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Levison’s
Textbook for Dental Nurses
Levison’s
Textbook for Dental Nurses

TENTH EDITION

Carole Hollins BDS

General Dental Practitioner
Member of the Panel of Examiners, National Examining Board for Dental Nurses

A John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Publication

This edition first published 2008
© 2004, 2008 Blackwell Munksgaard
© 1960, 1963, 1969, 1971, 1978, 1985, 1991, 1997 Blackwell Science Ltd

Blackwell Munksgaard, formerly an imprint of Blackwell Publishing, was acquired by John Wiley & Sons in
February 2007. Blackwell’s publishing programme has been merged with Wiley’s global Scientific, Technical,
and Medical business to form Wiley-Blackwell.

Registered office
John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, United Kingdom

Editorial offices
9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, United Kingdom
2121 State Avenue, Ames, Iowa 50014-8300, USA

First edition published 1960 Sixth edition published 1985

Second edition published 1963 Seventh edition published 1991
Third edition published 1969 Eighth edition published 1997
Fourth edition published 1971 Ninth edition published 2004
Fifth edition published 1978 Tenth edition published 2008

For details of our global editorial offices, for customer services and for information about how to apply
for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our website at
www.wiley.com/wiley-blackwell.

The right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted,
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as
permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher.

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names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks, trademarks or registered
trademarks of their respective owners. The publisher is not associated with any product or vendor
mentioned in this book. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in
regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold on the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in
rendering professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services
of a competent professional should be sought.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hollins, Carole.
Levison’s textbook for dental nurses / Carole Hollins. – 10th ed.
p. ; cm.
Includes index.
Rev. ed. of: Textbook for dental nurses / H. Levison. 9th ed. 2004.
ISBN 978-1-4051-7557-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Dental assistants. 2. Dentistry. I. Levison, H. (Henry)
II. Levison, H. (Henry). Textbook for dental nurses. III. Title. IV. Title: Textbook for dental nurses.
[DNLM: 1. Dental Assistants. 2. Dental Care. WU 90 H741L 2008]
RK60.5L43 2008
617.6′0233—dc22
2008018008

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

1 2008
Contents

Introduction to the Tenth Edition, vii

Introduction to the First Edition, viii
Acknowledgements, ix
Abbreviations, x

1 Structure of the Dental Profession, 1

2 The Dental Nurse, 9
3 Outline of Physiology, 29
4 Circulation, Respiration and Digestion, 31
5 Medical Emergencies, 47
6 Microbiology and Pathology, 59
7 Infection Control and Sterilisation, 73
8 Head and Neck Anatomy, 91
9 Nerve Supply of the Teeth and Local Anaesthesia, 107
10 Dental Anatomy, 123
11 Dental Caries, 141
12 Periodontal Disease, 155
13 Assessment and Prevention of Dental Disease, 175
14 Dental Radiography, 195
15 Patient Records, 217
16 Fillings and Materials, 233
17 Endodontics, 273
18 Inlays, Crowns and Bridges, 287

v
vi Contents

19 Dentures and Implants, 301

20 Extractions and Minor Oral Surgery, 323
21 Orthodontics, 341
22 Pain and Anxiety Control, 359
23 Health and Safety at Work, 379
24 Patient Management, 397

Appendix, 409
Index, 421
Introduction to the Tenth Edition

This edition has been updated and produced just as dental nursing enters the
most exciting of times – full recognition as a profession in its own right, and with
compulsory registration of its members with the General Dental Council from
August 2008. Registerable qualifications via the National Certificate or the Level
3 National Vocational Qualification (NVQ) ensure that dental nurses have access
to the necessary quality of training to begin their career pathways as vital members
of the dental team. This edition provides the updated underpinning knowledge
for both qualifications, with information on where to find further knowledge and
areas of study as necessary, for the NVQ and for the post-registration qualifica-
tions provided by the National Examining Board for Dental Nurses (NEBDN).
Further revision and updating of the text has embraced the concepts of con-
tinuing professional development and lifelong learning for dental nurses, with the
aim of assisting them in constantly seeking to improve their skills as healthcare
professionals. New legislation and syllabus updates to the National Certificate
qualification have also been included, with information on accessing their definit-
ive charting and instrument identification guidelines, as well as full details of the
National Certificate examination and the newly introduced Record of Experience.
For the first time, the full syllabus for this qualification has been included in the
text, with the very kind permission of NEBDN.
It is hoped that all dental nurses in training will find this edition informative,
easy to use, and beneficial to their studies.

Carole Hollins

vii
Introduction to the First Edition

This book is designed to cover the syllabus for the British Dental Nurses and
Assistants Examination. Although written primarily for nurses preparing for this
examination, it also provides an outline of dental surgery for those embarking on a
career of dental nursing; thus helping them gain a greater understanding of the
nature and aims of their duties. For examination purposes, the subject matter is
deliberately presented in a dogmatic fashion and, to aid final revision, there is a
summary after each chapter.
The text was prepared during a winter spent in the North Isles of Shetland with
the School Health Service mobile dental unit; and for helpful advice and encour-
agement throughout, I am indebted to my former dental nurse, Miss M.E. Isbister.
I wish to thank my wife for typing the manuscript; my sister, Miss B. Levison, for
the drawings; the Amalgamated Dental Trade Distributors Ltd for providing some
new blocks; and Mr P. Saugman of Blackwell Science for his guidance.

H. Levison

viii
Acknowledgements

Sincere gratitude and thanks must go to H. Levison for the inception and superb
continuation of this marvellous book, which has become known as ‘the bible’ for
dental nurses. It has helped generations of them to follow their chosen career in
dental nursing, and is set to continue to do so for many years to come.
In updating this edition, I am indebted to my sister (again!) for her computer
expertise, and to the Kidsgrove dental practice staff and patients for their eager-
ness in posing for various photographs.
I also thank the National Examining Board for Dental Nurses and the General
Dental Council for their very kind permission to reproduce various items within
the text, and I must express great appreciation for the continued support of previ-
ous illustrators too.
Finally, I sincerely wish to thank the staff of Wiley-Blackwell for their unstinting
help and support during the updating process, and especially to Amy Brown –
whose endless enthusiasm makes her a pleasure to work with.

ix
Abbreviations

AIDS acquired immune deficiency syndrome

ALARA as low as reasonably achievable
ALS advanced life support
ANUG acute necrotising ulcerative gingivitis
BADN British Association of Dental Nurses
BDA British Dental Association
BDJ British Dental Journal
BDS Bachelor of Dental Surgery
BLS basic life support
BNF British National Formulary
BPE basic periodontal examination
COSHH control of substances hazardous to health
CPD continuing professional development
CPITN community periodontal index of treatment needs
CPR cardiopulmonary resuscitation
DCP dental care professional
DDPH Diploma in Dental Public Health
DDR Diploma in Dental Radiology
DGDP Diploma in General Dental Practice
DMF decayed, missing, filled
DNSTAB Dental Nurses Standards and Training Advisory Board
do distal occlusal
DPB Dental Practice Board (name change to Business Services Agency,
changing again imminently)
DPF Dental Practitioners’ Formulary
DPT dental panoramic tomograph
DRABC dangers, response, airway, breathing, circulation
DRO Dental Reference Officer
EAV expired air ventilation
ECC external cardiac compression
ECG electrocardiogram
EDH Enrolled Dental Hygienist
EDT Enrolled Dental Therapist
EOT extra-oral traction

x
 Abbreviations xi

F/ full upper denture

F/F full upper and lower dentures
/F lower full denture
FDI International Dental Federation
FDS Fellow in Dental Surgery
FGC full gold crown
GA general anaesthesia
GDC General Dental Council
GI gold inlay
GIC glass ionomer cement
GP gutta percha
HBV hepatitis B virus
HCV hepatitis C virus
HIV human immunodeficiency virus
IOTN Index of Orthodontic Treatment Need
IV intravenous
LA local anaesthesia (analgesia)
LDS Licentiate in Dental Surgery
MCCD Membership in Clinical Community Dentistry
M Clin Dent Master of Clinical Dentistry
MDS Master of Dental Surgery
MFDS Member of the Faculty of Dental Surgery
MGDP Membership in General Dental Practice
MGDS Membership in General Dental Surgery
MIMS Monthly Index of Medical Specialties
MJDF Membership of the Joint Dental Faculties
mo mesial occlusal
mod mesial occlusal distal
MOrth Membership in Orthodontics
M Paed Dent Membership in Paediatric Dentistry
MRD Membership in Restorative Dentistry
MSc Master of Science
NEBDN National Examining Board for Dental Nurses
NHS National Health Service
NME non-milk extrinsic (sugar)
NRPB National Radiological Protection Board
NSAID non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug
NVQ National Vocational Qualification
OPG dental panoramic tomograph (orthopantomograph)
P/ partial upper denture
P/P partial upper and lower dentures
/P partial lower denture
PBC porcelain bonded crown
PCT primary care trust
PE partially erupted
xii Abbreviations

