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Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent Atre filmds d des taux de reduction diffdrents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour Atre reproduit en un seul cliche, il eat film6 A partir Je Tangle supdrieur gauche, de gauche A droite. et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'imeges ndcessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illu&trent la mdthode. 32 X 1 2 3 4 5 6 S( LECTURES ON THE HARMONY or SCIENCE AND REVELATION. ^^^^^^^^^^w»^^^wv^^ww* BY THE llEV. M. HARVKY, BCIKZ8TBR OF TRB FBBB ORVROB, ax. JOHN'S, NCWPOUNOLANO. V^^y<»<^»^ v <^w«»^^»w» w M iialifajr, iN'. S. : JAMES BARNES, 179 HOLLIS STREET. ST. JOHN'S, N. F.: THOMAS McCOJJNAN. me. Introd Is Theh t1 Oi S Vcget ii IlaruK »! C tl Tbeui It CONTENTS. LECTURE I. pAoe. Introductory :— How apparent contradictions between Science and Reve- lation arise— Present want of harmony— Advances of Modern Science —No real discoid— The Bible docs not reveal scientific truth. - 1 LECTURE 11. The history of the earth as disclosed by Geology— Changes through which the surface of the globe has passed— Internal heat— How a continent is formed— Same forces at work now as formerly— Vast age of the earth. 12 LECTURE in. Change the law of the universe—Processes going on at the bottom of the ocean— Composition of the earth's crust— Divisions of Geology— Or- ganic remains— Progress of creation. 23 LECTURE IV. Vegetable and animal creations of the past— Extinct species— Progression in the condition of the earth— Theory of " The Vestiges of Creation." 33 LECTURE V. Harmony of the Geological and Scriptural History of Creation— The earth's age not revealed in Scripture — The six days' work and Geology— Dr. Chalmers' theory now insuilicicnt — Miller's scheme of harmonizing the two records— The Mosaic vision of past creations. - - - 42 LECTURE VL The universal law of death— Death in the world before man's creation- Its connection with sin— liarmony of the Bible with Geology. 53 VI. CONTENTS. LECTUBE VII. Page. The Deluge— Are there any Geological traces of it ?— Not universal— Esamiuation of the Scriptural record (J3 LECTURE VIII. The Rcsurrootiou viewed In the lij,'ht of Modern Science— Diniculties— The Destiny of our globe ami race as discoverable by science. - 73 LECTURE IX. Extent and grandeur of the universe as disclosed by Modem Astronomy. 82 LliCTURE X. Arc there other iiiliabitcd worlds besides our own ?— Evidence of Astro- nomy and ecology 90 LECTURE XI. Difficulties connected with the docUiue of a Tlurality of Worlds. a? PKEFACE. Thk relation in whiol, modem soientilic .lisoovory stan.ls to rev,.|., christianitv i^ l)v C. , . <»/>t.il)li>Ii il..' ii,.nuony of science iiiid subjects, to ignore these Maiding ,hVn.v,.,i... ..r.l o I.., . H ' tben- usnul May, believing ti.eir Bib! .-,..", • • 7'"' ^" ""' about science. I venturcMohinivr i ,1 ^''"^'"' '^'"•"•">"' would neither be ^ise Zn- vo ot i ; . "V""^'"' 'J"- ; •'"■'' " ''''''''' dieal, in which you S nm Hn • 4 ^i! ':"-^'-!-;. - ^'1-" - I-Ho- gical and as.roLiical .l' cli(ir( a chart ot ii certain voyage, and lliat thmngli Tear of ahinning navigators who havo to follow the conr-c he lays down, he omits all mention of certain t eiice am net MS sup|)osc that, trusting to his chart, the mariner sails on in liiucicd secu- rity till the cry of "hreakers adiead " strikes on his eai', and in another moment his vessel strikes, and is dashed to fragmeuts ; who hut the con- utrnctor of the chart, who wilfidly led him in ign<»rance of his danger, is accountalde tor the inii>rmation of their situation, would it not he worse than cruelty to leave him in igncmince iind uncer- certainty, if we had the means of inii>rming him where his dang(.'r hiy. Now, in the presi nt 4lay a vagu<' sus|>icion has seized ou many im[»er- feetly informed minds, that such and such (h)ctrines of Christianity have heen shaken ; — rumours ol' ohjeclions urged hy seienlitie men are abroad ; and whatever is vague juid uncertain is conjured np hy the imagination into something hir greater than the reality. 'J'hese objections, which in the distance and by report, are so vast and powerful, looked at ch)se at hand, dwindle into utter insignilicance. Christian wisdom and prudence therefore urge us to meet these diinculties maid'ully and «»penly, if we wish to comiterjict their evil tendency on many minds. Besides it is utterly unworthy of the cause! of our holy religion, which profosses to rest on tnilh, and not to fear the most rigid ex.amination, to shrink from coidVontuig any of the established truths of science. Chris- tianity courts intpiiry : delights to come to the light ; fears no adversary. Distant be the day when tlie advocates of Christianity shall shrink from encoimtering any liie; or hope to sustain theii- cause by taking refuge iu any conscious tiillacy ; or, ostrich-like, iTuhi their heads'in the sand, that they may not sec the danger, and thus expect to g(.'t rid of it. Such a course may be the result of zeal, but " it is not according to knowledge" — nor yet according to honesty. The foUowing pages contain a coiu'se of lectures, on the harmony of .science and revelation, lU'livered on week-evenings, during the course of last winter. These lectures were so fiuonrably received, when delivered, as to induce me to hope that they might be more widely useful, if commit- ted to the printed page. In extenuation of all defects 1 beg to state that they were written amid the pressure of pastoral engagements, and that they are published as they were delivered, with but a few trifling correc- tions. It will also be remembered that, in presenting scientific truths to u general audience, the style and illustrations must be plain and popular, if we wish to engage attention ; and all minute details, and lengthened references to authorities must be avoided. M. H. iSt. John's, Ist November, 1856. the pngos of a fliart ot a rs who liavi' I'tiljiin ilaii- ' ; ami K') iis f'aiK'inl socii- iil ill aiiollii r Itiit tin' ron- is (laiifiiT, is It! less jiiiilly, •raiu'f of (•(•!• niiiiiii'iit tlify (in u voyajr"', r saii(I-l)aiii\ii <-ir sitiiatidii, L' and uncci- laiigcr lay. juaiiy im|KT- ■ulai', J lengthened M. H. LECTIRE I I.v com.noncinjr « Couiso of Lectures on the Harmony between Sci- Hieeand Hevelation it becomes necessary. fir>t of all, to indicate the pn-cise object ain.cd at, and the track whicl. if is p.-opo.-d ,.. ,;,„o„,_ Looking at the r.dative poMtions ocupi.-d by physical .-cience and Kevela- t|'»n, at the present hour, it would be ditficuit, I thh.k, to over-estimate the importance of removing all apparent diserepan.-ies be.w.en the.,. >•■<.<•. mgs, and bringing into a clear light that beautiful harmony which really exists wh-ther we p..,reive it or not. To establish a peife,., „„. .lerstanduig between these two ..vn, departments of hiun;,,, „ ,,,., ,„„,,i advance the best interests of botli,_would purify an.l e,.nob|e seie,,.. by giving It a high i ud holy purpose, and thu- comn.eiidin;r j, ,., m.,. nffec- nons ot the Christian worl.l.-and would place revelation on a lulli..,. an.l surer pedestal, i-s being in harmony with the high,.st reason, and an an- ncipation of the purest philosophy. I „,,y ,|,,.,vfore justly c-laim (br the suliject 1 have ventured to take up, your serious attention, as beiu^. one ;.t the proioundest importance.-one that has the closest bearin-rs J, the ■nterestsot our ,.ommon <.hristianity, and comes home to our every-day .■x.stence. Ami however imperfectly f may be abl,. . discuss such a l"f y H.eme, I f,.el .-.ssured that every Jionest endeavou. towanls such an n.d, will be welcomed, in the present day, by all thoughtful minds, J.ow- <'ver tar short the performance may come. It is n..t difneult to understand how a necessity arises, from time to tnne f,,r harmom/ing science and revelation. That necessity has its oimdation „, the very nature of each, and springs from n.an's imperfec^t knowledge. Science, being an acquaintance with nature, is necessarily progressive, and, fvom small beginnings, struggles onward, amid many .n..takes and imperfect theories, to something vast, certain and command- >ng. It IS constantly receiving additions and accumulations, century af- ter century ; and to the end of time must continue an ever increTsin. qtmn uy. Thus, continually presenting new aspects and larger results" ■ s relation to revelation must of necessity vary from time to time ; and tlie theory which at one stage in the advance of science suffices toharmo- 2 nize its r»«ults with tho. ti-at'liiiiH!* <>t revt'luti«>ii, will not Ik- siitistaotoi-y ui'U'.r new (icMs have bo«'ii explorod and new liarve>ts ^atlirtiMl. The bearings of these fresli discoveries have to in' taken, and their lehilion to the truths of revelation itsoertained. llenee tiie Meeesj.ily, at dith-renl periods, tiir fresh ndjiislnients between faith and rejuson. Uesides, lhoii;ih the llible, being the offspring (tf divine inspiration, is in itself eoniplele nnd perfect, yt!t man's interpretation of the volume is imperfect, and like science, admits of corrections and hnprovements. Advancing knowledge has often rectilied erroneous interpretations of the Hihle ; and what one age bus hehl as the dictates of revelation, increased light leads a succeed- ing ago to regard as a wrong deduction fr«)m scripture. This als«» neces- sitates fre([uently a fresh method of harmonizing science and rcvehuion. An example will illustrate this point. Three centuries ago men believed that the earth was at rest, nnd that tho sun and stars revolved round it, in the space of twenty-ti>ur hours. It was also hehl that the Hihle .-auc- tioned this view of the imiverse ; and various passages were pointed to lus teaching it most emphatically. About the same time scienc<' struck out the real, planetary arrangement— that the sun's motion from east to west is not real but only apparent, and is produced by the motion ot the earth, on its own axis, in the opposite direction. The wonder-working telescope wa.