wrote my
name in the book with a suitable inscription and a reference to Psalm
cxix. 105. I turned up the passage and drew the conclusion that he
desired his gift to be a lantern unto my feet and a light unto my paths.
And so it was until other knowledge, the rudiments of which he had
himself endeavoured to impart to me, threw glimmerings across my way and
I passed through a distracted period of inability to distinguish the
signals of danger from those of safety. Much the same thing has happened
to many others and assistance has sometimes been found in compromise and
accommodation. Thus the statement about 4004 B.C., when read by the
light of another statement in the Book, does not seriously conflict with
the teachings of modern science. Until further knowledge shall eclipse
the few feeble lanterns that are now doing their best to illuminate my
course I shall continue to hold the opinion that, as in the sight of Him,
who is the Life of the Universe, a thousand years are but as yesterday,
so in the sight of man, who has been God's image upon earth for more ages
than anyone can tell, six thousand years are but as last week. And I
shall keep my thousands in a condition as elastic as may be necessary to
bear any stretching that future discoveries may put upon them.

It was many thousands of such weeks ago, when Mother Earth was herself in
her infancy, before her baby bones had hardened, that Arethusa first came
to the island she has made her home. She is still coming and can be seen
to-day still rising as fresh as ever. The story of the early days of her
exile was not told by Clio because Clio was only a modern Agamemnon in
history, many a brave muse had flourished before she was thought of. One
of them took for her infinite papyrus the firmament of space, those
heavens which shall one day be rolled together as a scroll, whereon she
inscribed chapters in stars and volumes in constellations. We cannot see
all her works, nor can we read all we see, but we know that she put us
into one of her books. A few paragraphs of that chapter which forms our
planet lie scattered around Siracusa; we recognise her manuscript in the
shape of the Great Harbour, in the depth of the sea, in the height of the
hills, in the strata of the rocks, in the soil, in the vegetation.

There were early muses who employed flint implements and arrow-heads for
records, and neglected to clear away the remains of prehistoric meals in
caverns. Othe