PJC porcelain jacket crown

PoM prescription-only medicine
ppm parts per million
PV porcelain veneer
RA relative analgesia (now known as inhalation sedation)
RDN Registered Dental Nurse
RDT Registered Dental Technician
RIDDOR Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences
Regulations
rINN recommended international non-proprietary name
RPA radiation protection advisor
RPS radiation protection supervisor
TMJ temporo-mandibular joint
UE unerupted
ZOE zinc oxide and eugenol cement
1 Structure of the Dental Profession

The dentist

Dentists undergo five years of undergraduate training at a university dental

school. On passing their final examinations, students are awarded the degree
of Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS). But they cannot use the title of dentist or
practise the profession until their names have been entered in The Dentists
Register.
The register is kept by the General Dental Council (GDC) and contains the
name, address and qualification(s) of every person legally entitled to practise
dentistry in the United Kingdom. Such persons may describe themselves as
dentist, dental surgeon or dental practitioner. There is no difference between these
titles. Dentists may also use the courtesy title of Doctor but must not imply that
they are anything other than dentists. Following qualification all dentists are
legally required to continue their professional education until their retirement
from practice, in order to maintain and update their skills.
Registered dentists have a wide choice of opportunities within the profession:
general practice, community dental service, hospital service, university teaching
and research, industrial dental service and the armed forces. They may also take
additional higher qualifications and become specialists in a particular branch of
dentistry. Some examples of such qualifications are:

n Fellowship in Dental Surgery (FDS)

n Master of Science (MSc) in a specialty
n Master of Dental Surgery (MDS)
n Master of Clinical Dentistry (M Clin Dent)
n Membership in General Dental Practice (MGDP)
n Membership in the Joint Dental Faculties (MJDF)
n Membership in Orthodontics (MOrth)
n Membership in Clinical Community Dentistry (MCCD)
n Membership in Restorative Dentistry (MRD)
n Membership in Paediatric Dentistry (M Paed Dent)
n Membership of the Faculty of Dental Surgery (MFDS)
n Diploma in Dental Public Health (DDPH)
n Diploma in Dental Radiology (DDR)

1
Other documents randomly have
different content
and suffered in its loathsome contact as our stained souls cannot.
The base presence and false fellowship of a Judas must have been a
perpetual pain to His pure spirit. But He endured his meanness with
a heavenly self-restraint that curbed each sign of repugnance, and to
the last He maintained for the traitor a Divine compassion that would
have saved him from himself, and that in Jesus's nature compelled
the very instincts of loathing to transform themselves into quite
marvellous ministries of superhuman loving. It was no empty show
of humility and kindness, it was pity and love incarnate, when Jesus
knelt at Judas's back, and washed the feet of His betrayer.
That seems to me one of the most wondrous, most tragic scenes
in this world's story. Could we but have seen it—Jesus kneeling
behind Judas, laving his feet with water, touching them with His
hands, wiping them gently dry, and the traitor keeping still through it
all! What a theme for the genius of a painter—the face of Jesus and
the face of Judas—the emotions of grandeur looking out of the one,
of good and evil contending in the other! If anything could have
broken the traitor's heart, and made him throw himself in penitent
abasement on the Saviour's pity, it was when he felt on his feet his
Master's warm breath and gentle touch, and divined all the forgiving
love that was in His lowly heart.
This was our Lord's treatment of a faithless friend. On the night of
His betrayal He washed the feet of His bitterest enemy, of the man
who had sold Him to death. He rises from that act, and speaks to
you and me, and says, "I have given you an example, that ye should
do as I have done to you." If you have a friend that has deceived
you, do not hate him; if you have an enemy, forgive him; if you can
do him a humble kindness, do it; if you can soften and save him by
lowly forbearance, be pitiful and long-suffering to the uttermost. It is
the law of Christ. If you call it too hard for flesh and blood,
remember how your Master, that night He was betrayed, washed the
feet of the man that betrayed Him

V.
 Read Isa. xl., and 1 Cor. xiii.
The Secret of Magnanimity.—John xiii. 12-17.
There is a contagious quality in greatness. Young hearts, generous
souls, dwelling in the vicinity of a hero, are apt to catch his
thoughts, and words, and ways. Christ's greatness is His goodness,
and that is absolute. Men look at Jesus, behold His perfection, grow
to love Him, and hardly knowing how, become like Him. We see His
tranquillity, whose minds are so perturbed by life's worries and
men's wrongs. We wonder at His infinite peace, whose hearts are so
hot and restless with the world's rivalries and ambitions. Our spirits,
tired, and hurt, and fevered, gaze wistfully at the great serenity of
His gentle life, and ere we know it a strange longing steals into our
breast to learn His secret and find rest unto our souls. Plainly the
panacea does not consist in any change outside us, for, do what we
will, still in every lot there will be crooks and crosses that cannot be
haughtily brushed aside, that can only be robbed of their sting by
being humbly borne and patiently endured. Moreover, the world was
not least, but most unkind to Him, yet could not mar His peace, nor
poison the sweetness of His soul. Within Himself lay the talisman of
His charmed life, the hidden spring of His unchanging goodness. It
was the spell of a lowly, loving, and loyal heart. This is the key to the
enigma of His perfect patience. He loved us, and He gave Himself for
us. And so, whether His friends were gentle and obedient or
wayward and rebellious, whether they were kind and sympathetic or
cold, and hard, and selfish, whether they were good or evil, He
remained unchanged and unchangeable. "Having loved His own
which were in the world, He loved them unto the end."
The machinery of life is not simple, but complex and intricate. In
its working there cannot but be much friction. If the strains and jars
of social existence are to be borne without irritation and ill-will, there
must be between us and our neighbours a plentiful supply of the oil
of human kindness. The pressure and constraint that from a stranger
would be irksome or unendurable become tolerable or even
gladsome when borne for one we love. Did we, as God meant us to
do, love our neighbour as ourself, life's burdens would seem light,
for love makes all things easy. But then the difficulty just is to love
our neighbour as ourself. Here, as elsewhere, it is the first step that
costs. For too often our neighbour is not lovable, but hateful, and
our own self is so much nearer to us than any neighbour can be. Its
imperious demands silence his claims on our kindness, and drown
the calls of duty. Its exuberant growth overshadows his, and robs
him of the sunshine. Its intense acquisitiveness absorbs all our care
and interest, all our sympathy and affection, so that we have no
time or heart to spare for his exactions—no, not even for his
necessities. Clearly in this inordinate love of self is the root of the
wrong and unrest of our life. Because we love our own self too
much, we love others too little to be able to be generous and good
like Christ. Wrapped up unduly in selfish anxiety for our own
happiness and dignity, we become too sensitive to the injuries of
foes, the slights of friends, the cuts and wounds of fortune. The
reason why we lack the lowliness of Jesus, and miss the blessedness
of His heavenly peace, is our refusal to take up the cross and follow
Him in the pathway of self-sacrifice. It was His detachment from self
that made Him invulnerable to wounds, imperturbable amid wrongs,
good and kind to the evil and to the froward. Because He cared
much for others and little for Himself, He was lifted above the strife
and restless emulation of our self-seeking lives. The charm that
changed for Him the storm of life into a great calm was the simple
but potent spell of self-renunciation.
The thought is one that captivates fresh hearts and noble souls
with the fascination of a revelation. It seems to unlock all doors, to
break all bars, and to lift from life its mysterious burden of perplexity
and pain. The pathway of renunciation opens before their eyes with
an indefinable charm, unfolding boundless vistas of lofty
achievement, haunted by sweet whispers of a joy and content,
dreamt of many a time, but never before attained. It is a fond
delusion, that experience soon dispels. At the outset the way glows
with the rosy light of a new dawn, and our footsteps are light with
the bounding life of a fresh springtide; but ere many miles are
traversed the road becomes hard and rough, and we, with heavy
hearts, drag hot and dusty feet along a weary way. For the way of
the Cross has indeed blessedness at the end of it, but easy it cannot
be till it is ended. To curb our pride, to crush our self-seeking, to
conquer passion, to quell ambition, to crucify the flesh—these things
are not easy. They have the stern stress and strain of battle in them.
To be patient under injuries, to suffer slights and wrongs, to take the
lowest place without a murmur, are conquests that demand a strong
heart and a great mind. Where shall we learn a serenity that can be
disturbed by no trouble, where find a peace that disappointment
cannot break, where reach a goodness that no wrong can ruffle?
What is the secret of magnanimity?
The answer comes to us from John's picture of his Lord's humility.
In the forefront we behold Jesus kneeling on the ground and
washing His disciples' feet, and we wonder at such lowliness. But
now John's finger points, and our eyes rest on the heart of this lowly
Saviour, and reverently we read His thoughts. "Jesus, knowing that
the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He was come
from God and went to God," washed the disciples' feet. There is at
once the marvel of His condescension and its explanation. He was so
great He could afford to abase himself. His followers stood on their
dignity, and jealously guarded their rank. He was sure of His
position. Nothing could affect His Divine dignity. He came from God;
He was going to God. What mattered it what happened to Him, what
place He held, what humiliation He endured, in the brief snatch of
earthly life between? And we, if we would be great-minded like Him,
must have the same high faith, the same heavenly consciousness.
We must know that this world, with its wrongs and disappointments,
is not all; that this life, with its pride and pomps, is but a passing
show. We must remember ever the grander world beyond, the
infinite life within, and even now, amid the glare and din of time, live
in and for eternity. Then we should no longer fret for a thousand
trifles that vex us, we should not trouble for all the wrongs that pain
and grieve us. What dignity, what grandeur, what Divine nobility
there would be in every thought, in every word, in every deed of all
our life on earth, were the consciousness ever glowing in our hearts
that we too came from God and are going back to God!
 XVI.
A HYMN OF HEART'S EASE.
Sunday Readings for the Month.

