Then God actually formed or fashioned a man.  It is not now that He created the ideal form to be produced in due time, but that He actually formed the individual Adam, and placed him in a garden which He had prepared for the purpose.  All the words used now imply actual production.  The Divine ideal was ready, and the earth-elements (of which we know man’s body to consist) were ready at the Divine word to assume the human shape.  And that done, God “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” (mark the direct act on the man himself), and the man became a “living soul.”  There is nothing here of the “earth bringing forth” as in the former narrative.  We have the direct act of God, not in the design only, but in the production of the thing itself.

If this is not a complete explanation and justification of the second narrative, I do not know what, in common fairness, is entitled to be so called.

The language may be rigorously examined, and it will fully bear out the position taken up.

I conceive, then, that the cumulation of proof need go no further.  The true explanation of Genesis i. also supplies the place for Genesis ii. 4, et seq., and overcomes all the difficulty that has hitherto existed on the subject.

It will now, I trust, be clear that by such an interpretation of Genesis we at once give (1) a full and natural meaning to all the terms; we reconcile it with other Scripture, and we enhance all the sublime attributes which we have been reverentially accustomed to connect with this ancient passage. (2) We obviate the difficulty regarding the second narrative in chapter ii. 4.  And (3) we place the whole above any possible conflict with science, and above any need for “reconciliation.”  Here, too, is a purpose and meaning assigned to the whole narrative, without being driven into the difficult position of supposing the verses to be the literary outcome of an ignorant imagination which gave expression to its crude ideas only—­though enshrining among utterly false details a sublime truth, regarding which one can only wonder why it could not have been stated without the encumbrance of the surroundings.

The naturalist and the biologist may continue, unquestioned, to work out more and more of the wondrous story of Life on the globe.  They can never disprove, or on any of their own grounds deny, that God is the Author of all things—­matter, force, and mind alike; that He designed the form and relations of the earth; that He organized its light, its seasons, and its changes; that He has furnished the types and patterns of all life-forms which matter and force are conformably thereto, developing on the earth.  In short, REVELATION tells us that God did all this “in the beginning,” how His form-designs were thought out and declared in six days, and how He rested on the seventh day.

SCIENCE will tell us how, when, and where the Creative fiats and the designs of heaven were realized and worked out on earth.