^ soon alter pointed to the skies ; and the motion of the pla- nets round the sun became u matter of demonstration, no htuger admitting of doubt, llenco ensued, tor a time, a most painful conflict ; science was apparently at wm* with revelation. The contradiction was supposed to be complete ; and pious njinds, whose reverence for the Bible was strong, regarded the doctrine of the earth's motion as impious, and leading on to infidelity. The telescope was denounced as the enemy of religion, and an invention of Satan. The world, however, contimied to move, not- withstanding ecclesiastical opposition, and the denunciations of doctors of divinity. The stubborn fsict remained, and would not be ignor(>d. At length men began to inquire whether the current interpretation of the Bible was infallible, and whether revelation really demanded their assent to the notion of the earth being at rest, and the sun and stars revolving round it. Even a brief c(»nsiderat ion was suflicient to show that the liible taught nothing, on this point, as a matter of fact, but spoke in language current among men when it was written ; and, not being designed to re- veal nnknown scientific truths, it used tli(> only phraseology that woidd then have been intelligible, when it referred to the earth as at rest, and the sun rising and setting. Thus harmony was at once restored ;— good men bowed to tlie discoveries of science, and revered their Bibles as nuich as before, and at the present day no man reckons this as an objection to the truth of revelation. A simple prmciple of correct interpretation ap- plied to the Bible, removed the ajjparent contradiction. The case fur- niahes an instructive lesson to all succeeding ages. I salistiu'tory icrnl. Tlic r t'l'lation to at ilith'n'iil ilU-S. tllUll}r|| It' ('()ii>|il(>lt> >ct, anil likf ; kiuiwlcdjif I what oin' s a siircccd- i also !1(T«'S- I rovt'latioii, lOii hclicvL'd i'<| I'liiiiul it. IJililf -aiic- |ioiiit(.'iI to 'iicr stniok (tin rust to Dtioii <*t tlio Icr-workiii^ of till' pla- L>i'atlniittin<; scit'iK'f was (jKist'il to bo was »tr(»nMuv ihiiiK has occurred »iow, as took place repeatedly in previous nges ; —the relations of science and revelation rccpiirc a fresh adjustment. The l>a>l half-century has witnessed advances in science so rapid and brilliant, as to throw all |»revious discoveries intothe shade. Within that time.the new x'ience of (Jeolo^'y has sprung up, attained giant pn.portions, and already iMciipies a front rank. Astronomy has inmiensely extended its con(|uesls, and exhibits an array of the most dazzling discoveries. In Chemistry, I'hysiology, Klectro-Magnetism, an*l all the other dcpaitments of natural science, vast strides have been made. The result of all is an unmense enlargenu'nt of man's acipuiiutance with the universe — with the great lorees at work therein, and the mighty laws that regulate the whole. In consetpience of this, new modes of thought are insensibly making way- new ideas regarding nature, and n»an's relation to the tlungs around him —new conceptions of the universe and its Almighty Creator. Old for- mulas are found insutticient, and are impatiently east Jiside,— the intel- lect has outgrown them ; and wider and ^rander views are substituted— And, just as in previous ages, these new discoveries are felt by many to jar with their most cherished religious convictions ; some of them seem to contradict what are regarded as the teachings of the Bible ; and a want of harmony betwf.-en them and our religious formularies and doctrines, is felt or imagined by not a few. The result is that many minds of inteUi- genee, sensibility, and religious sincerity, are oppressed with painful doubts ; their confidence in things they once regarded as settled is shak- en ; and while they are not sceptical, they are unsettled in their con- victions. ( )thers, again, who would gladly lay hold of any apology to get rid of the restnunts and claims of religion, take advantage of this state of matters to neglect its instructions, or to proclaim their contempt for its reipiirements. Infidelity is daringly active ; and exhibits its usual sub- tlety imd skill, in fresh attacks upon Christianity. Philosophy and reli- gion lune diverged so widely, that in the eyes of multitudes they seem to occupy hostile entrenchments, iuid to be at open warfare. Mean time, many of the master spirits of the age— men of warm piety and exalted intellect, conscious of the danger, have been and are labouring hard to bridge the gulf, and harmonize the results of man's intellectual progress with ihii dictates of his higher nature and the discoveries of revelation The results of their labours are inexpressibly valuable, and doubtless have cleared away innumerable difficulties, and brought nearer the great con- summation—the complete harmony of facts and reason. Still, I think, admitting that great results, in various departments, have been accomplish- ed, we yet wait for some master-spirit to appear,— some christian Plato, With aU-comprehending genius, coming in the spirit and power of Chal- mers-of expansive inteUeet and reverent heart— who shall gather up the great results of science, and combine them into one harmonious whole, and, by the eagle glance of his genius, shall strike out the higher law— " tlie hiw within the law,"- wliich will unite all true science in holy alli- aiu-e with all pure faith. The age waits for this great reconciler. May Oo struggles through which we are to be " made periect." Faith's victory is not to be lightly won. Through " much tri- bulation "—many doubts and many fears, 3.as the christian to pui-sue his onward march. Heaven alone, not earth, is destined to witness the re- pose ot faith. AVe have seen that as man progressed in knowledge, the present conflict was becoming, each day, more inevitable. It may cheer us to know that those who have gone before us have passed through simi- lar trials ; and that Christianity has again and again surmounted more se- rious dangers. Already we see enough achieved to warrant the belief that revelation will come forth " clear jis the sun and fair as the moon,"— and that no genuine result of science will ever be found discordant with the Bible when fairly interpreted. One by one all difficulties are disap- pearing. Science is rapidly l)ecoming morn animated with the spirit of religion, and reUgion more embued with the spirit of true philosophy ; and thus tlie day cannot be far distant when both shall appear, hand in hand, and unite with one voice in the burden of the angels' song, "glory to God in the iiighest— on earth peace, good-will to men." Rightly considered, it is impossible that any permanent discord can exist between science and revelation. If misunderstanding appear, it must arise either Ly some falsity propounded by science, or some falsity attri- buted by man to the book of revelation, but which has in reality no place there. Let us never forget that nature, which it is the object of science to investigate, is ju. truly divhie as the written volume of revelation— Both are but two volumes from the hand of the same Ahiiighty author. La both be (-orrectly interpreted, and there will be no contradiction.- Read each record aright, and the author will not be found to assert one thing ,n nature and the opposite in revelation. The starry scriptures of the sky cannot be at variance with the writings of "holy men of old who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." The lines traced by the Almighty hand, in the stony volume beneath earth's surface, if the mys- terious liieroglyphics are correctly deciphered, will be found in beautiful harmony with those scriptures which were « given by inspiration." The works of the Great Architect cannot give the lie to His word. What is this great universe— with its suns and galaxies— its myriads of planets and comets sweeping their majestic rounds through space— what is our earth, with its glorious cloud-capped mountains and ever-resoundinj; seas, and all its sister globes moving on in divine harmony— what are all but the embodiment of a divine idea— a realized thought of the Infinite mind! The universe is that imperial robe which Deity has wrapped around him — " the garment by which we see Ilim" ; and having worn this regal mantle ihv ages, He "folds it up as a vesture" and lays it aside, whilelie is the siuiu^ from everlasting to everlasting. All existed as a thought ori- ginally in the mind of (Jo.l ; the universe is its exi)ressi(.n. And so with I'ejrard to the vohnnc of revelation— it also consists of divine ideas robed in human language— the thou-hts of (lod taking form and substance, to om- minds. By these; two voices, the burden of which is different, (Sod speaks to ns ; but the truths they utter are divinely harmonious. How baseless, therefore, an; the christian's fears of science, as : . tile to reve- lation ! How vain the infidel's boi)e that reason would expiode faith !— Let us dismiss these jealousies and appreh<>nsions, in reference to science, as unworthy of Christianity. True science can never hijnre religion.— Let us welcome every fresh discovery, being persuaded that all will ad- vance the interests of everlasting truth. The Bible has suffered nothing as the human intellect has advanced— it dreads not the light— it has no° thing to fear from the march of mind ;— and after all the achievements of science and philosophy, it now stands on a loftier pedestal, and encircled by a diviner beauty than evei-. From her great rounds of investigation star-eyed science will ever return proclaiming " the God of nature Is the God of the liible." But while as christians we firmly believe that such will be the result, we are not to expect it to be brought about without effort on our part- without a hard contest and a long-drawn battl.-. Infidelity will contest every inch of ground, as it has done since the days of the Apostles. Beat- en from one defence, it occupies new gi-ound and renews the combat. Its old poshions have all been forced— its old fortifications blown up and laid waste ; but the campaign is not ended ; the enemy has t.nken up fresh IJositions, and here he must be attacked— not behind the old lines of defence which have been abandoned. It has ever been the; policy <.f infidelity to seize upon new discoveries in science, before they were reduced to sys- tem, and in this crude state to turn them to its own advantage. Thus the revelations of astronomy were treated in former days ; and thus the discoveries among the ruins of Egyjit and other eastern empires, were hastily seized on by infidelity, oniy to be as hastily abandoned. And pursuing the same policy now, infidelity is endeavouring to entrench it- self behind modem physical science. Here, possibly for some ages to come, the battle will rage. On this ground the enemy must be encoun- 6 fered, unles.-* we yield him the violoiy. Hence the pressbg call for all wlio would stand forward as def«ndei-s of the faith, to make themselves masters of tlie weapons that must be wielded ; — to become familiar with tlie processes and results of modern science. Without such equipment they cannot cope with the champions of infidelity. The study of theolo- }?y alone will no longer suffice. To denounce or ignore modern scientific discoveries will only expose the man who does so to pity or contempt ; and the greatest injury to the cause of Christianity will result from such a course. It would be Avell if all christians, especially all teachers of religion, in the i)ix'S('nt day, wen^ to poudcr the warnings utter«>(l by the distinguisiied author of" The Foot-prints of the Creator."— ]\L-. Hugh Millei- — whose reputation as a man of science is more than European, and wliose theology is as sound iis his science, has put forward the following warnnig admonititms :— " The clergy, as a eliiss suffer themselves to lin- ger fiir in tlic rear of an intelligent and acc(miplished laity, — a full agti behind the rn,j,rehensible and would have exposed theniselv<.s to .corn<,rsu.„iion" Accordingly we find that in condescension to human weakne... „,'.„,,' ance, God in the book of revelation made use of existim, modes of thought and expression, and the ordinary forms of language, when refer nng to the works of creation. To the Israelites these dix ine comnmnica- tions were addressed ; and it pleased the All-Wise to adapt these to the comprehension of the people to whom he was imparting instruetion Their knowledge of the outward universe-their ideas regarding the reh.tions m which they stood to the beings and circumstances aroun,! them -we.v all made use of as media fi,r bringing the divine revelation within their gra^p ; and tlie fonns of speech with whic-h they were familiar wer.