"Lord, my heart is not haughty,

Nor mine eyes lofty:
Neither do I exercise myself in great matters,
Or in things too high for me.
Surely I have behaved
And quieted myself;
As a child that is weaned of its mother,
My soul is even as a weaned child.
Let Israel hope in the Lord
From henceforth and for ever."—Ps. cxxxi.

I.
Read Job xxvi., and 1 Cor. xiii.
The Source of Unrest.
"Things too high for me."

W e are apt to think and speak as if difficulty of faith were an

experience peculiar to our age. It is indeed true that at
particular periods speculative uncertainty has been more widely
diffused than at others, and our own age may be one of them. But
the real causes of perplexity in things religious are permanent and
unchanging, having their roots deep-seated in the essential nature
of man's relation to the world and to God. There has never been a
time when men have not had to fight hard battles for their faith
against the dark mysteries and terrors of existence, that pressed in
upon their souls and threatened to enslave them. What is this brief
Psalm, echoing like a sea-shell in its tiny circle the heart-beat of a
vanished world, but the pathetic record of a soul's dread struggle
with doubt and darkness, telling in its simple rhythm and quiet
cadences the story how through the breakers of unbelief it fought its
way to the firm shores of faith, and peace, and hope? It reads like a
tale of yesterday. It is just what we are seeking, suffering, achieving.
Yet more than two thousand years have come and gone since the
brain that thought and the hand that wrote have mouldered into
dust.
The poem must have been penned at a time when the poet's own
misfortunes, or the general disorders of the age, were such as
seemed to clash irreconcilably with his preconceived notions of God's
goodness, character, and purposes. The shock of this collision
between fact and theory shook to its foundations the structure of his
inherited creed, and opened great fissures of questioning in the
fabric of his personal faith. He was tempted to abandon the
believing habits of a religious training and the confiding instincts of a
naturally devout heart, and either to doubt the being and power of
the Almighty, or to deny His wisdom and beneficence. For a long
time he was tossed hither and thither on the alternate ebb and flow
of questioning denial and believing affirmation, finding nowhere any
firm foothold amid the unstable tumult of conflicting evidence and
inconclusive reasoning. At last out of the confusion there dawned on
his mind a growing persuasion of something clear and certain. He
perceived that not only was the balance of evidence indecisive, but
also that the issue never could but be indeterminate. For he saw
that the method itself was impotent, and could never reach or
unravel the themes of his agonised questioning. A settled conviction
forced itself upon his mind that there are in life problems no human
ingenuity can solve, questions that baffle man's intellect to
comprehend, "great matters, and things too high" for him. It was a
discovery startling, strange, and painful. But at least it was
something solid and certain; it was firm land, on which one's feet
might be planted. Moreover, it was not an ending, but a beginning, a
starting-point that led somewhere. Perchance it might prove to be
the first step in a rocky pathway, that should guide his footsteps to
heights of clearer light and wider vision, where the heart, if not the
intellect, might reach a solution of its questioning and enter into
rest. The quest he had commenced had turned out a quest of the
unattainable, but it had brought him to a real and profitable
discovery. He had recognised and accepted once and for ever the
fact of the fixed and final limitation of human knowledge.
It is an experience all men have to make, an experience that
grows with age and deepens with wisdom, as we more and more
encounter the mysteries of existence, and fathom the shallowness of
our fancied knowledge. What do we know of God, the world,
ourselves? How much, and how little! How much about them, how
little of them! Who of us, for instance, has any actual conception of
God in His absolute being? You remember how in dreamy childhood
you would vainly strive to arrest and fasten in some definite image
the vague vision of dazzling glory you had learned to call God, which
floated before your soul, awing you with its majesty and
immeasurable beauty, but evading every effort to grasp it. With
gathering years and widening horizon you watched the world's
changeful aspects and ceaseless movements, till nature seemed the
transparent vesture of its mighty Maker, but it was all in vain that
you tried to pierce the thin veil and behold the invisible Worker
within. You took counsel with science, and it told you much
concerning the properties of matter and the sequences of force, but
the ultimate cause, that which is beneath, that which worketh all in
all, it could not reveal. You turned to philosophy, and you traced the
soaring thoughts of the sages, that rushed upward like blazing
rockets, as if they would pierce and illuminate the remotest heaven;
but you saw how, ere they reached that far goal, their fire went out,
their light was quenched, and they fell back through the darkness,
baffled and spent. You betook yourself to revelation, counting that at
last you were entering the inner shrine, and you did indeed learn
much that was new and precious; but soon came the discovery that
here also we do but see through a glass darkly, and that our best
knowledge of God is no more than a knowledge in part. "Lo, these
are but the outskirts of His ways; and how small a portion we know
of them! But the thunder of His power, who can understand?" We
are, as it were, surrounded on every hand by mighty mountain
peaks, whose rocky sides foil every effort to explore the pinnacles
that lie hidden in distant cloud and mist. The achievements of the
human intellect are many and marvellous, but above and beyond its
realm remain, and doubtless ever shall remain, "great matters, and
things too high" for us.

II.
Read Ps. xxxvii., and Matt. xi.
The Secret of Rest.
"Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty."
There is in the human intellect an insatiable eagerness and an
indomitable energy of acquisitiveness. It carries in its consciousness
an ineradicable instinct of domination, that spurs it to boundless
enterprise and prompts it to spurn defeat. This lordly quality of the
human mind is the natural outcome of its sovereignty over the
physical creation, and the appropriate expression of its kinship with
the Creator. It is part of man's Divine birthright, and the insignia of
his nobility. But it brings with it the peril of all special prerogative,
the inevitable temptation that accompanies the possession of power.
It tends to breed a haughtiness that is restive of restraint, a self-
sufficiency that forgets its own boundaries, and an arrogance that
refuses to wield the sceptre of aught but an unlimited empire. So it
comes to pass, when reason in its restless research is brought to a
stop by the invisible but very actual confines of human knowledge, it
resents the suggestion of limitation, and declines to accept the
arrest of its onward march. The temptation that besets it is twofold.
On the one hand, pride, irritated by the check, but too clear-sighted
to ignore it, is tempted to refuse to admit any truths it cannot
fathom or substantiate, and to deny the real existence of any realm
of being beyond its natural ken. This is the characteristic error of
Rationalism and Positivism. On the other hand, there is in the
opposite direction a tendency, born equally of intellectual pride and
self-will, to refuse the restriction, to ignore reason's incapacity, and
so to venture to state and explain that which is inexplicable. Alike in
the spheres of science and of religion men strive recklessly to
remove from God's face the veil which His own hand has not drawn,
and irreverently intrude into mysteries hopelessly beyond human
thought to conceive or human speech to express. This is the
transgression of rash speculation and of arrogant dogmatism, and it
is in itself as sinful, and in its consequences as harmful, as are the
blank negations of scepticism.
Each of these errors the author of our poem was fortunate enough
to escape. Recognising the limitation of all earthly knowledge, he
does not rage against the restrictions and beat himself against the
environing bars. He does not take it on himself, by a foolish fiat of
his finite littleness, to decree the non-existence of everything too
subtle for his dim eyes to perceive, or too fine for his dull ear to
hear. Where he fails to understand the wisdom or goodness of God's
ways he does not intrude and try to alter them, neither does he
wildly struggle to comprehend their meaning, nor madly refuse to
submit to them. He adapts himself to the Divine dealing, and is
content to obey without insisting on knowing the reason why. He
curbs in the cravings of his mind, nor will suffer the swift stream of
his thought to rush on like an impetuous torrent, dashing itself
against obstructing rocks, and fretting its waters into froth and foam.
He possesses his soul in patience, and does not "exercise" himself
"in great matters, or in things too high" for him.
This attitude of acquiescence is the position imposed on us by
necessity, and prescribed by wisdom. But, as a matter of fact, its
practical possession depends on the presence of a certain inner
mood or disposition. We have seen that the denials of scepticism
and the excesses of dogmatism are alike the offspring of pride, and
spring from an over-estimation of the potency of reason. Therefore,
as we might expect, the poet's simple acceptance of limitation and
contentment with partial knowledge are due to the fact that he has
formed a modest estimate of himself. "Lord, my heart is not haughty,
nor mine eyes lofty." His submission to restraint has its root in
humility. He does not exaggerate his capacity. He takes the measure
of his mind accurately. He does not expect to be able to accomplish
more than his abilities are equal to. It seems to him quite natural
that men should not be able to comprehend all God's ways. It is to
be expected that there should be many things in God's operations
beyond their knowledge, and in his thoughts passing their
understanding. It is, therefore, no matter for surprise that men
should encounter in God's universe "great matters," and "things too
high" for them. Nay, the wonder and disappointment would be if
there were no mysteries, no infinitudes, transcending our narrow
souls. Would it gladden you if indeed God were no greater than our
thoughts of Him? What if the sun were no brighter and no vaster
than the shrunken, dim, and tarnished image of his radiance framed
in a child's toy mirror? Alas for us if God and the universe were not
immeasurably grander than mankind's most majestic conceptions of
them! Measuring ourselves thus, in truth and lowliness, over against
God, who will not say, with the poet of our Psalm, "Lord, my heart is
not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty: neither do I exercise myself in
great matters, or in things too high for me"?

