In the Beginning

In those few words is enshrined the story of countless ages. Long before man came into being, long before the infinite variety of animal and vegetable life which now inhabits this planet was brought forth, the work of God was going steadily forward. In the mighty crucible of Nature, He was moulding and fashioning a fitting home for humanity. He compelled the tremendous forces of the Universe to work together in slow but ceaseless motion until after the lapse of ages upon ages the angels looked down upon this solar system of ours with the parent sun majestic in the centre of its family of circling planets.

The Earth was one of those planets. Long epochs had yet to pass before even the humblest form of life could appear on its troubled surface. Great eruptions of Nature from within, avalanches and floods from above, all combined to keep this new world in a state of perpetual unrest. But eventually there came a time when the tumult was stilled, when the boiling seas subsided and the land had some measure of peace from warring elements, and in that eventful day life was born on earth.

No man saw it come. No human history can go back to those first beginnings when lowly creatures of the seashores were the lords of material creation. Long years afterwards the chronicler wrote "And God said, Let the waters bring forth the moving creature that hath life... and it was so."

So passed the centuries, the millenniums, the epochs during which God worked silently, in that orderly development which characterizes all His works, preparing a home for a new creation which He purposed. At length the watching angels saw a new wonder at which they shouted aloud for joy. Beings - intelligent, perfect, capable of love and gratitude, worship and service - made to be the crowning glory of that creation which had taken so long a time to bring to this climax. "The morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy." (Job 38.6).

With what serene pleasure must the Father have gazed upon the first material beings and foreseen the wonders of a future age when the earth shall be fully perfected, and when mankind shall have achieved the Divine ideal and attained to the image and likeness of God. A small thing is a great thing if God is in it. His power creates the tiny flower bud, the opening leaf, the blade of grass. He forms the grain of sand, the tiny globule of water, the glittering crystal of the snowflake. And it is these small things that make up the mighty oceans with their sand-girt shores, that clothe the vast forests, the rolling fields, and the snow-laden landscape.

God uses all His works. The weakest thing has a service of its own. The dewdrop, the little bird upon the tree, the flower of the field, the flitting butterfly, the busy bee. All creatures serve Him, small and great, and He can use us though we are the weakest of them all.