The Fourth Day or Epoch

"And God made two great lights, the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night."

It is not necessary to suppose that the Sun and the Moon were created after our Earth. Instead there is a much more reasonable way of viewing the matter. The Sun, the Moon and the Stars were created long before, but had never, up to this time, cast their light upon the Earth because of the impenetrable veil which canopied it.

The appearance of the Sun and the Moon on the Fourth Day implies that another ring broke at that time and precipitated its great mass of water and mineral upon the Earth. Great gullies were washed between the mountains.

The atmosphere, heavily charged with carbon, was very favorable to the development of plant life.

It is supposed that the Earth still had considerable heat in its crust, that oceans were warm and highly carboniferous, and that the air was surcharged with carbon to the extent that no breathing animal could have existed. But those very conditions were extremely favorable to gigantic growths of vegetation.

This giant vegetation presumably passed into a condition resembling that of the peat-beds of our day. These beds of incipient coal afterwards came under great pressure, as one after another the rings of Earth came down in deluges, burying vegetation under slimy deposits. Our coal-fields are the result.

We are not to assume that the Sun and the Moon shone on the earth then as now. But they were discernible even through heavy banks of fog and carbon-laden atmosphere. The influences of the Sun and the Moon were necessary to prepare for higher forms of plant and animal life.

We may as properly lay stress on the word rule as on the word made in this text. God caused the Sun to rule the day and the Moon to rule the night. Besides, symbolically, it is claimed that the Moon represents the Law Covenant rule, and the Sun the New Covenant rule.