III.
Read Ps. lxxiii., and Heb. xii.
Calm after Storm.
"Surely I have behaved and quieted myself."
Peace bulks largely in all our dreams of ideal happiness. Without
repose of heart we cannot conceive of perfect contentment. But we
must not forget that the peace of inexperience is a fragile
possession, and that the only lasting rest is the repose that is based
upon conquest. We speak with languid longing and ease-seeking
envy of the peace of Jesus, because we forget that His peace was a
peace constituted out of conflict, maintained in the face of struggle,
and made perfect through suffering. Therefore it was a peace strong
and majestic, and the story of His life is the world's greatest epic. A
life that commenced with effortless attainment, proceeded in easy
serenity, and ended in tranquillity were a life without a history,
pleasant but monotonous, devoid of dramatic interest, and destitute
of significance. The young cadet, in his boyish bloom and unworn
beauty, furnishes the painter with a fairer model, but the grizzled
hero of a hundred fights, with his battered form and furrowed face,
makes the greater picture. It means so much more. And it means
more precisely because the tried valour of the veteran is so much
more than the promise of the untested tyro. Innocence unsullied and
untried has a loveliness all its own, but it lacks the pathos of
suggestion, the depth of significance, and the strength of
permanence that make the glory of virtue that has borne the brunt
of battle, and has known the bitterness of defeat, the agony of
retrieval, and the exultation of recovered victory. We talk proudly of
the faith that has never felt a doubt, that has been pierced by no
perplexity, and shows no mark of the sweat and stress of conflict.
We look askance on difficulty of faith, have no mercy on lack of
assurance, and reckon them happy who are convinced without
trouble and believe without effort. That is not quite the Bible
estimate. The Psalms echo with the prayers of hard-pressed faith,
and throb with the cries of agonised doubt. The New Testament
speaks of faith as a fight, counts them happy who endure, and
pronounces blessed the man who encounters and overcomes
temptation. If "strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth
unto life," how should faith be easy, since faith is that gate, that
way? The truth is that we invert the Divine standard of values, and
put last what God puts first. We count enviable the land-locked
harbours of unthreatened belief, that are protected from assault by
their very shallowness and narrowness. We are blind to the
providential discipline which ordains that men should wrestle with
difficulty, and in overcoming it attain a tried and tempered faith
possible only to those who have passed through the furnace of
temptation. For sinful men there can be no real strength that is not
transmuted weakness, no permanent peace that is not a triumph
over rebellion, no perfect faith that is not a victory over doubt. The
saints that have most reflected the spirit of Christ formed their fair
character, like their Master, in lives of which it may be said, "Without
were fightings, within were fears." The way of the cross has ever
been a way of conflict, and it is they who come out of great
tribulation that enter into the rest that remaineth. The deep lakes
that sleep in the hollows of high mountains, and mirror in their
placid depths the quiet stars, have their homes in the craters of
volcanoes, that have spent their fury, quenched their fires, and are
changed into pools of perpetual peace.
There breathes through our Psalm an atmosphere of infinite
repose—a subdued rest, like the hush of a cradle song.
Nevertheless, if we listen closely enough to its music, we catch
under its lullaby the low echo of a bygone anguish, the lingering sob
of a vanished tempest. Nature's most exquisite embodiment of calm
is the sweet fresh air that is left by a great storm; and the perfection
of the Psalm's restfulness is that it consists of unrest conquered and
transmuted. For the poet's peace is the result of a great struggle,
the reward of a supreme act of self-subjection. "Surely I have
behaved and quieted myself;" or, preserving the imagery of the
words, "Surely I have calmed and hushed my soul." His
submissiveness had not been native, but acquired. His lowliness of
heart was not a natural endowment, but a laborious
accomplishment. His acquiescence in God's mysterious ways was a
thing not inborn and habitual, but was rather the calm that follows a
storm, when the tempest has moaned itself into stillness, and the
great waves have rocked themselves into unruffled rest. For his soul
had once been rebellious, like a storm-lashed sea dashing itself
against the iron cliffs that bounded its waves, and impetuous like a
tempest rushing through the empty air, seeking to attain the
unattainable, and spending its force vainly in vacancy. He had longed
to flash thought, lightning like, athwart the thick darkness that
surrounded Jehovah's throne, and to lay bare its hidden secrets. It
was all in vain. Hemmed in on every hand, beaten back in his
attempts to pierce the high heaven, baffled in every effort to read
the enigma of God's ways, he had been tempted to revolt, and
either to renounce his trust in the Almighty's goodness or to refuse
to submit to His control. It cost him a hard and weary struggle to
regain his reliance, to restore his allegiance, to calm and hush his
soul.
There was nothing wonderful in this conflict, nor anything
exceptional in the experience. It is the common lot of men. True,
there are some natures for whom the tenure of faith is less arduous
than it is for others. But in almost every life there come crises when
this same battle has to be fought. For it is not always easy to be
content to trust without seeing, and to follow God's leading in the
dark, when the way seems all wrong and mistaken. There are things
in life that rudely shake our faith from its dreamless slumber, and
sweep the soul away over the dreary billows of doubt and darkness.
There are times when, to our timorous hearts, it seems too terrible
to be compelled just to trust and not to understand. Such conflicts
come to us all more or less. Painful and protracted the struggle
sometimes is, but not necessarily evil, not even harmful. For if we do
but fight it out honestly and bravely the fruits will be, as they were
with our poet, wholesome, good, and peaceable.

IV.
Read Ps. xlvi., and Phil. ii.
Victory by Surrender.
"As a child that is weaned of his mother: my soul is even as a weaned child."
It is good to cheer men on in a noble strife by speaking of the
certainty of victory, and by the story of heroic deeds to nerve their
arms for battle and stir their hearts to war. But that is not enough.
They want more than that. They want to learn how to wage a
winning war, how to secure the highest triumph, how out of conflict
to organise peace. In the good fight of faith what is the secret of
success? Has our Psalm any light on that point? By what method did
the poet still the turmoil of his doubt and reach his great peace? The
process is finely pictured in a homely but exquisite image: "Like a
weaned child on its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within
me." What does that mean? Torn by an insatiable longing to know
the meaning of God's mysterious ways, he had struggled fiercely to
wring an answer from the Almighty. His heart was long the abode of
unrest, and storm, and tempest. At length peace falls on the fray;
there is no more clangour of contention: all is quietness and rest.
How is this? Has he succeeded in solving the enigmas that pained
him? Have his cravings for an answer from God been gratified? If
not, how has he attained this perfect repose? His peace is the peace
of a weaned child. Not, therefore, by obtaining that which he craved
has he found rest; for the rest of a weaned child is not that of
gratification, but of resignation. It is the repose, not of satisfied
desire, but of abnegation and submission. After a period of
prolonged and painful struggle to have its longings answered, the
little one gives over striving any more, and is at peace. That process
was a picture to our poet of what passed in his own heart. Like a
weaned child, its tears over, its cries hushed, reposing on the very
bosom that a little ago excited its most tumultuous desires, his soul,
that once passionately strove to wring from God an answer to its
eager questionings, now wearied, resigned, and submissive, just lays
itself to rest in simple faith on that goodness of God whose purposes
it cannot comprehend, and whose ways often seem to it harsh, and
ravelled, and obscure. It is a picture of infinite repose and of
touching beauty—the little one nestling close in the mother's arms,
its head reclining trustfully on her shoulder, the tears dried from its
now quiet face, and the restful eyes, with just a lingering shadow of
bygone sorrow in them still, peering out with a look of utter peace,
contentment, and security. It is the peace of accepted pain, the
victory of self-surrender.
The transition from doubt to belief, from strife to serenity, is
remarkable. We want to know what produced this startling change
of mood, what influences fostered it, what motives urged it, what
reasons justified it. Perhaps a glimpse, a suggestion of the process is
hinted in the simile chosen from child life. The infant takes its rest
on the breast of its mother—of its mother, whose refusal of its
longings caused it all the pain and conflict, whose denial of its
instinctive desires seemed so unnatural and so cruel. How is it, then,
that instead of being alienated, the child turns to her for solace in
the sorrow she caused, and reposes on the very breast that so
resolutely declined to supply its wants? It is because over against
this single act of seeming unkindness stand unnumbered deeds of
goodness and acts of fondness, and so this one cause of doubt and
of aversion is swallowed up in a whole atmosphere of unceasing
tenderness and love. Besides, rating the apparent unmotherliness at
the very highest, still there is no other to whom the child can turn
that will better help it and care for it than its mother. So, since it
cannot get all it would like, the little one is content to take what it
may have—the warmth, and shelter, and security of its mother's
breast.
This process of conflict between doubt and trust, rebellion and
resignation, which half-unconsciously takes place in the child, is a
miniature of the strife that had surged to and fro in the poet's soul.
Pained and perplexed by the mystery of God's ways, foiled in his
efforts to fathom them, denied all explanation by the Almighty, he
was beset by the temptation to abandon faith and cast off his
allegiance to his heavenly Friend. But he saw that that would not
solve any enigma or lighten the darkness. Rather it would confront
him with still greater difficulties, and leave the world only more
empty, dark, and dreary. Then, benumbed and tired out, he gave
over thinking and arguing, and was content for a little just to live in
the circle of light and sunshine that ever is within the great
darkness. Gradually it dawned upon him that in the world of men's
experience there was much, very much, of goodness that could only
be the doing of the God that moves in the mystery and in the
darkness. The warmth of the thought crept into his heart, softer
feelings woke, love and lowliness asserted themselves, and at length
he became content to just trust God, spite of all perplexities, partly
because there was so much undeniable proof of His tenderness, and
partly because there was more of rest and comfort in this course
than in any other.