^ sfrietlv observed. Only in sucli a way can we conceive of a nnelation from ( lod f« man as being a possibility-only (hu« could it be received and c(,nH,re- hended. Hence we find throughout the Old Testament, the Hebrew ideasandmodesofexpression complied with, when reforenee is made to the visible creation. A fow examples may be ,pio,ed in ilh.siration of this point :-We find repeated reforences to tl»^ earth as at rest .,nd the sun as in motion round it,-Thus it is said that God " laid the fi.umlations of the earth that it should not be removed for ever." « For he hath foun' ded it^upon the seas and established it upon the floods." " It shall „ot be moved for ever and ever." " The sun rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race His going forth is from the end of the heavens, and his circuit unfotheendsofit." '' Look now towards heaven, atid tell the stars if thou be able to number them," said God to Abraham, - .0 shall thy seed 8 be." This is evidently a condescension to existing ideas regarding the number of 4ho stars ; f<;r even in an eastern clime not more than fifteen hundred arc vi.uble ; and the numeration of them is an easy matter. The Hebrews fancied that at a certain height above the earth, there was a solid concave hemisphere, ui which the stars were fastened, and on which rested a celestial ocean, which discharged itself in rain. Hence we find tiie Bible spe.'diing of the (" waters above the firmament," and) " the waters above the heavens" — and the openings as " the windows of heaven.' They believed thunder to be "the voice of God;" and the lightning some kind of fiery substance like burning wood, we read there- fore, " The Lord also thundered in the heavens, the Highest gave forth iiis voice — hailstones and coals of fire." These examples will be suffici- ent to prove that in its references to natural objects, the Bible adapted itself to the existing knowledge, the tiioughts and expressions of the age in which it was written ; and made no revelation of scientific truths. But Aviiile I admit to the fullest extent that the inspired writers were not made acquainted miraculously with the secrets of nature, which sci- ence is continually unfolding, — and while T acknowledge that the lan- guage of the Bible is not scientific, but poi»uiar, wiien speaking of natu- ral phenomena, — 1 woidd as firndy hold tliat t lie simple phraseology which was intelligible to the Jews, has friqiiciitly alH)Ut it an expansiveness and universality which render it tiie very 1)est we can employ, in ordinary circumstances, with all our scientific progress. How str;uig<' to find that the language which cc.iveyed to the nnci'ltivated mind of tfie Jew, the child-like views of nature t.'i<'n reached, also expresses, in innumerable instances, the loftiest results of modern seietice. There were a hidden grandeur and fulness of meaning in its utterances, which neither the in- spired writers themselves, nor those to whom they spoke, were enabled to conij)rehend ; but which are eveiy day becoming brighter and clearer, as the discoveries of science ale adapted of the age fuflis. [•iters were wliicli sci- it tlie lan- ig of natu- ilogy whieli iveuesi! and II ordinary to find that '■ Jew, the [numerable ? a hidden her the in- re enabled nd clearer, it is that of the Bi- nof get in n sufficient ed the first 11 rally wifh liicli geolo- at concep- 3ut we may ;e was not )phetie an- ed to utter , as I hope s of Geolo- U8 be so, I 9 Mk, does it not stamp the divine origin of that wonderful record ? Could an unmspu-ed man, in such an age of the world as that in which Moses lived, construct an account of creation which would suffice for simple- minded men, aaid yet also be found in accordance wifh science in the 19th century r* And in such a method of veiling the truths, and wrapping them up in mystic or symbolic language, so that the revolution of a-el alone would fully bring them to light, there is nothing out of the ordinary course of revelation. The apostle Peter tell us that the full meaning of their own announcements was not made known to the prophets ; after ages alone discovered it; and every succeeding age brings out new disclosures. is there any thing more unreasonable in supposing that Scripture refer- ences to natural objects were but imperfectly understood, in many instan- ces, by the writers themselves, and those whom they addressed ; and that revolving ages, and the progress of man's mind, should bring out into clearer and fuUer light the hidden grandeur of meaning involved in their weighty utterances? This seems to be in accordance with the general law by which God has imparted his revelations to man. And hence it is that science cannot leave revelation behind ; but finds itself, in its loftiest flights, a commentator and illustrator of the sacred record. When « the monaich-minstrel" turned his gaze upon the starry vault, and exclaimed when! consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained, what is man that thou ai't mindful of him or the son of man that thou visitest him," have we not in this glowing language, a sublime comment on the wondrous disclosures of modern as fronomy; and even a Newton or a Herschel can give utterance to no grander conception of the universe, after all their study of the heavens I do not say that the true system of those heavens was revealed to the soul of David,— that he had unravelled " the mystic dances of the sky "— or understood the vastness and grandeur of the universe as science 'has now revealed it ;-but whatever may have been his thoughts regarding the deep-rolling heavens gemmed with stars, his language has mt become antiquated, as science advanced, but has a depth and grandeur of mean- ing which astronomy has not yet surpassed or exhausted. And again when Solomon said "all the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full ; into the place from whence the rivers came thither they return again,"— I do not think, with all his wisdom, that he was made acquaint- ed supernaturally with the laws of evajjojation, and the circulation of the atmosphere, as brought to Ught by modem research ; and yet how accu- rately his words express the results of science ! The water of the ocean evaporated by heat, ascend, and forms tl.e clouds ;-these are drifted about by the winds till intercepted by the peaks of hills and mountains • and thus m the very place that rivers have their origin, « thither they re- turn again." How can we account for this but by referring it to inspira. m? bo when m the book of Job it ig said, «He stretchetli out the 10 north over the empty place and hangeth the earth upon nothing," we need toot suppose that the great law of gravitation, by which the earth is sus- tamed in its orbit, was present to the mind of the speaker, or that he knew the north to be the quarter of the heavens least thickly studded with stars -—comparatively "the empty place"— as the telescope discloses; and yet could the modem astronomer find language more precise and vivid to ex- press these great truths ? The greatest discovery of modern times is the fact that the earth is swinging round the central sun, upheld by the invi- sible power of gravitation ; and yet language could not express the matter more impressively than the oldijst record in the world has done~« He stretcheth out the north over the empty place and hangeth the earth upon nothing." Unconsciously, almost, the lips of the speaker uttered the words ; but their full meaning did not become apparent till the illustrious Florentine pointed his telescope to the heavens, and Newton discovered the law of gravitation. In this way it is that science is made religion's handmaid, and bears witness to the divine origin of the Bible ; and thus, as years roll on, the halo of glory that surrounds the Book is becoming brighter and brighter. Science takes its flight into the distant starry spaces, or goes down into the depths of earth and reads the stony history of our planet, and then returns but to lay fresh tributesV the feet of re- velation. I would earnestly request my hearers to bear in mind, during *the in- vf^stigation on which we have now entered, the principle I have thus en- deavoured to explain and illustrate. It seems to me to meet all the diffi- culties of the case completely,— establishing the inspiration of the Bible, while it keeps clear of the absurd notion that its writers were made mira- culously acquainted with all modem science ; and by allowing a hidden scientific as well as prophetic meaning in many parts of scripture, which the lapse of ages is to unfold, it thus gives the freest scope to the inves- tigations and discoveries of science, and invests them all with a sacred character. We may therefore enter on the subject before us without any trembling misgivings— without any fears of finding science the foe of revealed reli- gion. It would be sad indeed if we must reckon the fairest and noblest product of human genius the enemy of that religion which has " brought life and immortality to light," and pointed the way « to glory, honour and immortality,"— if science, that has aheady brought such benefits to man, and b iautified and elevated his existence, should be found to war with his faith. We may rest assured it is not so ; — both are designed to ad- vance human culture and well-being, in time and eternity, and both are in harmony. Science is quickening and expanding that intellect which is the gift of God, by making man acquainted with his Creator's mind as discovered in His works. It has enlarged our views of the grandeur of God'8 universe, and consequently of the Creator's attributes—it has ig," we need arth is sus- hat he knew sd with stars es ; «nd yet vivid to ex- times is the by the invi- 3 the matter ione-." He earth upon uttered the ! illustrious discovered e religion's ; and thus, } becoming tant starry >ny history feet of re- ing'the in- e thus en- lU the difB< the Bible, oade mira- g a hidden ure, which the inves- I a sacred ^ trembling 'ealed reli- nd noblest " brought lonour and its to man, war with led to ad- 1 both are t which is s mind as andeur of s — it haa 11 thrown out great sounding lines into the fathomless gulfs of space— tracked the comet in its fiery course.-weighed the earth and all her sister planets, ■^scovered the lonely Neptune pursuing his path on the outskirts of our system,— made the dim nebulae of the firmament burst into blazing suns, -dived into the abysses, and read the divine law reigning alike in the distant and the near, and returned proclaiming « God is in this place,"— " His order guides and upholds the Infinite Cosmos." And thus science has hung up new lamps in the firmament, whose rays light the way to the throne of God ;— it has flung open the everlasting doors of the King of Glory, and invited man to enter and worship in the temple of immensity. It has brought glory to God, and has glorified our common humanity, by elevating it to a higher level. Descending to earth it has beautified and blessed human existence,— given man command over the rude powers of nature— enabling him to subdue the earth and bridge the ocean— to make the lightning his messenger, and the steam his servant— lightened hi» toil and multiplied his means of subsistence-and promising to bind toge, ther, as one family, aU the children of our Father in the bonds of love. It seems like profanity to call science, which does all this, irreligious.