All things were made through him; and without him was not any thing
made that hath been made.--John 1:3.


I.

DIFFERENT THEORIES OF CREATION.

Every early people naturally asked the questions, How were things
made? How were men created? First of all, Who made the world?
They necessarily answered them according to their own dawning
knowledge.

The most primitive races believed that some great animal created
the earth and man. In the Alaskan collection in the museum of the
University of Pennsylvania there is a huge crow, sitting upon the
mask of a man's face. This symbolizes the crude belief of the
Alaskan Indians regarding the way man was created. The early
Egyptians thought that the earth and man were hatched out of an
egg. In one part of Egypt it was held that the artisan god Ptah
broke the egg with his hammer. In another part of the land and
probably at a later date the tradition was current that Thoth the
moon god spoke the world into existence. The earliest Babylonian
record states that:

The god Marduk laid a reed on the face of the waters,
He formed dust and poured it out beside the reed;
That he might cause the gods to dwell in the dwellings
of their heart's desire,