V.
Read Gen. xxxii., and Rev. vii.
The Recompense of Faith.
"Let Israel hope in the Lord from henceforth and for ever."
Who has not wondered why there is so much mystery in the
universe, such perplexity in our life, and in revelation itself why so
many doubts are permitted to assail our souls and make it hard for
us to be Christians? Is this wisely or kindly ordered? Perchance it is
necessary, but is it not evil? Can warfare ever be aught but loss and
not gain? The question is natural, but the answer is not uncertain.
The fight of faith is a good fight. Success means no bare victory, but
one crowned with splendid spoil. We shall be the better for having
had to fight. The gain of the conflict shall out-weigh all the loss, and
in the final triumph the victors shall manifestly appear more than
conquerors. This is no paradox, but the common law of life. The
same principle rules in the homely image of the child. Weaning is not
needless pain, is not wasted suffering. It is a blessing in disguise.
The distressing process is in truth promotion. It is the vestibule of
pain that leads to a maturer and larger life. In like fashion the
struggles of doubt are inevitable, if faith is not to remain feeble and
infantile. Only in the furnace of affliction does it acquire its finest
qualities. Were there no clouds and darkness around God's throne,
how should men learn humility and practise reverence? Human
nature is too coarse a thing to be entrusted with perfect knowledge.
A religion of knowledge only were a hard and soulless thing, devoid
of grace, and life, and love; for sight and reason leave nothing for
the imagination, and rob affection of its sweet prerogative to dream
and to adore. Without the discipline of toil and the developing strain
of antagonism, how should faith grow strong, and broad, and deep?
Most of us start in the life religious with an inherited, fostered,
unreasoning belief, which therefore is weak, puny, and unstable. It is
the storms of doubt and difficulty that rouse it to self-consciousness,
stir it to activity, urge it by exertion to growth and expansion, and
compel it to strike deep roots in the soil of reality. For in such conflict
the soul is driven in upon God. It is forced to make actual proof of
its possessions, to realise and employ properties that hitherto were
known to it only through the title-deeds or as mere assets available
in case of necessity. With wonder faith discovers the rare value of its
inheritance, and enters for the first time into actual enjoyment of its
spiritual treasures. It is no longer faith about God, but is now faith in
God. In its agony and helplessness the soul is compelled to press
close up to God, to take tighter hold of His hand, to fling itself on
Him for help and comfort, just as a sick child clings to its mother.
And ever after such a struggle there are a fresh beauty and
sacredness in its relation to God. There is that pathetic tenderness of
affection friends have who by some misunderstanding were well-
nigh sundered, but having overcome it, are nearer and dearer to
each other than ever before. There are a quiet community of
knowledge, and a restful confidentiality of affection, that were not
there before, that come of having had to fight that you might not be
severed from each other. The recoil of joy from the dread of loss,
and the memory of the agony that thought was to you, make God
dearer to you now than ever. Out of the very strife and doubt there
is born a new assurance of your love, in the consciousness you have
acquired of the pain it would be to you to be deprived of your Divine
Friend.
The experience is of general application. It is the secret of serenity
amid the world's mystery and life's pain and perplexity. Therefore,
when at any time the clouds gather around you, and their blackness
seems to darken on the very face of God, do not turn away in terror
or anger, but cling the faster to Him, even if it be by the extreme
hem of His garment. What wonder if your feeble eye fails to read
clear and true each majestic feature of that Divine face which is so
infinitely high above you? What matter if sometimes its radiance is
obscured by the chill fogs and creeping vapours of earth's mingled
atmosphere? The darkness is not on God's face, but beneath it. One
day you shall rise higher, and you shall see Him as He is. Meantime,
in your gloomiest hour, when overwhelming doubts, like hissing
waves, wind and coil around your heart, and seek to pluck it from its
hold, then do but let all other things go, and with your last energy
cling to this central, sovereign certainty, that whatever else is true,
this at least is sure, that God is good, and that He whose doings you
cannot comprehend is your Father. And so, weary of dashing
yourself vainly against the bulwarks of darkness that girdle His
throne, be content to lay yourself down humbly as a tired child on
the breast of your heavenly Father. Thus, with your questionings
unanswered, with the darkness not rolled away, with a thousand
problems all unsolved, be quieted, be hushed, be at peace. Lay
down your head, your weary, aching head, on the great heart of
God, and be at rest.
Doing this, you shall reach not merely passive resignation, but joy,
and peace, and trust. For of humble submission hope is born. "Let
Israel hope in the Lord from henceforth and for ever." Perchance all
you can do now is just, in weariness, more out of helpless despair
than active expectancy, to fall back on a faint, broken-hearted trust
in God's goodness. It is an act of faith, poor enough, in truth, but it
holds in it the promise and potency of a better confidence. For it is
into the arms of God that it carries you. Resting there in the lap of
His infinite love, you shall feel the warmth of His great heart
penetrating softly into yours. The weary, throbbing pain will slowly
pass away. Deep rest and quiet peace will steal into your spirit. And
at length, out of a helpless, compelled, and well-nigh hopeless
surrender, there shall be born within you fearless trust and winged
reliance, and you shall hope in the Lord from henceforth and for
ever.
 XVII.
THE FIRST CHAPTER OF GENESIS.