— Ihat cannot be godless which at every step proclaims an Ahnighty Fa- ther's presence, and tells us that there is a heart of love beating warm to- wards us, behind the curtain that shrouds the invisible. We might well weep, m heart-broken loneliness, if the teachings of science required us to cast aside the Bible,-if the revelations of a Newton, a HerscheU or a Humboldt, shook our faith in the higher and holier revelations of Isaiah or Paul. It is not so :— the voice of science coincides'with that of reve- lation ; and both unite in proclaiming "These are Thy glorious works, Parent ol good, Ahnighty! Thine this universal frame Thus wondrous fair ! Thyself how wondrous then, Unspeakable ! who sitfst above these heavens. lo us invisible, or dimly seen In these Thy lowliest works ; yet these declare Iby goodness beyond thought, and power divine." i « LECTURE II. The illustrious astronomer Kepler, after a life spent in studying the mysteries of the starry heavcri j, was about to step from time to eternity, and doubtless to obtain a more enlarged knowledge of that glorious uni- verse of which his enrth-bonnd spirit had only a few faint glimpses here. He had devoted a long life to the great purpose of revealing to his fellow creatures tlie glory of God ia His w->rks ; and had laboured for this end, amid poverty, neglect, and sore trials of flesh and spirit, as few have ever toiled. At last the great object I'or which he had struggled was at- tained, — his laborious calculations and observations had wrung from those silent orbs floating through space, the great law thac rules their movement? — the divine order according to which all sweep around the sun ; — a discovery which led the way to Newton's revelation of the grand secret of gravitatiop, and thus lifted the mystic veil froni the fair face of nature. It was when the truth had flashed upon Kepler, in all its bright- ness, and the long dreamed of music of the spheres had burst upon his ravished ear, that he exclaimed, in pardonable exultation, " I have stolen the golden vases of the Egyptians, to build up a tabernacle for my God, far away from the confines of Egypt. If you forgive me I rejoice — if you are angry I can bear it— the die is cast, the book is written, to be read either now, or by posterity — I care not which : it may well wait a century for a reader, as God has waited six thousand years for an obser- ver." His great spirit, imbued with an unquenchable thirst for beauty and harmony, was now satisfied ; and he felt that the truth he had grasp- ed could never be lost. Whether his contemporaries appreciated his dis- covery, or whether posterity alone should know its value, mattered not to himself personally ; and the great thought arose in his mind,— For six thousand years the Divin» Author of all this order and beauty has been waiting for an intelligent ci?ature to comprehend and adore ; cannot then a poor humble toiler on earth wait a century for his discovery to make its way, and enlighten and bless his fellow creatures. It is, indeed, won- derful to think that for six thousand years the heavens had been declaring God's glory, and yet how low were men's thoughts of the grandeur of descem orbs Ic dours. be all i with br verse, hours c ing up of God, like the the earl is only tion's vj and onl; universi turies h to expai fathomh and we on, here Divine s Andl before jr ed to aw stupendc here on i wonders • of God, no less p history o earth has ceeded ej couth for priest of ; indehbly great voli yet read, creative « tudying the to eternity, loriouB uni- npses here. 3 his fellow }r thia end, few have led was at- ruDg from rules their jround the f the grand fair face of I its bright- t upon his bave stolen r my Grod, rejoice — if tten, to be veil wait a p an obser- for beauty had grasp- ted hia dis- attered not , — For six 7 has been annot then y to make deed, won* 1 declaring rfmdeur of 13 creation—how far short of the reality were their narrow conceptions- how little of all that glory had any intelligent, earthly creature compre- hended. All that time men had looked up to the glittering firmament, and beheld the silver moon leading on the starry fold, as night having " Her sablo skirts all fringed with light, From the celestial walls," descended on wings of gloom. With diamond brightness those twinkling orbs looked down upon them, and vainly whispered of the hidden splen- dours. Man recognized them not. He fancied his little world was « the be all and the end all " of God's works ;-that a glassy sphere, studded with bright pomts, was whirling round the earth, the centre of the uni- verse, and that the stars were made but to glimmer for him during the hours of darknes... That those glittering specks were flaming suns, light- ing up unseen worlds in the depths of space, the homes of other creatures ol God, exceeding in number all computation ;-^that si.ter globes were, hke the earth, dancing round the sun, and these of a magnitude that put the earth into insignificance ; and that this world, with all its inhabitants, IS only as a gmin of sand upon the sea shore when compan^d with Crea-' tion's vastness—thls did not enter into the wildest dreams of sage or poet ; and only after six thousand years of waiting did the true grandeur of the universe flash upon the lu.man soul. Only after this long flight of cen- turies have the quenchless longings of man's immortal spirit found a field to expand in, and a meet temple for worship. Now we gaze upward into fathomless night, where every shining orb whispers of others more remote • and we are brought face to face with the Infinite. And as eternity flows' on, here is ample field for man's spirit to soai; nearer and nearer to the Divine source of all goodness, and glory, and blessedness. And to take another view. God waited more than six thousand year* before many of the wondrous workings of His hand on earth were unfold- ed to awaken man's adoration. We have been even more blind to the stupendous works of God, in the miracles of creative energy displayed here on earth, than to the magnificence of the deep-rolling heavens. The wonders beneath our feet— the marvellous records written by the finger of God, on rocky tablets, and on the foundations of the everlasting hills, no less proclaim the majesty of the Creator than suns and galaxies. A* history of the great processes of creation—of the phases through which earth has passed--of the strange races of organized beings that have suc- ceeded each other and now sleep in their stony sepulchres— of the un- couth forms that were earth's monarchs for ages before man, the high- priest of nature, was ushered upon the scene—a history of all this waa indelibly engraven « as with an iron pen, on the rock forever" ; but the great volume has only lately been opened, and but a few chapters are yet read. Poor, short-visioned man fancied that six thousand years ago, creative energy first went forth ; and that then, out of nothir his glob^ 14 sprang, in a moment, into existence. What the Almighty creative im< pulse had been operating away back in the past eternity, during periods beyond the powers of human calculation to tell,— that for myriads of cen- turies, Hie, ill its varied forms, had been leaping and exulting on earth,— and that before man, the youngest born of God's creatures, this stage of being was succesfiively occupied by lower existences that have passed away for ever, and are only known from their petrified remains,— that this should all have lieen an unwhispei-ed secret till within the memory of living men, shows how limited is our knowledge, and how small a propor- tion the known bears to the unknown. .Just as, on the one hand, astrono- my has im|)ailed vastly enlarged views of the extent of God's universe, so on the other, geology has immensely extended our conceptions of those immeasural)]e periods of the past eternity during which creative en(;rgy has been operating. In view of these more expanded views, how poor, and unwortiiy of tlio Great Creator, do the narrow conceptions of former ignorance now npy !ar ! Can wo doubt that all these advances in intelli- gence are im[)arting worthier ideas of His gloi-y who is " mighty in work- ing" ? All tell us that to the Everlasting, " one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day," for time is nothing to Him in whose sight a " thousand years are but as yesterday when it is passed, or as a wateh of the night." To the Eternal One, six thousand years of waiting arc but as a fleeting moment to ourselves. I have now to ask you to accompany me while I attempt a brief and necessarily imperfect sketch of the revelations of that science which has already unfolded grand viaws of the Creator's majestic plans of working, in the ages that are past. Having got a general idea of the conclusions to whieh the geological record leads, we shall then be in a position to com- pare these with the account furnished in the book of Genesis. Geology is that science which investigates the structure of the globe— the material of whieh it is composed— the changes through which it has passed—and the vegetable and animal races that have existed on its sur- face. As a seienee, it does not date more than sixty years back : but with such ardour and skill has it been prosecuted— so great a mass of talent has it attracted to its investigations, that already an amazing array of facts are accumulated, and its grand principles niay be regarded as incontro- vertibly established. The first great revolution which this science pro- duces in the ideas of those who make its acquaintance for the first time, is in regard to the changes through which the surface of the earth has passed, and the length of time occupied by these. It finds that the altera- tions which the surface of the globe lias undergone since man and the ex- isting races of animals became its tenants are comparatively insignificant. True indeed the mountains and hills have been crumbling under the ac- tion of air and water — the ocean waves have been dashing against the cliffs and undermming theii* bases and encroaching in many places on the creative im* iring periods 'riads of cen- ; on earth, — this stage of have paused mains, — that e memory of mil a propor- ind, astrono- i's universe, ions of those itive f'n(!rgy , how |)Oor, US of former ?s in intelli- »ty in work- n thousand ; to Him in is passed, or lid years of a brief and '■ which has of working, conclusions tion to com- the globe — hich it ha^ I on its sur- k : but with 18 of talent Tay of facts 3 incontro- cience pro- first time, earth has t the altera- and the ex- isignificant. ler the ac- igainst the aces on the 15 land-the rivers have been wearing their channels deeper and wider and o^rymg the spo Is of the land away into the ocean's bed ; but irchan's bus produced, since Adam's day, arc comparativoiy trill n. The ret Uve pos.Uons of land and sea have not altered to any meusm J x e ' ^he outhnes of continents and islands, the courses of rive td the He received our first parents m its peacofid bowers Chxucro 1h. i«.nn ■ on. but so slowly and gradually^har a.i.r six 1^!