DID THE WORLD MAKE ITSELF?
_Understand, ye brutish among the people; And, ye fools, when will ye be wise?
He that planted the ear, shall he not hear?
He that formed the eye, shall he not see?
He that chastiseth the heathen, shall he be not correct?
He that teacheth man knowledge, shall he not know ?_--PSALM xciv.

8, 9.
Has the Creator of the world common sense?
Did he know what he was about in making it?
Had he any object in view in forming it?
Does he know what is going on in it?
Does he care whether it answers any purpose or not?
Strange questions you will say; yet we need to ask a stranger question: Had the world a Creator, or did it make itself?
There are persons who say it did, and who declare that the Bible sets out with a lie when it says, that "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Whereas, say they, "We know that matter is eternal, and the world is wholly composed of matter; therefore, the heavens and the earth are eternal, never had a beginning nor a Creator." But, however fully the atheist may know that matter is eternal, we do not know any such thing, and must be allowed to ask, How do _you_ know?
As you are not eternal, we can not take it on your word.
The only reason which anybody ever ventured for this amazing assertion is this, that "all philosophers agree that matter is naturally indestructible by any human power.

You may boil water into steam, but it is all there in the steam; or burn coal into gas, ashes, and tar, but it is all in the gas, ashes, and tar; you may change the outward form as much as you please, but you can not destroy the substance of anything.
Wherefore, as matter is indestructible, it must be eternal." Profound reasoning! Here is a brick fresh from the kiln.

It will last for a thousand years to come; therefore, it has existed for a thousand years past! The foundation of the argument is as rotten as the superstructure.

It is not agreed among all philosophers that matter is naturally indestructible, for the very satisfactory reason that none of them can tell what matter in its own nature is.