greatest of Roman orators, the celebrated

Cicero. In this you will see how very little they knew of the truth, and in what deplorable doubt and uncertainty they were. It is a conversation, and each of the wise speakers tells in his turn some of the foolish thoughts and fancies of the time. Oh, what thick darkness what sad confusion in all their thoughts! When all had finished, poor Cicero declares that he is still in doubt lieve after he has heard them all.

what to be

Well, my

children, suppose that while all these wise men were thus assembled in Cotta's house in Rome, a little boy of the tribe of Judah had come among them with his Book of Genesis in his hand, what might he have said to all these wise Romans?

"Much honoured sirs, you know not what you say, you are in doubt, and you cannot tell what to believe, and you are all deceived; but we, in our children's school, know the truth with perfect certainty,—we know it because God himself has told us in his book, that in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.'

A little child with the Bible is wiser than

all the so-called wise men of the earth without it. These great truths have been often "hid from the wise and prudent, and revealed to babes" (Matt. xi. 25).

You see then, my friends, that it is by the Bible that we have the knowledge of the truth; and it is by faith that we have the happiness to know it with certainty. So the apostle Paul told the Hebrews: "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear" (Heb. xi. 3).

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." But when was this beginning? Remark that Moses says nothing of the time before "the beginning." This is a time which we cannot understand; it is a depth too great for man to look into, it is too long for man even to conceive,-words cannot express it, and it is better not even to think of it,-it does not concern us. Again, Moses does not tell us how long a time has passed since the beginning." This time is longer, perhaps, than we can either understand or express. But this does not concern us either.

One thing is certain, that the heavens and the earth had " a beginning," however long ago it may have been.

All things have had a beginning except God. He alone, the Holy Trinity, has had no beginning, because he has been from eternity. 'From everlasting to everlasting he is God" (Ps. xc. 2). That is why he is called Jehovah,

The

"I AM." "" 'He is, and was, and is to come." He is "the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity" (Rev. i. 8; Isa. lvii. 15). Father is called "Jehovah," the Son is called "Jehovah," the Holy Spirit is called "Jehovah." That is why the apostle Paul writing to the Hebrews speaks to them of the “eternal Spirit" (Heb. ix. 14); and the apostle John speaking of the eternal Son, begins his Gospel as Moses begins his Genesis, with the same important and mysterious word,-" In the beginning" "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made" (John i. 1-3).

Thus Moses says, "In the beginning God

created the heaven and the earth;" and John says that "in the beginning was the Word," and "all things were made by him." Then, was there anything before this "beginning?”

There was God, and the "Word who was with God, and is God."

Read what the Father says to the Son in the 102d Psalm, as it is quoted in the Epistle to the Hebrews: "Unto the Son he saith, . . . Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands: they shall perish, but thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment; and as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail."

These words are in the 102d Psalm, and in the Epistle to the Hebrews the apostle Paul tells us that the Father says these words to the Son (Heb. i. 8–12).

In our Lord's last prayer while he was on earth-when he knew that the hour was near when he was to leave the world and return to the Father he speaks of the time before the beginning of the world, when he was with

the Father.

He says, "And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. ... Thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world" (John xvii. 5, 24).

But I must go on to the second word of our verse the word "created." I call it the second, because though it comes third in our translation, it is the second word of the verse in the original Hebrew, and I follow the same order.

"Created," means made of nothing. These things were not; but God spoke, and they were.

It is through faith, St. Paul tells us, “that we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God; so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear" (Heb. xi. 3).

We must distinguish carefully between the two words "created" and "made.” Moses observes the difference when he says, "God rested from all his work which he created and made" (Gen. ii. 3).

A watchmaker makes a watch, but he does not and can not create it. He gets the gold, and the copper, and the zinc, and the steel,