^^^ ^^2. are scarcely perceptiole. But then geology carries us a^a a r t yond man's bnef day on earth, and finds records of vnst ^aIJ^^^ took p uee, requ ring immense periods of time for the.,- ^.^^^^ Thus for example, the geologist finds o„ examining tlu. diffe on. C" beneath the surface of our present continents and land. wl^a now dry land was formerly the bed of an ocean, tonaniod by m rin a ma Is and plants ; and going deeper, he finds proof that til" nl^" have been alternately the bed of seas and the surfi.ce of dry la,,d Tw ages, ^ay more,-he finds that the lofta-st mountains on earth- o Himalayas and Andes and Alps, were fbrn.orly .submerged by , o oce n were oneebottomsof seas; and as a natural inL-encc ho co^c 1!^ wher. the ocean now rolls blooming continents once stood. 8hi ar 'u mg and the finny tribes disporting then.selves over the subine ■ cTru of great contmems and islands. The proofs of all this are plain 1 on rovert.ble--they appeal to the sen.es. The solid substance o f J ^ continents eonsists of layers of enormous depth, that have been dono it!d a. sediment at the bottom of the seas and are full of vast ace u' .^tt s ofsea-shells and other marine remains. More extraordinary ^Z ocks composing our highest mountain-chains have been dopo.L L v f' '-, layer upon layer-sea-sliells being found embeddod at tlu'r'v t summits-thus^demonstrating that their materials have been raised out o^" .he depths of the sea. Again and again have land and ocean .h tu!ed places : continents have become ocean-beds, and ocean-heds ..o.uin nt 4d mountam ranges But now arises the question, can we account fo ehe. raordmaiy transitions,-c.an we discover the process or point out the br ". by which the bed of a sea is changed into dry land a.ul becomes a flower dad landscape ; and by which mountain peaks and great tracts ofWy are submerged by the ocean > The answer to this involves a referl e The investigations of science have made it clear that change i. an an mted law of the universe. Great forces are in operation u.dc. tl e ae ly, according to its nature. The particles of matter are in eontinu. 1 . atio„,-in perpetual motion. The inorganic portions of the e! tl 1' the clay and stones-enter iato U.e plant and form its substance J he 16 plant boco*«ies the animal— the animal dies and illUfW to dust— and the Bamc process is repeated again and again — so that there \-> perhaps little of (|>e *(i\\d mau riala around us thu' has not been repeatedly alive, in the form t>« pJantd or anunaU. But tiiefit; ,ire only in>tnncert of clmnge on n limited scaU' tli '^arth itself, cegarded us a soli"* mass, is imdcr the ope- ration of the samr gr"iit law. Two great processt iire found to bo in operation, under the influence of two great antagonir.tie forces. The one is named the disintegrating or degrading process — the tendency of which is to reduce all things to a level. Look around, and yon will see it every where at work. Slowly but surely it is crumbling down the loftieat mountains — eating away the hard granite and quartz — sapping the toun- dations of the hills and reducing their altitude by imperc(.'ptible degreeu —employing the avalanche — '• the thunderbolt of snow" — the irresistible glacier— the mountain-torrent, the cataract, and at times the lightning's shivering stroke, as its aprents ; while the tiny streamlet — the falling rain, the gentle dew and the flowing river are more silently doing its work. The all-enveloping atmosphere is also one of its slow, but most powerful operators. Its tendency therefore is to throw down all existing elevations I the lowest level — to hurl the mountains and hills into the valleys, and by means of rivers to sweep tlie whole into the bottom of lakes and sefis. "This great destructive process has been going on since the first creative fiat went forth, and it is active as ever. It is one ol the great laws under which God has placed the material universe. Only allow sufficient time and under its action all existing continents, islands and mountains would be deposited at the bottom of the ocean, and the waters would flow over the whole. The ocean-waves are hurling themselves against the land — encroaching on its boundaries — and the rivers are carrying away the par- ticles of the land and depositing them at the bottom of the ocean. A.nd if there were n-) counteractive force at work, to repair these ravages, there could be no dry land on the face of the globe. But there is another great antagonistic force at work, meeting and counteracting the levelling process ; and it is on the balance of these dua- listic tendencies that the safety of our world depends — that the existir order is preserved and the globe prevented from becoming a watery waste. There is an upheaving or elevating force at work, the tendency of which is to raise upward tl'e solid crust of the earth, as that of the other is to depress. This great force is > prisoned in the heart of the earth, and is no other than the internal hea- 'l ' may be said to constitute its vitality. The interior of the globv^ ;. ?.. -• cl<^!';iy ascertained to be in a state of fusion by heut, and to pos-e*- :< -mvierature, in :Ji probability, far higher than any that man can produce. We may fancy an enormous furnace tilled with molten matter — a raging sea of boiling lava, surging to and fi'O, im- prisoned in a solid crust, on the suiface of which we walk, and we have vome fiunt idea of the condition of our planet's interior. It U probabU 17 ''''•'♦♦hi'-«yniil.sl,encn.l.t).os«rfaa.of,|,c. "I coii.-iaiit r.i.>i,)„ i,y l.caf—lik..- ..| jL'lohc nil 1 1 I'ings nro In n ^tatc iiiL' lav .1 tliaf How rium 1 1 1"^^ ill .1 furnace. Tlio Htrcanw of M ""• ;,'na( niolt, II (i I'l'iif. and wf, ( I"; 'lu.utlis „r voiranoos aro I III "'"•"i" within. Wr all know 11. '»" form some sligl.i oonivption of d, "-^ wcai. „r li,,, „u„t p,e,H upon the ittli rivulets fivm ii; expansiv. force- of " y liirn;.c.. |.e,i.-alli our fi>et. Mat I lows up whole (>itios iuid .1 isiricls. Ii< Civalo! iiii ; ,„„. i^ "al file is 111). rr,.,,,,( icoufanoarlh-l.all. I Thu s we ical xlrnet a nianilcslalion oCwi>:d oon.scrvalive power of , lia\niija ra^in^r, le arranj^enients of the all II '•'HI and iToedn "in- irlolic 'fi-'uls and inlands and V process I.y raisin.K up from the hottom ••!'>!. This inter- ' iit(Maclir)" t|i(; nioinitain-rant^'es. Its d IS of seas new f'on- n .i-dcp, :c.u ;: '" ""'^ '""" '""' ''''''y "••'^--' lilt, ihe dcp ....,.; ' "■"';•" •""■'"••"""^ "" «'"^ yi-^Min;.' n-ust it '■'•» ""•> '.Hni.ice af ■ '^''•',^'7^'"' ^'"^'^ >'-'" i" ve.lurc- .1 orks of G >%";':;:, '"'-r"^. ••"'' ''""-^' ••^-' '"- ''opinion over ..ndde,n-adiu.._hue. ! ' ""'''''' '"''•'*"^->''o "l>»U"avin. ••'--and ti^y : ;^^ :;:;;::,7'^ "t '"' '""'' ^"""••«^" ^-^ -"I will .louhlL hrin^ : ;^ : " '" •T''"''"^''" '"-■- '^''an^- '•"•'' ••'■'a'- =-d d..,,; t^h . ' 7''' '"'"• ^'•'^'•3' side, there. ••"""•■"-. The Jn. . , "' '''''" """'•=^- ''" ^"•' ^^•<^ ^-> at this work, wi,., J 'a"::, i :i !;; r' r" ^"'""'"^ ''''^""-'^ '--^^ »>-" ^^ "V- process, Ld I ' r::^;:^.:: --^'^^'^ --r^ - •-"- ^.o orca. "-ni./i.Li'^,;e".^r;i:7,r "' """'"■• ^"^^^-^ '•'•v.- iHM-e discharged Ft" v- 1 . . V '"" °"'" ''''"•'^^•"'' '^ «'•«'« Mississippi, w ';i 1 ir n r ;' T" '"^^ '''' ^^'- ^^■■'™<^' •- ^ . ^^_ _l I _ Wc .shall .M.ppcso that ,1 had a lengthened course from some mountain rin"f» T-u- ;-- lU ^ • ^ - "• '" '"'o*^ till it! the mforior. It 7'""";"'S .•arryini,Mvith it, portions of ihc 1 i.'positsallhcl,oftoniofthe would the hcds thus fijiTn oeean where it flow !tnd, and fonninn; sed .s on for imentary Clearly of portions of the .soil throi it'd outside tho har of our | empties its waters. N(.wofwl.at and as gh which the rive onr soil is in a great measure sand and liarbour consist ? is supposed to flow ; gravel, these elements d ■ i m: 18 would predominate. Rut besides that, mmo. plants would be carried .lowai iniicsam d lins — shrubs and those In addition to these natural production,-; pr by a lart;e .stream, and fallen trees — sneh as on whieli our wild berries j^^row, those (hat are the results of human culture would in some instances be washed down— some barley or wheat plants— or a specimen of the potato or turnip. These would be embedded in clay and gravel at the bottom oftlH« ocean, and under the gn.'at pressure of the water would become h.s^ siliferous, or pctrilied, and thus be preserved, just as some specimens you may see in our Museum have been preserved. Not only howiiver would soil and i.lanis be tluis embedded but also the remains ol' some laud ani- mals— th(^ deer or wolf, perhaps, from the interior, :md some domestic, ani niids. These also would be petrilied and preserved. You may fancy what enormous p(M-iods must elapse before any great depths of deposit:^ would thns be formed, an.l before the bed of tlie ocean oi.posite tlic ri- vi'r's moutli would be filled up. IVrhaps only one or two feet in a ceiitu ry wouhl thus be deposited, r.ut linu-. rolls on— tlu^ great upheavin,!.? power is at work ilevaling the bottom of the ocean, and at length a delta is formed— the land rises abovt; the waves and a new tract of country is the result. Now a geologist, who would examine its beds, would be able lo till how it was formed,— to describe the plants and animals (hen exist- ing on (his island, though (he species should have disappeared ; and be couM also plainly make out that great periods of time elapsed rluring its formation. The sea-shells that had lived and died where they were em- bedded—the wolf and deer— perlmps the remains of a Red Indian or an Anglo-Saxon— all would tell their tale of the earth's history. And this is really a specimen of the way in which continents and islands have been formed; and of the way in which the geologist reasons regarding them. Thus, for example, the Nile has formed by its deposits the greater part of Lower Egypt. The Iloang llo has extended the great plain of Clii- na, league after league,— and at the present moment the Yellow Sea i.-; shoaling up— becoming shallower ami shallower, and ere long lu-omi.ses (o become'' a great plain of land. All' rivers arc performing the vei'y same oiMsrations at their resju'ctivc mouths. Ihit when tr.acts of land are thus formed, the waters of the ocean are displaced and made to encroach upon low-lying lands .and convert them into sea-bottoms. Every fresh creation of dry land involves a i)roporlionate submersion of existing land, f)ecause the waters of the ocean arc unchanged in bulk and must find a level. Thus largi; areas imder the I'acific ocean are, it is known, under iroing the upheaving process— the coral reefs are rai.sed,— new islands ap pear ami existing ones are enlarged— a great continent will (me day cji (end here and displace the waters of (he ocean and throw (hem (»ver oui present lands. In (his way it is conjectureil by :ukI Asia may be converted into a number of i.slands porliotfs behig able to keep above the waves—and th iuroy»e ;eologis(s -only thei contincuts of Ame- hiirher 19 iavrieil doTvii lbs and tliosc 1 proiluclions instances be of the potato the bottiun 1 become (os- ecimcns you (Vever would ne land ani- lonicstie ani may liincy i of deijosils ositft I lie ri- !t in iicentu it uplieavin;? I'ngth a, delta )f country is i'ould b(; able h then exist- rod ; and he ed during its ay were em- Indian or an r. And this ids have been rding them. 3 greater i)arl plain of Chi- cllow Sea k ig promises to [ig the very Is of land are e to encroacli Every fresh existing land. must lind a :nown, under ew islandf} ap 1 one day ex- icm over oui that Europe ■ their higher neuta of Ame- rica may be .