CHAPTER I THE TIME "But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."-PETER. In order to appreciate clearly what Moses recorded in history, what Solomon said in his wisdom, what David sang in ecstasy, and what Job cried out in his agony, concerning the birds, it is necessary first to become familiar with the time in the world's history in which these men lived, and the country which was their home. The books of Moses come first, and they contain references to more birds than the writings of any of the other compilers of the Bible. Although a Hebrew, Moses was reared and educated in the court of an Egyptian king, and so had access to all the culture that could be afforded by Egypt, then in almost as advanced a state of civilization as it is to-day. At manhood Moses understood the best methods of agriculture, was skilled in stone-cutting, and almost every manual occupation of his time. He was a remarkable diplomat, a great teacher, a born leader of men, and a soldier. From his elevation he saw with clearness of vision how bitter was the bondage in which his people, the Hebrews, were held by the Egyptians. In describing it he wrote, "And they made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field, all their service wherein they made them serve with rigour." No wonder the Hebrews since have not caredfor manual labour ! So in his intimate position at court, Moses began to intercede with the king to be allowed to lead away the Israelites to new, unclaimed territory and found a nation. 7 But slaves are not easily given up, as witness our own Civil War. At last, after Egypt had known more suffering than she ever inflicted upon the Hebrews, Moses was allowed to start with the Children of Israel on the long, indirect route to the Promised Land. After forty years of wandering the spot was located, and the Hebrews began making homes for their families and regulations for their government. In considering what Moses had to say of the birds, and those he mentioned in the course of compiling laws, two things must be taken into consideration. First, the people of whom he was the mental and moral guide long had been slaves, at hard manual labour. They neither had time nor liberty for study and personal improvement. They were like children, wondering, questioning, doubting, but very ignorant. Any law Moses laid down for them to follow, or any history he wrote for their education, had of necessity to be plain, simple, and minute as to detail; not what he, reared with all the opportunities of the king's court, knew of science or past ages, but what they could comprehend. Taking this foundation fact into consideration, I do not see how the greatest scientist to-day, if he were placed in precisely the same circumstances, could write a clearer, truer, history of creation for a people of mental condition similar to the Hebrews at that time, than the accounts of the beginning of the earth as recorded by Moses. Moses lived fourteen hundred years before the birth of Christ, and so, as the great law-giver reckoned time, he placed the beginning of the world about three thousand years before his age. At the rate of development from his day to ours we know that this estimate was altogether inadequate. Hundreds of thousands of years had elapsed since the earth emerged from chaos; no man could estimate how many; no man can comprehend in these days, much less could he have done so in the time of Moses. But he wanted some sort of basis on which to found his history, and so he said three thousand years. He proved that he himself comprehended that no man could gauge time accurately when he said, in addressing the Almighty, "For a thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday, when it is past, and as a watch in the night." After the birth of Christ, Peter referred to this in a way which showed that the thought of Moses was very clear to him, and he sought to emphasise it to men of his day. "But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." Since no one has been able to number our days accurately, and it takes a thousand of our years to make a day with the Almighty, this allows all the time necessary for the evolution of the earth and the development of plant and animal life. But according to this rate of reckoning time our world is not yet a week old with the Almighty. Moses said, God created the heaven and the earth.” In these days every one concedes that creation required more time than Moses thought necessary to try to explain to the Children of Israel. Science has many theories concerning creation. Once it was believed that the earth was flat and stationary, and if you went far enough you would fall over the edge. Then it was discovered that the world was round, and revolved and rotated. So scientists were sure that it and all other heavenly bodies were great pieces cast from the sun. Then the theory was formulated that the sun threw off large rings of incandescent gases, which cooled and formed planets. In other words, Jupiter, Mars, Uranus, Saturn, our world, and the great bodies were once hollow globes abandoned by the sun." As I write, a new theory has been launched, attended by the usual amount of corroborative figures. This idea is that the sun is not the parent of any planet, but that all heavenly bodies are formed by the meeting of two or more streams of cosmical dust, the meeting of which produces a whirling motion around a centre. These coiling streams are the beginnings of planets, which keep on whirling and gathering more dust, and at the same time grow compact by contact with the resisting forces against which they revolve. All this is demonstrated in terms understandable only to those who have given the subject a lifetime of study, and figured to the last contingency on reams of paper. Without doubt there is a man yet to be born who will develop a theory even more plausible than any of these, and demonstrate it to the least mathematical proposition. But the more one studies the greater becomes the doubt that any man ever will see light who can convince the people of his time that he has discovered the origin of matter, the process of world formation, and the beginning of life. This is the most fascinating study presented to scientists, but in the end all of them reach a dead stop when they face the origin of matter. No scientist ever has explained it, and so it becomes a great relief to fall back upon Divinity and settle the question casually as did Moses when he said, "God created." Moses taught that in the beginning the earth was without form and in darkness. All scientists agree with this, and give the reasons, which they have no right to assume Moses did not know quite as well as they, because he confined his statements to brief outlines, and simplified his outlines to the comprehension of his people. He knew so much else with which scientists agree, no doubt he understood that also. Science teaches that on account of the intense heat which existed in the earth in its first form, and the extreme cold (estimated at Neptune to be near three hundred and sixty-four degrees below Fahrenheit zero) into which the heated mass was plunged, great clouds of steam were lifted, and formed a surrounding body of water, that shut out light and the world was in darkness. Moses stated that the Almighty ordered that there should be light. Scientists write volumes explaining how, when the mass of water became too heavy, it fell back upon the earth, submerging it in a sea which reached almost, if not quite, the boiling point. As the land masses cooled they shrank greatly, and the depressions formed the beds of seas, while the highest points lifted above the water. When the crust and seas cooled, through untold periods of time, the vapour was not thrown up, and light could penetrate to the earth. There is a possibility that Moses recognized that this |