the fewest words the elemental fact that the formation of
the created earth lies above and before man, and that therefore it is
not man's but God's. Man finds himself upon it, with many other
creatures, all parts in some system which, since it is beyond man and
superior to him, is divine.

Yet the planet was not at once complete when life had appeared upon it.
The whirling earth goes through many vicissitudes; the conditions on its
fruitful surface are ever-changing; and the forms of life must meet the
new conditions: so does the creation continue, and every day sees the
genesis in process. All life contends, sometimes ferociously but more
often bloodlessly and benignly, and the contention results in momentary
equilibrium, one set of contestants balancing another; but every change
in the outward conditions destroys the equation and a new status
results. Of all the disturbing living factors, man is the greatest. He
sets mighty changes going, destroying forests, upturning the sleeping
prairies, flooding the deserts, deflecting the courses of the rivers,
building great cities. He operates consciously and increasingly with
plan aforethought; and therefore he carries heavy responsibility.

This responsibility is recognized in the Hebrew Scripture, from which I
have quoted; and I quote it again because I know of no other Scripture
that states it so well. Man is given the image of the creator, even when
formed from the dust of the earth, so complete is his power and so real
his dominion: And God blessed them: and God said unto them, Be fruitful,
and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion
over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every
living thing that moveth upon the earth.

One cannot receive all these privileges without bearing the obligation
to react and to partake, to keep, to cherish, and to co-operate. We have
assumed that there is no obligation to an inanimate thing, as we
consider the earth to be: but man should respect the conditions in which
he is placed; the earth yields the living creature; man is a living
creature; science constantly narrows the gulf between the animate and
the inanimate, between the organized and the inorganized; evolution
derives the creatures from the earth; the creation is one creation. I
must accept all or reject all.

_The earth is good_

It is good to live. We talk of death and of lifelessness, but we know
only of life. Even