«^eparafed, and many of the lowo' porlioni3--thi.s island k -tance, — which docs not seem ( iir nx- » possess uny veiy great elevation— may lieriMiK! ,s(>a-hot(oms. And tiiiis the fiilmv inhabitants of the, great South Sen continent, now in course of (brmation, may be .sailing th.ii- ships over our iiill and mountain toi..s and many of the preaent houres of <-,ivilization (Greater chang(;,s have already occurred. Where London an.l Paris now .land was once the bed of an immense lake, fed by .streams liuwing fr,.in ilie .south (as the organic remains show) and forming the great bed".f Ih.; London and l>aris clay, and thus linally tilling up the lake. St. (Icorgv'.s Channel, across the bottom of which the ehx'Irle wire is now lahl, uniting I'lngland and France, wius once a blooming valley, covered with willow'l^ and palm-trees, amid which the huge mastodon and other extinct ele|d.an( .•■aces I,row,scd. Tlie elevation of land elsewhere ,)ushed the ocean into this valley— .separated England and France— forme not .'dl — these petrified remains are hiund to be those of creatures (li:ii have now no existence on earth — the genera and speeies are different — they belonged to an animal creation (iiat has passe*! away ; so that \u' have incontrovertible proof that the earth li:us repcal(;d]y changed its in- habitants. Only on aj)[)roaehing the sui-face to give us some i(U'a of (he vast time occupied in lormin- the earth's crust. So long did each species occupy the earth that in miiny instances the quantities of their accnmnlated remains form Intiy muini. tains. How utterly incredible, in the face of such fiicts, is the old theory, that six days of twenty-foiir hours sufliced for the formation of !h.' earth. and that it is only six thousand years old ! With one or two reflections 1 would now close (he present .address, Looking back at the great revolutions through which our globe has pass- ed,— the miglity cycles through which it has progressed, before n^achiiig its present condition — the vast periods during which it was tenanted by no rational creature— and looking at that eternal law of change, which i> working at this moment as intensely as during (lie past eternity — how vast and incomprehensible by us appear tlie majt^stie plans of the Almigh- ty Creator — stretching as they do from everlasting to everlasting, IIj.w strange it looks, to our eye, that myriads of ages should be spent in tho-e fireliminary processes and preparatory steps, biifore earth was fitted for the r I1hiiis;iiiiI- 'rcaliircs in iif »'X<|iiisi(c li of an iiu'li 1, wliifli arc lins llCI'S. lluw ids of cna- and, as in- di'inaiids is oiilar (liii'k- iinnilalcd- n miles III i(s and aiii low <: tiircl, ill loniiiiii; lal in mail) oily iiioiiM. olil (Ik'oiv. f (lif carlli, lit address e has pass- re roachiiifi miantcil liy 0, vvliicli is i-nitv — hoAv lie Alnii,Ldi- iiig. How lit in tlio-c s fitted tor t coutintiiild and idands .-IioiiM 1 k ind the i-oiiiaiiisol cxlinci V'COhsfnu-lcd f|.,„|, tl,,. Wtcck ;,|l(l niiii of iillior ],ni race: \Vr ■vrli IIIOIIS ofn;,,,,!..qy ;__;i( ,|„. ^.,^, ,.|,.,| no -larlli'd ;,i (ir.-i I,y ||„,,,, ,.,(|.;i„n, i.,,. iiiiK's (o work tlirm out ;— .;i( t| rr(|iiiriiiu ilidiisaiids ol' 10 oiividatioii of iiialtor liroiiulil lo liu||( y wliioh m.Hmtains aiv moiled into the do|.llis oni, -imlalliomod civos oj^ ■oa, and (h uari H'oan liftod into simli-lil and liaiislimuod inio waymg forests, or ..„•!. gro..,, plains. Wo wondor wiiy oiuoarlh ros d ' 'I (or so many agos with no orios l.nt lhns<. of H,.., I.nil,. <.,vali.m-wl.v ..many rao-s aro.o, livod tlu'lr day and vai.ishod :-why oivalion .Inwly t-llowod c-mitiou-diango suocoodod oIun,.:o-was|mt: folk-wod Luildin^ ' 'In tiijit old denial inoniinji, NVoilds arose and worlds dtraye.!, oture as (o (he Issue of (he divine scheme, of whieh we see perlnns ...t an msignifieniK fragment ! I'.ut we may well conclude (ha( ,hi. n,n,oh our earth l.a. passed, and ti.e inunense pericKl/du- nngvv.u.,h,t has been the scene of anin,ated existence, are at once d - Do. a.lo-ftdl of more startlmg wonders than those with which imagination Kts peopled fa.ry realms^revealing fonns of existence that once tr^ M.e.'arth, stranger far than ever rose in the wildest fancies of the ,^" rhved m mythical tale, or fever^rcam, is disclosed by this new sci nee! We are led tlu-ough the great catacombs, where are i^Ied up, i„ ord r the remains of those vast animal creations that preceded man i^ the c nin of bemg; we walk throngh nature's awful chatiel-house, where her S ren he entombed in their stony shrouds ;-and as w tntverse tl ' i-alls of death we read the inscriptions on the tombs, which afford us stran" g n.pses of the hfe and character of the creatures that here have sunk to . uu. everlastmg repose. Here are the records, engraven in in,perishab e .Wters on the rock, of those vast transactions that spread Ctot ^ nds o centunos^of the slow and majestic growth and decline of anc - .nt worlds-of the rise and tall of great ,.,ling dynasties of anin.als t"nt nu; he,r course of many thousand years, and then gave place hig t ex.st.nees,-of the forests and flowers that waved on the earth's surfo o '"Hi faded to disclose yet fairer landscapes. ' (Jeology deciphers the autobiography of these old worlds ; for in the . e^elopment of the eternd plan they have been made to record their o!!^ "^tory. No a stone or stratum but tells its wondrous tale. Throu-diout her great cycles of change nature is self-registering-acts as her own " tonan ; and sc.enee interprets the page. Is there not something en rapt - nr^m such studies as the.e,-somethingennoW^ and elevaUng ^e ablets a.,d tha these record his mighty workings during long-pai nges. Hero are the folds of that mighty web which has issued from "tl roanng loom of time" where his hand work.;-and we are reverent^ 21 yfiiilyii '4 tlu; :-ivc hrcadlh-s have is-iK'U loiili— ' ile weaves liis web ol many a Aav, Oftivo, and hcast, and bird, Of lisli and insect; near and far Ills weaving nuvy be heard. Tlial great and loving spirit weaves His web of suns and siilieres, Of winds and waves, and llowers and leaves, Of days, and months, and years." .\iid how I'lihirgcd Jirr. the vi<;\v.s Ihii.-; ol»t!iiii('d ol tlir Alniighly W<.rl(uring, the coiicoplious thai ;>risi; in our mind.- ol lli-^ \vidi>ni, |>i>W('r, Mini i;oo(hic,s,-i ! 'riicsc aro only parts of his drr.id, niMJivlii' iil.iii, lh:i( \vc behold — iho acconiplishod ])ortioiis of Ji divim pin|M>3(', which has already occii|>ii;il ;cons of (he part el( rnity, and liic ciin>iintn)Mlioo ol' which will only appear al'Ua' a'ons of tlie fuliire elcntitv have mill d away. Kvery where we, discover divine intelligence pre>i ding — one great ihonghl, as it wen, pervading the. whoh' maj<'srM; evo hitioii — on(! gr( at purpose ruling over ihe stately nioveinents. At every }iio\) we meet with prooi's of a divine plan. These viuiishi'd worlds are all linked with the i)iesenl; and w(!ro but preparatory sli.'ps in the way; of the Inlinite, for what we set; around us. They aHonl us glimpses. dim and imperfect ihoiigh they be, of that Inlinite maul whose phnis stnleli from everlasting (o everla.stiiifj. F spoke in my last leirture of the slow method by which the earth lia- reached il.s present slate — of the vast periods occiipifsd in Ihi; Utrmation of its dillerent str.afa — and of the gradual way in which the bottoms of se.as are (illed up, and elevated into eonlinenls and nioinitain chains. Now it might .seem beyoml (he possibility of conception, Iiow (he depdis of (he ocean, faraway fn^i) land, where no deposit,-; from rivers eoidd reach, (oidd ever be filled up. Take (hciv.ast basin of the Atlanticocean — how could (his lnig. Sea," I havti met with a paragraph which rurnishes a striking reply to (his «pie: lion, lie inf()nn.s us (hat a new .sounding apparatus has recently been inven(ed, by which specimens of (lie bo((om of (he ocean have been brought up from the deptli (»f more (ban (wo miles. Most of you are aw.'ire (hat Ity means of deep sea soundings it has been ascertained (hal between Cajie Uace in (liis island, and Cape Clear in Indand, a remark- able steppe or jilateau runs, ami that along (his (he ,sea is nowhere more than (en (lioiisatul feet chambers of the deep are to be Ihrended, and the mysteri.-s of the ocean revealed; yet the results are Miggestive; in right hands and to right minds they are guides to both light and knowledge." The conclusion he draws from it is very beautiful and very extraordinary, and confirms most accurately the theory we have been discussing in regivrcf to the formation of the earth's beds. The ocean, it is now proved, is ((>eming with life— every drop of water, ex- amined by the microscope, has its myriads of inhabitants ; and we know the vast numb.-rs of fish that Hoat in its waters. The smaller any crea- liin^ is, the more numerous are the individuals, and consequently the greater tlu; space occupied by their remains. The remains of all the co- lal insects, for examples recpiire a fiir largcjr graveyard than the remains ..f all the elephant races that have ever existed. Now, whether the ocean is inhabiteil at great depths we cannot say— but its bosom, where light and heat an^ fell, nuist henceforth be n-garded as a vast nursery of living er.