THE HISTORICAL READER. THE CREATION. 1. THE creation of the world is the first transaction, with which we are presented by history, and is the most truly sublime and glorious, that imagination can conceive. But of this stupendous event, no particulars are recorded calculated only to gratify an idle curiosity-it seems to have been the great, if not the only object of the inspired penman, to make known the important truth, that the heavens and the earth were created by the immediate power of God. 2. The earth, subsequent to its creation, was a fluid, dark, and shapeless mass of matter; The vast immeasurable abyss Outrageous as a sea, dark, wasteful, wild, Heav'n's height, and with the centre mix the pole. But at the sovereign command of the Almighty, the cheerful light appeared; the firmament expanded, to divide the upper from the lower waters; the congregated floods retired to their destined beds, and the dry land was crowned with a rich profusion of herbage, fruits, and flowers. 3. These great occurrences, having occupied the three first days, the succeeding one was devoted to an illumination of the newly created globe-on the fourth day, the face of heaven was decorated with myriads of stars, and the greater luminaries were so disposed, as to distinguish between day and night, and to divide the seasons of the year. What is the first event with which history presents us?-Have we any particular account of the creation of the world?-What object had the inspired penman chiefly in view, when writing the history of the creation? |