with them, on the contrary, agree, in the most remarkable manner, the
results obtained by the most learned philologists and the profoundest
geometricians_."[222]

2. To the second objection--that astronomers have discovered stars whose
light must have been millions of years traveling to this earth, and that
consequently these stars must have existed millions of years ago, and
therefore the Bible makes a false declaration when it says the universe
was created only some six or seven thousand years ago--I reply by
asking, _Where does the Bible say so?_

"What," says our objector, "is not that the good old orthodox doctrine
of Christians and commentators? Do they not unanimously denounce
geologists and astronomers as heretics, for asserting the vast antiquity
of the earth?"

We shall see presently that no such unanimity of denunciation has ever
existed, and that some of the most ancient and learned Christian
commentators taught the antiquity of the earth, from the Bible, before
geology was born. But that is not the question before us just now. We
are not asking what the good old orthodox doctrine of Christians, or the
unanimous opinion of commentators may have been; but what is the reading
of the Bible--_What does this Book say?_--not, "What does somebody
think?"

"Well," replies our objector, "does not the Bible say, in the first of
Genesis, that God created the heavens and the earth in six days, and
Adam on the sixth; and are not chronologists agreed that that was not
more than seven thousand years ago, at the very utmost?"

If the Bible had said that God created the heavens and the earth in six
days, and that the end of that period was only seven thousand years ago,
it would by no means follow that the beginning of it was only a few
hours before that; for every Bible reader knows, that the most common
use of the word _day_, in Scripture, is to denote, not a period of
twenty-four hours, but a period of time which may be of various
lengths.[223] In this very narrative (Genesis ii. 5) it is used to
denote the whole period of the six days' work: "In the day the Lord God
made the earth and the heavens." Does it mean just twenty-four hours
there? In the first of Genesis, its duration is defined to consist of
"the evening and the morning." Before our Infidel chronologist finds
out the Bible date of creation, he must be able to tell us _of what
length was the evening which preceded the first morning_, and with it
constitut