>a(ures, whose remains sink to the bottom, and form there beds of vast depth. W»5 had thought that tlu! secreting from its surface solid matter for the very purpose of lillhig up thost! cavities b(dow. These little marine insects are building their habitations at the. surface, and when they die, their remains, in vast nudtitudes, sink down and settht upon the bottom. They are the atoms "f which mountains are formed— plains spn^ad out. Our marl beds— the elay in our river bt.ttoms, larg(> portions of many of the great basins of the earth, are composed of the remains of just such little creatures as these, fished up from the dei)tb of more than 12,000 feet (two miles) be- low the sea level." "These little shell-fish therefore when living may have 20 been proparin;; the ii»p;rctliontfl for tlio fniitiul soil of a land tliat some eai'tlKpiakc or upheaval, in aj!;os far away in the, f'ulnre, may be sent to ciist up from tho bottom of the soa for man's use. The study of tiicse " snidcsfl treasures," recovered, with so mucii ingenuity from the rich bot- tom of the sea, suggests new views concerning the pliysical economy ol" the ocean." This eh)((uent exposition needs no comment. Let us never pronounce any thing mean or useless in this great universe. These crea- tures, invisible to tho naked eye, are hiying the foimdalions of great con- tinents and isliuids that one day shall rise above the Athuilic \va\e>i, and bloom in v< rdim', (o become the homes of unborn generations. " Through the circles, high and holy ( )f ill) everlasting change. Now more switUy, now niorejslowly Korni must pass and function range. Nothing in tiie world can peri:di, Death is life and life is death, AH we love and all we (iherish Dies to breathe a nobler breath." Having now got some idea of the way in which the e.irlh's ernst has been tbrnied, and having grasped the lirst and fundaun alal principle of geology, that the v«M'y sann^ ag(;ncies that are at work pioducing changes now, have produced all past changes, and that tln^y are operating now as they have always ojterated — and consequently that their results are slow- ly and silently brought about, — we come now to impiirc , in a cursory way, what are the contents and characteristics ol" those great ileposits that lie beneath the surface of the earth. Our glance must be very general and brief — and without wearying you with scientitic names, or encumber- ing you with lengthened details which the memory cannot retain, and which can only be msistered by lengthened and severe study, I shall aim at bring- ing tlu! grand outlines and results before you — usuig as few geological terms as possible; and if you get hold of the leading princiides, these will enable you to draw correct conclusions ; — full details must be .sought for in learned treatises on the subject by tho,se who may wish to pursuit the investigation. It may seem to you an extraordinary statement that geologists are ac- tually acquainted with ten miles, in perpendicular depth, of the earth's crust, or about the 800th part of its diameter, or dOOth part of the dis- tance from the suHiice to the centre. Of course no one has reached such a depth by perpendicidar descent. No mine has ever been carried be- yond half a mile beneath the surface — the loftiest peak of the Ilimalayju* is lidle over five n lies from the level of the sea. IIow, then, since we can- not dive far beneath the surfaele inslanocs, brouglil up by the great u|.lieaving force to the suuli.r|i(, ami up wilhin our reach, — lifted tain rangi's. Indeed f.-w if any of the strata that earth, remain in the horizontal nosil sometimes into monn- con)|)oso the crust of the position in which they were originally placed. In the course of the great changes that have occinre.l, they liav.. lH.,.n dislocafed,^forced up through the overlying h.-ds and ho dis- placed that their broken edges appear at the snrliice. Thus it 1 I hat the lowest rocks, d an pen.s riven upward by th(! volcanic force from the int( nor, show themselves ofKMi at the surface over great districts of country ; and by fi»llowing tlu'se outcroppings, as the fractured edges are technically •"'ll<-d, IIm. geologist can make out, by careful comparison, the whole s.^ries, which, if placed perpendicularly, the one on the other, in the onh-r of their '"•••niation, woidd extend ten miles b.-low the surfa.'c. 'I'he diOerent lor niatious approach the suifaoe, or rise into clitJs, hills or mountains, some '" ""<' plac.! and some in another ; the geologist traces them along sea I'eaches, sides of valleys, river courses and mountains districts, and classi- fies and determines the character of the whole from the crystalline n.ck. lip to the vegetable soil. Were it not for the disturbance of the strata by ihe upheaving force from beneath, and the elevation of tla^ lowest bed> • hal has occurred, we should know nothing of the earth's crust, and geolo- gy could have had no existence. Of the nucleus, or skeleton frame of the earth that lies beneath these leu miles of crust, we know nothing, beyond the fiict, now generally ad- luilted, that it is in a state of fusion by heat, and consists, in all probabili- ly ol an ocean of melted minerals, of which the boiling lava from the vol- <"ino's mouth is a si)ecimen. We know however the rocks that rest upon I Ills fused mass— the lowest of the series that extend to the surliur— Fhcse are named the primary rocks, as being the earliest Ibrmed ; and pres(ml un . 28 thft first cnolin;: (>i'tlif' surfiiff •luit l(M»k plact', (onucd this iniiiK'iisn flour of the rurth, Ioim- inil<>s in (lt'|itli. 'I'hr ciKiniioiis iiiliriml hint li.is Imist this covfriii;!; iiiiiiiij;h, is a riajinitiil »il' li-a|i ruck — the (JiaiilV Causeway in Irchuid, is composed of hasaltic columns — even the (Irain- piuiis, J'yrcnces and Andes are 1m li»'ve that in many districts, dcliuht lis witli their uildness and MiMiniily, have been foniicd by fissures and cliasms in the iormalioii of these primitive rocks. The ooolinj? process still j^oinp; on, seas, thoujrh hot ones, could In; lorm- ed, — liiese acted on the surliict- of the j.'ranile rocks, — broke them npand gradually deposited their worn fra;^menls as sand or pebbles at the bottom of this primitive ocean. This was the commencement of a new nries o( formations, to which jieine s[)rang up, were linally submerged at the bottom of seas, and, by pressure and heat there, were pet rilled into coal beds, from which we now dei'ive our fuel and gas, and are able to conduct our manufactures. I am reading this l)age by gas extracted from a tree that countless ages ago grew in a forest of tin; ancient world. Above the Coal is found tlie New Red Sandstone, the Oolitic formation, aiKk highest of the secondary series, the Cretaceous or Chalk beds, each having its pe- culiar animal and vegetable remains — each being first a sea l)ottom and then an elevated tract of dry land — wliich in its turn became again the bottom of an ocean. The next great group of beds is named the tertiary formation, reaching from the uppermost of the secondary to the vegetable soil that now covers the surface. I shall not trouble you with the names of its various subdi- or 2!) iiK'nso ilonr I li.'is liiirst rliicc. Ar- -llic < iiillllV llic (ii'iiin- l|)l*'S of llll' I, 1111(1 t'dii- I |»n('i|)ic<'.v iiiiily, liUNt' (' |ii'iiniliv(' iild lie lorm- lit'iii ii|i :iiiil I llll' IhiII(iiii ■w H'rii's til ' ,«t'coii«Ij|iy Siliiriiiii lor Li III' (lie wii- iiiil itrcsst'd i«( lirsl ( reu- ; iind tlifii ic .'ind ii/i." 1 S.indsloiir, V ions foniiii (ract of dry duct's, siu'li iij;liind. A (lie shiinjir )k — ciUillcd iMoiiidaiii i\v rank and ■rpcd at tln' cd into coal etocondiicl from ji tree AI)ovc til!' and, liijiliost ivin;» its po- l)oltom and e again the )n, rcacliinji now covers rious subdi- visions. Irs (Je|»tli is almnt 2,01)0 le.t, iiiid I am I, clay and liinr. 'I'licir depo-ilii its (•«tii>lilmiil ell iiM'nl> eliicfly (lie eoiirsr oi'ijicii- loiiiiatioii li< n IIIII-.I li;i\f ori'llpieil lulii; iijics — 'in;,' n irked l.\ ih water, o('dee|. valley.s in r(iik in.iiMe,— l,y i| llie hononi ol' the oeeai • ■ ^IdU f.\e4l\,ltinll, l»y y Ilie rcllllli dl' ;i coiilllieiil lit I ill wliieli, ;ih;,.> JM'l.ire, i| Imd I Men or I) lowly I y llic deparlnn. oC one world, and Hi.' appearance of ; I.rr. iii;i Ihe tertiary lorniutions llh' earll orint'ii Diir- I was approjieliin^ iis picM'til tmiprr- alnre-llMH.-li it was still n.iieli lu.lter tlian now. A. aU of a Id^dur type than liad yet I.een cre.u.d ti.ei, w.dked tli.- e;,iil,_,„M,nn,Mlian> ol enormous ..ize, siu-h as niaslodo.i, and ilinotherinin, hrowsrd anion.. li.e luxuriant (oresls. Tl,,. iininialed (i.rnis weiv Mpproa.- ^^ ,„„,„ds iIh' sp<'c.es that now exist, l„.l, weiv very dilli'r.'nt in shape. Ii..d,its an.l s./.e. In the upp.'rmost I.eds ..rih,. (,.,.|i,,ry rorinalion, we find a nnnii.er "I the li.ssil n-mains of animals which Mill .-vist as s| irs ; l.iil in ihr lowest hods, existing .spe.'ies ran'ly appear, and extinct races everywher,' l"""nMnl.'. At len-\iv/\-t know wlicic In luok llir iiii)' -jivni s|M'cii's oC jiiiim.il or |iliiiil,--tlic iiiiislnil on li.'ivr llhir ImiI.^— -llic .sjiiiiijiiis (licit- ic oidiT til ihr Miriniis slrutii r^ iKil violali'd. Slid' any lu«>il rni;>iiirMl lie |iicKi'i| ii|i (In- ^'inluu-isl will Iril Villi III wIimI i;inii|i il Im'Ii.iim> mikI wIhiv ullins -iiiiihr niiiv In- (iiiiiiil, riil< is |li(> rniiiliiiiHiilal |iiiiici|ilr i.lilir .-ririin' — lliisnialilcs us di riassi ly. ill iHaiiiiJ'iil iinlcr, ilir wlioir snniiiiyly nml'iisnl mass; mid to ilisrn \t'i' llic j:|iiitalili', as that tin- rarlli ''•vt'lvcs III I llir Mill. Nil iiiii' (Inly t|iialili(i|. who lias rxamiiicd ijii' I'vidcnn' willi a iniml o|mii |o (riitli, loiild ri'>is( Ilir trraiiil citiiclir^ioh,^ liicli Wf liavi' liciii di-ciiltiiii:. 'I'lial II artli lias ri'ally |ias-cd fliroi|i>|| oi'sraiiii- fxislci s on its siirl! is a> llii'sc (■liiiiii'i's ol' niiiiliiinii ami ol' I'liarly piuvnl a- any of llii- ^'ival Irntlis oC a-lronomy wliicli no man drtains otili>|iiitiiii^. The result ol'ihe whole is to make it clear thai (he eiirlli has >Iowly and ,!j,radiially advanced (Vom a eoiidilioii iinliMed liiran\ iliiimal exisleiices lo one in which man is denizen— and that, in all its in lerveiiinii ^la,fr(^s, it was inhaliiled liy races titled to its r'xisliiiL' <'oiiditioii, — and that these have heeii conlinnally ri>in'jr in the scale ol'liein;,', i\ the shell-li>li n|> (o ihe (|iiadrn|ied, as llie world lii^hor oi'dei's of existeniv Old was suited to hii-her and Thus there Iia> lieeii Iriily proirress in the course of creation — iml only in llie c liiioii olihe earth, hut also in the riic<'s of animals and veuclMliii s that have Jieeii Muressively called rorih liy the crealive (i;it. Of this order oforL^anic existences, | shall .-peak ai iircaler leni:lli in Miiother h'clnir. A\ prcM'nl 1 shall only oliserve that, vast as is Ihe earth's aire, i| is noi elenia] — all points to a hej,diiniii;i ;— and in the lace ot elernity even (lie cycles of jrco|o>jry dwindle to insij^nili cimce. Kvery (iirmalion we have seen was derived from those that pre- ceded il — every rock points to its source — we trace all siiccos^ively to ihe liranite. — a lie;>iimiii.u; wa> here. 'I'lii> ui'-ndte is comjiosed ol three elomentnry substance- out of llie lidy-four which a distinjiuised philoso- piier has described as the atphabel compo>in.i,' iheo-rcat volume which re- cords the ,i>ool(ll|^ll.^ iin sli'iUii i> ■<»|i»iri!*l will y III' f'liiiiiil IIS to rliissi (I to ilixMi All tlir-. It till- I'iil'lli iiniiii'il llif (•iiiiclii>iuii> I'll tlir(iiij;li rrnce is !i> 'li no niiin 'Ml- th.'it till' llril liirniiN II all its ill r coiiililioii, in;r, — from liijilicr iiml 'CSS in till' also in tin aih'il liii'lli II -prak ai scrvi' thai, ^iniiiii;i ;— iiisit. a- cliionicled low whi'ii roiitiastcil with tl iii.>ignitifjnil is man— how lirii I' I It uri.-es with oppres- ''■< >paii of cxistenei .'ly on farllinieasiii'i'il by i ic iigi- of the oIhIh.— how illeon>i.|eral.|.. lii> litil, lilll I' wiiigeil inseel ealle.l |h,. Kpheiiiiinn, llial eolll'-e otii geological jtel'ioil ! 'I'l lire I- ;i liw'il ofeivali .1 I III.' II 'lings ;— in on -horl I -eeni,- lo l.r |||e ,||ul|e>|- iiiilieani,— rsi\ ( men.' atom of the '' f Iheilivineprucedinv ui,i,.|, III' a World — (il il e we e ml earn of tin the life of III nmverse, iliirnig our short .|;iy ,,11 e.nil Mow III imanily ! We -ee it ii I. or I Veil ilnriie ".lie stage „f its progle.. -,„■ We look I' glial, imkiiown fninre Ii back and tlecipher pnsl slages ; bnl || yi'iid, and we eaiinot ev.'ii eoiiieeinre what is to be. '|'h I'lit luint intimations of what dn present give; illil'ing some ol II lose aire 'seoming Mad aiimigelvisiie.il his worl.l pi-cceded niaii-s appear.'m.'..