T here is in many people's minds a painful uneasiness about the

relation of the Bible to modern science and philosophy. The
appearance of each new theory is deprecated by believers with pious
timidity, and hailed by sceptics with unholy hope. On neither side is
this a dignified or a wholesome attitude. Its irksome and intrusive
pressure promotes neither a robust piety nor a sober-minded
science. It is worth while inquiring whether there is any sufficient
foundation for either alarm or expectancy in the actual relations of
the Bible to scientific thought. We shall work out our answer to the
question on the historical battle-field of the 1st chapter of Genesis.
Results reached there will be found to possess a more or less
general validity.
There are two records of creation—one is contained in the Bible,
which claims to be God's Word; the other is stamped in the structure
of the world, which is God's work. Both being from the same Author,
we should expect them to agree in their general tenour; but in fact,
so far from being in harmony, they have an appearance of mutual
contradiction that demands explanation.
In studying the problem certain considerations must be borne in
mind. There is a loose way of talking about antagonism between the
natural and the revealed accounts of creation. That is not quite
accurate. Conflict between these there cannot be, for they never
actually come into contact. It is not they, but our theories, that meet
and collide. The discord is not in the original sources, but in our
renderings of them. That is a very different matter, and of quite
incommensurate importance.
 The Bible story is very old. It is written in an ancient and
practically dead language. The meaning of many of the words
cannot be fixed with precision. The significance of several
fundamental phrases is at best little more than conjecture. Since it
was penned men's minds have grown and changed. The very moulds
of human thought have altered. Current impressions, conceptions,
ideas are different. It is hard to determine, with even probability,
what is said, still harder to realise what was thought. Certainty is
impossible. No rendering should be counted infallible, not even our
own. Every interpretation ought to be advanced with modest
diffidence, held tentatively, revised with alacrity, and adjusted to new
facts without timidity and without shame. This has not been the
characteristic attitude of commentators. The exegesis of the 1st
chapter of Genesis presents a long array of theories, propounded
with authority, defended dogmatically, and ignominiously discredited
and deserted. Had a more lowly spirit presided over their inception,
maintenance, and abandonment, the list would perhaps not have
been shorter, but the retrospect would have been less humiliating.
As it is, we can hardly complain of the sting of satire that lurks in
Kepler's recital of Theology's successive retreats: "In theology we
balance authorities; in philosophy we weigh reasons. A holy man
was Lactantius, who denied that the earth was round. A holy man
was Augustine, who granted the rotundity, but denied the antipodes.
A holy thing to me is the Inquisition, which allows the smallness of
the earth, but denies its motion. But more holy to me is truth. And
hence I prove by philosophy that the earth is round, inhabited on
every side, of small size, and in motion among the stars. And this I
do with no disrespect to the doctors."
The physical record is also very old. Its story is carved in a script
that is often hardly legible, and set forth in symbols that are not
easy to decipher. The testimony of the rocks embodies results of
creation, but does not present the actual operations. Effects suggest
processes, but do not disclose their precise measure, manner, and
origination. You may dissect a great painting into its ultimate lines
and elements, and from the canvas peel off the successive layers of
colour, and duly record their number and order; but when you have
done you have not even touched the essential secret of its creation.
In determining the first origin of things the limitation of science is
absolute, and even in tracing the subsequent development there is
room for error, ignorance, and diversity of explanation. Of certainties
in scientific theory there are few. For the most part, all that can be
attained is probability, especially in speculative matters, such as
estimates of time, explanations of formation, and theories of
causation. As in exegesis, so in geology, all hypotheses ought to be
counted merely tentative, maintained with modesty, and held open
at every point to revision and reconstruction. The necessity of
caution and reserve needs no enforcing for any one who knows the
variety and inconsistency of the phases through which speculative
geology has passed in our own generation. In this destiny of
transitoriness it does but share the lot of all scientific theory.
Professor Huxley was once cruel enough to call attention to the fact
that "extinguished theologians lie about the cradle of every science,
as the strangled snakes beside that of Hercules." The statement is a
graphic, if somewhat ferocious, reminder of a melancholy fact, and
the fate of these trespassing divines should warn their successors—
as the Professor means it should—not to stray out of their proper
pastures. But has it fared very differently with the mighty men of
science who have essayed to solve the high problems of existence
and to make all mysteries plain? Take up a history of philosophy,
turn over its pages, study its dreary epitomes of defunct theories,
and as you survey the long array of skeletons tell me, are you not
reminded of the prophet who found himself "set down in the midst
of the valley which was full of dry bones: and, behold, there were
very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry"?
If it is human to err, theology and geology have alike made full
proof of their humanity. That in itself is not their fault, but their
misfortune. The pity of it is that to the actual fact of fallibility they
have so often added the folly of pretended infallibility. The resultant
duty is an attitude of mutual modesty, of reserve in suspecting
contradiction, of patience in demanding an adjustment, of
perseverance in separate and honest research, of serenity of mind in
view of difficulties, coupled with a quiet expectation of final fitting.
The two accounts are alike trustworthy. They are not necessarily
identical in detail. It is enough that they should correspond in their
essential purport. It may be that the one is the complement of the
other, as soul is to body—unlike, yet vitally allied. Perchance their
harmony is not that of duplicates, but of counterparts. They were
made not to overlap like concentric circles, but to interlock like
toothed wheels. In the end, when partial knowledge has given way
to perfect, they will be seen to correspond, and nothing will be
broken but the premature structures of adjustment with which men
have thought to make them run smoother than they were meant to
do.
To attempt anew a task that has proved so disastrous, and is
manifestly so difficult, must be admitted to be bold, if not even
foolhardy. But its very desperateness is its justification. To fall in a
forlorn hope is not ignoble. To miss one's way in threading the
labyrinth of the 1st chapter of Genesis is pardonable, a thing almost
to be expected. If in seeking to escape Scylla the traveller should fall
into Charybdis, no one will be surprised—not even himself. It is in
the most undogmatic spirit that we wish to put forward our reading
of the chapter. It is presented simply as a possible rendering. What
can be said for it will be said as forcibly as may be. It is open to
objection from opposite sides. That may be not altogether against it,
since truth is rarely extreme. Difficulties undoubtedly attach to it,
and defects as well. At best it can but contribute to the ultimate
solution. Perchance its share in the task may be no more than to
show by trial that another way of explanation is impossible. Well,
that too is a service. Every fresh by-way proved impracticable, and
closed to passage, brings us a step nearer the pathway of
achievement. For the loyal lover of truth it is enough even so to have
been made tributary to the truth.
The business of a theologian is, in the first instance at least, with
the Scriptural narrative. To estimate its worth, and determine its
relation to science, we must ascertain its design. Criticism of a
church-organ, under the impression that it was meant to do the
work of a steam-engine, would certainly fail to do justice to the
instrument, and the disquisition would not have much value in itself.
Before we exact geology of Genesis we must inquire whether there
is any in it. If there be none, and if there was never meant to be
any, the demand is as absurd as it would be to require thorns of a
vine and thistles of the fig-tree. Should it turn out, for instance, that
the order of the narrative is intentionally not chronological, then
every attempt to reconcile it with the geological order is of necessity
a Procrustean cruelty, and the venerable form of Genesis is fitted to
the geological couch at the cost of its head or its feet. Either the
natural sense of the chapter is sacrificed or the pruned narrative
goes on crutches. If we would deal fairly and rationally with the
Bible account of creation, our first duty is to determine with
exactness what it purposes to tell, and what it does not profess to
relate. We must settle with precision, at the outset of our
investigation, what is its subject, method, and intention. The answer
is to be found, not in à priori theories of what the contents ought to
be, but in an accurate and honest analysis of the chapter.
The narrative of creation is marked by an exquisite symmetry of
thought and style. It is partly produced by the regular use of certain
rubrical phrases, which recur with the rhythmical effect of a refrain.
There is the terminal of the days—"and there was evening, and
there was morning, day one," etc.; the embodiment of the Divine
creative will in the eightfold "God said;" the expression of instant
fulfilment in the swift responsive "and it was so;" and the declaration
of perfection in the "God saw that it was good." But the symmetry of
the chapter lies deeper than the wording. It pervades the entire
construction of the narrative. As the story proceeds there is
expansion, variety, progression. Yet each successive paragraph is
built up on one and the same type and model. This uniformity is
rooted in the essential structure of the thought, and is due to the
determination with which one grand truth is carried like a key-note
through all the sequences of the theme, and rings out clear and
dominant in every step and stage of the development. Our first duty
is to follow, and find out with certainty, this ruling purpose, and then
to interpret the subordinate elements by its light and guidance.
The narrative distributes the operation of creation over six days,
and divides it into eight distinct acts or deeds. This double divergent
arrangement of the material is made to harmonise by the
assignment of a couple of acts to the third day, and another couple
to the sixth—in each case with a fine and designed effect. We shall
take a bird's-eye view of the contents of these divisions.
The chapter opens with a picture of primeval chaos, out of which
God commands the universe of beauty, life, and order. Nothing is
said of its origin. The story starts with it existent. It is painted as an
abyss, dreary and boundless, wrapped in impenetrable darkness, an
inextricable confusion of fluid matter, destitute of character,
structure, or value, without form and void. It is the raw material of
the universe, passive and powerless in itself, but holding in it the
promise and potency of all existence. For over it nestles, like a brood
fowl, the informing, warming, life-giving Spirit of God, sending
through its coldness and emptiness the heat and parental yearnings
of the Divine heart, that craves for creatures on which to pour out its
love and goodness. This action of the Spirit is, however, no more
than preparative, and waits its completion in the accession of a
personal fiat of God's will, in which the Divine Word gives effect and
reality to the Divine Wish. This is a feature of supreme importance,
for in it consists the uniqueness of the Bible narrative. In the Pagan
accounts of creation we find the same general imagery of dull, dead
matter, stirred and warmed into life and development by the action
of an immaterial effluence of "thought," "love," or "longing." But in
them the operation is cosmic, impersonal, often hardly conscious; in
the Bible it is ethical and intensely personal. In them the language is
metaphysical, materialistic, or pantheistic; here it is moral, human,
personal, to the point of anthropomorphism. They show us creative
forces and processes; the Bible presents to us, in all His infinite,
manifold, and glorious personality, the thinking, living, loving "God
the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth."
 The result of the first day and the first Divine decree is the
production of light. The old difficulty about the existence of light
before the sun was made, as it was invented by science, has been
by science dispelled. The theory of light as a mode of motion, which
for the present holds the field, knows no obstacle to the presence of
light in the absence of the sun. But this harmony is not due to any
prescience of modern science in the writer of Genesis. His idea of
light is not undulatory, and not scientific, but just the simple popular
notion found everywhere in the Bible. Light is a fine substance,
distinct from all others, and it appears first in the list of creation, as
being the first and noblest of the elements that go to make up our
habitable world. The emergence of the light is presented as
instantaneously following the Divine decree. That is manifestly the
literary effect designed in the curtness of the sequence, "Let there
be light, and there was light." The light is pronounced good, is
permanently established in possession of its special properties and
powers, and is set in its service of the world and man by having
assigned to it its place in the "alternate mercy of day and night."
There is a very fine touch in the position of the declaration of
goodness. It stands here earlier than in the succeeding sections.
Darkness is in the Bible the standing emblem of evil. It would have
been discordant with that imagery to make God pronounce it good,
