the moon, for light by night, upon the earth.  God then created the birds and fowls that fly through the air, and the fish of the sea.  He created the cattle and the creeping things, and all the beasts of the earth.  All this was before the creation of man.  He had formed the earth many centuries before man’s creation, and he created it that man might have a place to live.  He caused his prophet to write:  “I have made the earth and created man upon it.  For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited.”—­Isaiah 45:12,18.

[30]God created the first man and woman out of the elements and gave them power to produce and bring forth children, and all the human race sprang from the first pair.  God was the Father and the earth the mother of Adam.  The first man was named Adam; the first woman, Eve.  “God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.  And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”—­Genesis 1:  27,28.