The Chaos of the Earth Illustrated by the Chaotic Condition of the Moon

The Chaos of the Earth Illustrated by the Chaotic Condition of the Moon

C. Williams. Genesis 1:2And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep… Of such a condition of the earth, a definite idea may be formed by an examination of the moon's surface — a very chaos of explosive action. Thousands of small pits are there, and, as certainly, immense chasms, whose flattened interiors rival a congeries of English counties, while stupendous ridges and peaks encompass them, standing out like the Apennines and Pyrenees, and sometimes transcending the loftiest eminences of the Alps. He who has traversed the Great Schiedegg and the Wengun Alp, beneath the shadow of the almost vertical steeps of the Wetterhorn and the Eiger, has been awe-struck by summits so towering, and descents so profound; and yet feeble is their image of the heights and depths of the moon's Himalayas. What evidences are these of volcanic agency, while other elevations, due possibly to the same mighty power, astound him who steadily contemplates them, by their rectilinear extent. Yet, amidst these cindery plains, no river makes a path, no stream meanders; down those precipices neither silver thread of water winds its way, nor is there the gushing, the tumbling, and foaming of some huge cascade; and hence the great desert of Africa resembles the naked and arid wastes, where no life springs forth to relieve, much less to cheer, this immense scene of unmitigated desolation. As, then, the moon is, so was this earth of ours, when Moses described not its contents, of which he knew nothing, but its surface, as without form and void. (C. Williams.) And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters: —