though as the foil of light it serves beneficent ends. The jarring note
is tacitly and simply avoided by introducing the assertion of the
goodness of light before the mention of its background and
negation, darkness. The picture of the first day of creation is
subscribed with the formula of completeness—"There was evening,
and there was morning, one day," or "day first"—and has for its net
result the production of the element or sphere of light.
The second day and the second Divine decree are devoted to the
formation of the firmament. All through the Old Testament the sky is
pictured as a solid dome or vaulted roof, above which roll the
primeval waters of chaos. The notion is of course popular, a figment
of the primitive imagination, and quite at variance with the modern
conception of space filled by an interastral ether; though it is well to
remember that this same ether is no more ascertained fact than was
the old-world firmament, and is in its turn simply an invention of the
scientific imagination. It is of more moment to note that the real
motive and outcome of the day's work is not the firmament. That is
not an end, but a means, precisely as a sea-wall is not an object in
itself, but merely the instrument of the reclamation of valuable land.
What the erection of the firmament does towards the making of our
world is the production of the intervening aërial space and the lower
expanse of terrestrial waters. Since this last portion of the work is
not complete prior to the separation of the dry land, the declaration
of goodness or perfection is, with exquisite fineness of suggestion,
tacitly omitted. The net result of the day is, therefore, the formation
of the realms of air and water as elements or spheres of existence.
The third day includes two works—the production of the solid
ground, and of vegetation. The dead, inert soil, and its manifold
outgrowth of plant life, are strikingly distinct, and yet most
intimately related. Together they make up the habitable earth. They
are therefore presented as separate works, but conjoined in the
framework of one day. Two sections of the vegetable kingdom are
singled out for special mention—the cereals and the fruit-trees. It is
not a complete or a botanical classification, and manifestly science is
not contemplated. Those divisions of the plant-world that sustain
animal and human life, and minister to its enjoyment, are drawn out
into pictorial relief and prominence. The intention is practical,
popular, and religious. The net result of the day is the production of
the habitable dry land.
The fourth day and the fifth decree call into being the celestial
bodies—the sun, moon, and stars. They are called luminaries; that is
to say, not masses or accumulations of light, but managers and
distributers of light, and the value of this function of theirs, for the
religious and secular calendar, for agriculture, navigation, and the
daily life of men, is formally and elaborately detailed. Were this
account of the heavenly bodies intended as a scientific or exhaustive
statement of their Divine destination and place in the universe, it
would be miserably inadequate and erroneous. But if the whole aim
of the narrative be not science, but religion, then it is absolutely
appropriate, exact, and powerful. In the teeth of an all but universal
worship of sun, moon, and stars, it declares them the manufacture
of God, and the ministers and servants of man. For this practical
religious purpose the geocentric description of them is not an
accident, but essential. It is not a blunder, but a merit. It is true
piety, not cosmical astronomy, that is being established. In the
words of Calvin, "Moses, speaking to us by the Holy Spirit, did not
treat of the heavenly luminaries as an astronomer, but as it became
a theologian, having regard to us rather than to the stars." The net
result of the fourth day is the production of the heavenly orbs of
light.
The fifth day and the sixth work issue in the production of birds
and fishes, or, more accurately, all creatures that fly or swim. It is
evidently a classification by the eye—the ordinary popular division—
and it makes no attempt at scientific pretension or profundity. As
having conscious life, these new creatures of God's love are blessed
by Him, and have their place and purpose in the order of being
defined and established. The net result of the day is the formation of
fowls and fishes.
The sixth day, like the third, includes two works—the land animals
and man. The representation admirably expresses their intimate
relationship, and yet essential distinction. The animals are
graphically divided into the domestic quadrupeds, the small
creatures that creep and crawl, and the wild beasts of the field. The
classification is as little scientific in intention or substance as is the
general arrangement into birds, fishes, and beasts, which of course
traverses radically alike the historical order of palæontology and the
physiological grouping of zoology. The narrative simply adopts the
natural grouping of observation and popular speech, because that
suffices, and best suits its purpose. With a wonderful simplicity, yet
with consummate effect, man is portrayed as the climax and crown
of creation. Made in the image and likeness of God, he is clothed
with sovereign might and dominion over all the elements and
contents of Nature. The personal, conscious counterpart and child of
God, he stands at the other end of the chain of creation, and with
answering intelligence and love looks back adoringly to his great
Father in the heavens. Mention is made of lesser matters, such as
sex and food; but manifestly the supreme interest of the delineation
is ethical and religious. Science is no more contemplated as an
ingredient in the conception than prose is in poetry. With the making
of man the circle of creation is complete, and the finished perfection
of the whole, as well as the parts, is expressed in the superlative
declaration that "God saw everything that He had made, and,
behold, it was very good." The net result of the sixth day is the
formation of the land animals and man.
The six days of creative activity are followed by a seventh of
Divine repose. On the seventh day God rested; or, as it is more fully
worded in Exodus (xxxi. 17), God "rested and was refreshed." It is a
daring anthropomorphism, and at the same time a master-stroke of
inspired genius. What a philosophical dissertation hardly could
accomplish it achieves by one simple image. For our thought of God
the idea performs the same service as the institution of the Sabbath
does for our souls and bodies. The weekly day of rest is the
salvation of our personality from enslavement in material toil. During
six days the toiler is tied, bent and bowed, to his post in the vast
machinery of the world's work. On the seventh all is stopped, and he
is free to lift himself erect to the full stature of his manhood, to
expand the loftier elements of his being, to reassert his freedom,
and realise his superiority over what is mechanical, secular, and
earthly. What in the progressive portraiture of creation is the effect
of this sudden declaration that the Creator rested? Why, an intensely
powerful reminder of the free, conscious, and personal nature of His
action. And this impression of such unique value is secured precisely
by the anthropomorphism, as no philosophical disquisition could
have done it. The blot and blemish of all metaphysical delineation is
that personalities get obliterated and swallowed up in general
principles and impersonal abstractions. In all other cosmogonies of
any intellectual pretension the process of creation is presented as
passive, or Necessitarian, or Pantheistic, and invariably the free
personality of the Creator becomes entangled in His work, or entirely
vanishes. By this stroke of inspired imagination the Bible story
rescues from all such risks and degradations our thought of the
Creator, and at its close leaves us face to face with our Divine Maker
as free, personal, living, loving, and conscious as we are ourselves.
We have now got what is, I trust, a fairly accurate and complete
summary of the contents of the narrative. It is not necessary for our
purpose to discuss its relations to the Pagan cosmogonies. From the
sameness everywhere of the human eye, mind, and fancy, certain
conceptions are common property. There is probably a special
kinship between the Biblical and the Babylonian and Phœnician
accounts. But with all respect for enthusiastic decipherers, we make
bold to believe, with more sober-minded critics, that the 1st chapter
of Genesis owes very little to Babylonian mythology, and very much
indeed to Hebrew thought and the revealing Spirit of God. The
chapter strikingly lacks the characteristic marks of myth, and is on
the face of it a masterpiece of exquisite artistic workmanship and
profound religious inspiration. Proof of this has appeared in plenty
during our brief study of its structure and contents. Let us proceed
to use the results of our analysis to determine some more general
characteristics of its structure and design.
The process of creation is portrayed in six great steps or stages. Is
this order put forward as corresponding with the physical course of
events? and, further, does it tally with the order stamped in the
record of the rocks? Replying to the second question first, it must be
admitted that, primâ facie, the Bible sequence does not appear to be
in unison with the geological. Of attempted reconciliations there is
an almost endless variety, but, unfortunately, among the harmonies
themselves there is no harmony. At the present moment there is
none that has gained general acceptance: a few possess each the
allegiance of a handful of partisans; the greater number command
the confidence only of their respective authors, and some not even
that. It is needless to discuss these reconciliations, because if
geology is trustworthy in its main results, and if our interpretation of
the meaning of Genesis is at all correct, correspondence in order and
detail is impossible. If the order of Genesis was meant as science,
then geology and Genesis are at issue; but, on the other hand, if the
sequence in Genesis was never meant to be physical the wrong lies
with ourselves, who have searched for geology where we should
have looked for religion, and have, with the best intentions,
persisted in trying to turn the Bible bread of life into the arid stone
of science. Now, we venture to suggest that in drafting this chapter
the ruling formative thought was not chronology. It must be
remembered that the narrative was under no obligation to follow the
order of actual occurrence, unless that best suited its purpose.
Zoology does not group the animals in the order of their emergence
into existence, but classifies and discusses them in a very different
sequence, adopted to exhibit their structural and functional affinities.
If the design of Genesis was not to inform us about historical
geology, but to reveal and enforce religious truth, it might well be
that a literary or a logical, and not a chronological, arrangement
might best serve its end. As a matter of fact, the order chosen is not
primarily historical. Another quite different and very beautiful idea
has fashioned, and is enshrined in, the arrangement. Looking at our
analysis of their contents, we perceive that the six days fall into two
parallel sets of three, whose members finely correspond. The first
set presents us with three vast empty tenements or habitations, and
the second set furnishes these with occupants. The first day gives us
the sphere of light; the fourth day tenants it with sun, moon, and
stars. The second day presents the realm of air and water; the fifth
day supplies the inhabitants—birds and fishes. The third day
produces the habitable dry land; and the sixth day stocks it with the
animals and man. The idea of this arrangement is, on the face of it,
literary and logical. It is chosen for its comprehensive, all-inclusive
completeness. To declare of every part and atom of Nature that it is
the making of God, the author passes in procession the great
elements or spheres which the human mind everywhere conceives
as making up our world, and pronounces them one by one God's
creation. Then he makes an inventory of their entire furniture and
contents, and asserts that all these likewise are the work of God. For
his purpose—which is to declare the universal Creatorship of God
and the uniform creaturehood of all Nature—the order and
classification are unsurpassed and unsurpassable. With a masterly
survey, that marks everything and omits nothing, he sweeps the
whole category of created existence, collects the scattered leaves
into six congruous groups, encloses each in a compact and uniform
binding, and then on the back of the numbered and ordered
volumes stamps the great title and declaration that they are one and
all, in every jot, and tittle, and shred, and fragment, the works of
their Almighty Author, and of none beside.
With the figment of a supposed physical order vanishes also the
difficulty of the days. Their use is not literal, but ideal and pictorial.
That the author was not thinking of actual days of twenty-four
hours, with a matter-of-fact dawning of morning and darkening of
evening, is evident from the fact that he does not bring the sun (the
lord of the day) into action till three have already elapsed, and later
on he exhibits the sun as itself the product of one of them. Neither is
it possible that the days stand for geological epochs, for by no
wrenching and racking can they be made to correspond. Moreover, it
is quite certain that the author would have revolted against the
expansion of his timeless acts of creative omnipotence into long
ages of slow evolution, since the key-note of the literary significance
and sublimity of his delineation is its exhibition of the created result
following in instantaneous sequence on the creative fiat. The actual
meaning underlying the use of the days is suggested in the rubrical
character of the refrain, as it appears rounding off and ending each
fresh stage of the narration—"And there was evening, and there was
morning—day one, day two, day three," and so on. The great
sections of Nature are to be made pass in a panorama of pictures,
and to be presented, each for itself, as the distinct act of God. It is
desirable to enclose each of these pictures in a frame, clear-cut and
complete. The natural unit and division of human toil is a day. In the
words of the poet—

