Bible Romances First Series

The Book of Genesis is generally thought as Professor Huxley says to contain the beginning and the end of sound science. The mythology of the Jews is held to be a divine revelation of the early history of man and of the cosmic changes preparatory to his creation. The masses of the people in every Christian country are taught in their childhood that God created the universe including this earth with all its flora and fauna in five days; that he created man the bright consummate flower of his work on the sixth day and rested on the seventh. Yet every student knows this conception to be utterly false; every man of science rejects it as absurd; and even the clergy themselves mostly disbelieve it Why then do they not disabuse the popular mind and preach what they deem true instead of what they know to be false? The answer is very simple. Because they feel that the doctrine of the Fall is bound up with the Genesaic account of Creation and that if the latter be discredited the former will not long be retained. The doctrine of the Fall being the foundation of the scheme of Atonement the clergy will never admit the Creation Story to be mythical until they are forced to do so by external pressure. At any rate they cannot be expected to proclaim its falsity since by so doing they would destroy the main prop of their power