"Each morning sees some task begin;

Each evening sees it close."
 In Old Testament parlance, any great achievement or outstanding
event is spoken of as "a day." A decisive battle is known as "the day
of Midian." God's intervention in human history is "the day of the
Lord." When the author of Genesis i. would present the several
elements of Nature as one and all the outcome of God's creative
energy, the successive links of the chain are depicted as days.
Where we should say "End of Part I.," he says, "And there was
evening, and there was morning—day one." Moreover, it is needless
to point out how finely, from this presentation of the timeless fiats of
creation in a framework of days, emerges the majestic truth that not
in the dead order of nature, nor in the mere movement of the stars,
but in the nature and will of God, Who made man in His image, must
be sought the ultimate origin, sanction, and archetype of that
salutary law which divides man's life on earth into fixed periods of
toil, rounded and crowned by a Sabbath of repose.
If this understanding of the structural arrangement of the chapter
be correct, we have reached an important and significant conclusion
regarding the author's method and design. He does not suppose
himself to be giving the matter-of-fact sequence of creation's stages.
His interest does not lie in that direction. His sole concern is to
declare that Nature, in bulk and in detail, is the manufacture of God.
His plan does not include, but ipso facto excludes, conformity with
the material order and process. He writes as a theologian, and not
as a scientist or historian. Starting from this fixed point, let us note
the outstanding features and engrossing interests of his delineation.
We shall find them in the phrases that, like a refrain, run through the
narrative and form its key-notes, and finally in the resultant
impression left by its general tenour and purport.
The recurrent key-notes of the narrative are three—God's naming
His works, His declaration of their goodness, and the swift formula
of achievement—"and it was so." The naming is not a childish
triviality, nor a mere graphic touch or poetical ornament. It does not
mean that God attached to His works the vocables by which in
Hebrew they are known. Its significance appears in the definition of
function into which in the later episodes it is expanded. Name in
Hebrew speech is equivalent to Nature. When the story pictures God
as naming His works, it vividly brings into relief the fixed law and
order that pervade the universe. And by the picturesque—if you will,
anthropomorphic—fashion of the statement, it attains an effect
beyond science or metaphysics, inasmuch as it irresistibly portrays
this order of Nature as originating in the personal act of God, and
directly inspired by and informed with His own effluent love of what
is good, and true, and orderly. Thus the great truth of the fixity of
Nature is presented, not as a fact of science or a quality of matter,
but as rooted in and reflecting a majestic attribute of the character
of God. The interest is not scientific, but religious. In like fashion,
the unfailing declaration of goodness, though it might seem a small
detail, is replete with practical and religious significance. The Pagan
doctrines of creation are all more or less contaminated by dualistic
or Manichean conceptions. The good Creator is baffled, thwarted,
and impeded by a brutish or malignant tendency in matter, which on
the one hand mars the perfection of creation, and on the other hand
inserts in the physical order of things elements of hostility and
malevolence to man. It is a thought that at once degrades the
Creator, and denudes Nature, as man's abode, of its beauty, comfort,
and kindliness. How different is it in the Bible picture of creation!
This God has outside Himself no rival, experiences no resistance nor
contradiction, knows no failure nor imperfection in His handiwork;
but what He wishes He wills, and what He commands is done, and
the result answers absolutely to the intention of His wisdom, love,
and power. In its relation to its Maker the work is free from any flaw.
In its relation to man it contains nothing malevolent or maleficent. It
is good. And once again, mark with what skill in the delineation the
light is thrown, not on the work, but on the Worker, and the
goodness of creation becomes but a mirror to drink in and flash
forth the infinite wisdom, might, and goodness of its Divine Maker.
Here also the interest is not metaphysical, but practical and religious.
A third commanding aim of the narrative appears in the significant
and striking use of the formula "and it was so." With absolute
uniformity the Divine fiat is immediately followed by the physical
fulfilment. There is no painting of the process, no delineation of slow
and gradual operations of material forces. Not once is there any
mention of secondary causes, nor the faintest suggestion of
intermediate agencies. The Creator wills; the thing is. In this
exclusion from the scene of all subordinate studies there is artistic
design—profound design. The picture becomes one, not of scenery,
but of action. It is not a landscape, but a portrait. The canvas
contains but two solitary objects, the Creator and His work. The
effect is to throw out of sight methods, materials, processes, and to
throw into intense relief the act and the Actor. And the supreme and
ultimate result on the beholder's mind is to produce a quite
overpowering and majestic impression of the glorious personality of
the Creator.
Here we have reached the sovereign theme of the narrative, and
have detected the false note that is struck at the outset of every
attempt to interpret it as in any degree or fashion a physical record
of creation. In very deed and truth the concern of the chapter is not
creation, but the character, being, and glory of the Almighty Maker.
If we excerpt God's speeches and the rubrical formulas, the chapter
consists of one continuous chain of verbs, instinct with life and
motion, linked on in swift succession, and with hardly an exception,
the subject of every one of them is God. It is one long adoring
delineation of God loving, yearning, willing, working in creation. Its
interest is not in the work, but the Worker. Its subject is not
creation, but the Creator. What it gives is not a world, but a God. It
is not geology; it is theology.
Why do we so assert, accentuate, and reiterate this to be the
central theme of the chapter? Because through the scientific trend
and bias of modern inquiry the essential design of the chapter has
got warped, cramped, and twisted till its majestic features have been
pushed almost clean out of view, and all attention is concentrated on
one trivial, mean, and unreal point in its physiognomy. Its claim to
be accounted an integral part of a real revelation is made to hinge
on its magical anticipation of, and detailed correspondence with, the
changeful theories of modern geology. The idea is, in our humble
but decided opinion, dangerous, baseless, and indefensible. The
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