-_„lMn. tin thai lacf-i were moiiarclis ol' ..jn-ih and no example, the saurian or elephant i..telligont creati.r.. rai.. ,1 th.' ..y .|..^.„i.,M or ihe aceenis of pn.ise ,., tlH'Creator;-anilhadl,e wili.esse.1 thoe .nimal forms .l.-voiirin.. <.,.■ smother, or rejoieing in the vigonr and gladn.-.s of existenc—ha.l h,".,.,, "Hnige forests and other v.'getahh' growths that covind |,. •boeonvnlsions through which earth was passing, could he Irinii ihes,. '"^^■^' '••"'■ ""•'■•' ""■ "'"•'•" <>• l'nghliie.s and b.anty that w.'.s i ^vlici ...nn steppe,! on th.. scne ;-.-.'oiild he when hioking al the reptile 'tribe. 'I.;|.p.ng their way through mml ami wati-r, and making the .-eei.e resonnd with then, savage erics, have snppos,.! ih:u .^ ,i,„o w.iiil.l <•,,„.. wli.'n I.-Mven-gax.mg man would adorn a fair world by his labour, an.l .-over ii With cities, l..mph-s and palaces-bridge its ...'eaiis by his stean.ships- • .•avers<- lh.' hind in his tir...ehari.,l and gir.lie ,he »|ob,. with his whisner ."^' wire V The lapse of myriads of ag.'s was r.',,nir,.,l to .'volve these lianshM'malions. IK.w litth, we can coiijivimv „l' the woiid. as tiiue sneei lit.' I's yet lo b iiectls onward on niitiring pinion : and how |.oor seems onr little i«s It rises lip m tli.> all-encompassing eternily ! And vet niiisl not th.' being, Ibi- whom all tl spssor of a richly emlowed iialii II! ages of lh.> past have be.Mi working, be the pos- ■ '■'' -Tid have a great desliny belbr.- hhn ? l»fOL'e.ss, Jias God Not without a purpose worthy of such a lengthened M\ 32 called man upon tliis platform of pxistenco, and fitted up for him such a richly-stored mansion. Not in vain has he been made "a little lower than the anjr<'ls" — cndowod with faculties that enable him to comprehend in part the divino plan, — to read the mind of (kmI in his works, and sym- pathise witli till' Father of Spirits, (ireat must be the destiny of a crca- Inrc who thus so inliiiitcly transcends all the former denizens of earth ! Not in time, but in cteniily is he desijj;ned to unfold his nature. And therefore, from amid tl. ■ Ibnrs (tf earth, and the darkness of his present lot he looks above ; and aiiiicipatin^ dimly the greatness of his fntnrity, he tia/es into the universe of awe and wonder overhead rolling on in its brightness and glory — its lamps the gahixies — its dome the immensities-— and liis spirit find- utterance in the poet's asj)irations — " lirlolit star of eve, that send'st tiiy softening ray 'fliioiigh the dim twilight of this nether sky I liail tliy Imam like rising of the «lay, Hast thou a houie tor me when I shall die ? " Is there a spot within thy radiant sphere Where love and faith aiid truth again may dwell / Where 1 may seek the rest I tind not here, And elasj> the ciierislied forms I loved so well T LECTURE IV. When we look around us in this great universe, of which we are a part, it is wonderful to observe how aU things are incessantly changing, and yet the system is upheld in perfect integrity. Every where there is motion,— on every hand we listen to the workings of the ponderous ma- chinery,— tremendous forces are urging on the huge wheels in their end- less revolutions,— we are in the heart of a huge manufactory, where the complicated movements and the countless processes going on, bewilder us ; but there is no jarring of wheels— no collisions or convulsive move- ments; all works smoothly and majesticaUy,— for the Infinite Mind con- strueted the whole, and presides over every department. Unending change is made to secure stability ; perpetual mutation preserves a divine order. There is no destruction in the sense of annihilation,— new com- binations come forth, beautiful and august, bloom for a time and pass away, to give place in nature's exhaustless creations, to fresh and yet lovelier forms. Kind nature takes all her offspring to her bosom, when theu- course is run ; and even as the rose leaf flutters to the earth when summer is waning, so do they gently sink to rest in her great maternal arms. With cheering warmth and with a mother's smile, she welcomes the young generation, and tends them with undiminished affection and with all a parent's love. Her great maternal heart never grows cold— her great beneficent hand is never weary of giving. It is the smile of nature's God thut brightens all~it is His heart of love from which all flows— his exhaustless bounty that never says « it is enough" ; and na- ture's loveliness and beneficence, and all the gladsome life and happiness she cherishes in her bosom are the expression of the Infinite Love. Cradled in his paternal arms the vast universe of being and matter repo- ses safely. " Look on this beautiful world, and read the truth In her fair page ; see every season brings Aew change to ber, of everlasting youth ; Still the green soil, with joyous living things bwarma, the wide air is ftill of joyous wings, And myriads still are happy in the sleep Of ocean's azure gulfs, and where he flings The restless surge. Eternal love doth keep In his complacent arms, the air, the earth, the deep." 5 f -? ;k 84 If in the stillness of night, when every human sound is bushed, we should go forth and hold converse with nature, and if we were gifted with an ear supernaturally quickened to catch every sound that the midnight breeze wafts to us, what wondrous tones would float towards us ; — what disclosures of nature's workings in her great laboratory where she silently elaborates the whole ! We might hear the grinding of her great destrac- tive machinery— the particles of the mountains and hills crumbling under its influence into the valleys, worn away by the air, the dew, the rain, the torrent or the avalanche ;— the rivers hurrying on, freighted with land-spoils, to the ocean ; — the leaves of flowers and plants fluttering to the ground— trees and forests sinking to the bosom of earth— the count- less races of animals, on plain and mountain, in forest or ocean depths, sinking into the sleep of death. But other sounds might reach the ear,— at the bottom of the ocean the Great Architect is at work rearing the foundations of new continents— fashioning, by the strokes of His hammer, the corner-stones of unseen islands and mountain-chains ; — no particle of matter is lost or wasted— the ruins of the old are the materials for the new. And over earth's wide expanse the seeds of new flowers and plants arc bursting from the parent cell, floating in the air and shooting from the soil with fresh luxuriance ; and among the animal tribes young life is ever coming forth, in robust vigour, to replace the decays of age and repair the ravages of death. " I looked ; aside the dust cloud rolled, The waster seemed the builder too : Upspringing from the ruins old I saw the new. . " God works in all things,— all obey The first propulsion from the night Ho! wake and watch, the world is gray With morning light." Geology reveals to us that this great waiting and building process has been going on during countless ages in the mighty past, just as it is pro- ceeding to-night ; and that whole worlds of organized existences, and of inorganic matter have again and again appeared and disappeared. All that now exists is constructed out of the ruins of the old ; the ancient ma»- ler is but on another round of its majestic circulation — it is but the old tide pulsating to a fresh beat of nature's great heart. Life is the oflspring of death : — '• Life that works and pauses never, Death that passes into life. Rest that passeth motion ever. Peace that ever follows strife. " From the dark and troubled surges Of the roaring sea of time, Evermore a world emergpg Solemn, beautiful, sublime. 35 " Evermore the worlds are fading. Evermore the worlds will bloom 10 refute our weak upbraidine, lo throw brightness on the glojm. " Ever the imperfect passes, But the perfect ever grows ; Forests sink to drear morasses iairer landscapes to disclose. '^ All the beauty, all the splendour Ut the ancient earth and skv, Graceful form and person tender. All have passed in silence by. " ii*" *i!® ¥'"'^^' ™»» tf^e voungest, Man the darling of the gods, r«;r ;;:*::;;::'• ';t' """'"'" -'" "■"^-" . . , animal wan called into ex stPnoo till the m-o- nlZJ ""'"'"" '^^''''"^ ""'"^»' ^'^-' ^i» tl'« production of tho.e now m existence, an unbroken chain of animated beings extrd - nik ..ccecdmg link in regular order. The «a.n.. is ,rue of I "C .-.ble creation ; .„ce tlie iirst plant aro.e, till this hen-, the earth hi t- verbeer. without its vegetable growth. To „se scie itiiic ,erm Xh perhaps may occur a, times unavoidably in th. course of our e q it he earth ha.s had its liuina, or animal races, and i.s flora, or v 'go ab ,e aces ever since it became lit tor their reception. In bo h the e gj^ ^lepartment. our earth has changed its tenantry repeatedlv. 8p Ic ef 1 a s^l^odcd species in the animal and vegetable lin,dom.-ii r^i'" formation having its peculiar remains ; and the ii^rther we descend, in til earth s strata, the more widely do both fossil plants and animals, t^iat i' the petnhed remains of these, difler from those now in existenc . He ^ a WKle held ol study opens before us-the whole vast animal and v:^ • «b e creations ot the past, whose remains are beautifully preserved i„ whl l-t • ' -';'''" "' ' ^'" '^''''' ^'^P«'-'^-'«"t«, sufficient to occupy u whol life time ; and many of the greatest minds of ,h? day have devoted hemselves to researches i a its various branches. I propose to devote tS e.u- - a vei^ brief exposition of some of the more Im^rti:: ^ .h l.a e been arrived at, and to an illustration of a few of the General pri! HI^t^g^logyM. here unfolded. Only an outline can C^ SI Tbe first thing t^at sta-ikes us in examining the plants and animrof tl.c ancient worlds i^, u,at. though they are different from those uorexist .ng,^am,rd«^U.nc, of having been produced ^^ nouris 7 JX the operation of the same laws as now prevail over the Vegetable and anT- 86 mal '.vorlds. They have all been constructed on tlie same general plan — all are parts of one great whole — of a beautiful cosmos — and all but dif- ferent applications of the same divine idea. One Infinite Mind is thu.-- proved to have fashioned the past and the present. Though counties,-, species have disappeared, and have now no living representatives on earth, yet the principles of structure and details of organizations in these extinct species show them to have been parts of the same grand hannonious de- sign from which the present races have originated. Thus, for example, we discover on examining the fossil remains of the old vegetable growths, that they derived their nourishment from the earth and air — had leaves, stem, flowers »nd fruit— that they struck their roots under the soil and reared their tups above — that the trees grew by depositing their sap, layer after layer, so as to form concentric rings, just as the trees now on earth grow — and therefore that moisture, sunshine and air were necessary to their growth. In size, appearance and kind they were different from the present, but in the grand outlines of their structure they were the same. When they grew the sun was darting his rays, the rain falling, and the laws of heat, gravity and electricity operating just as to-day. So, in like manner, the animal races of the past were constructed to breathe the air. to tnultiply their numbers, to devour one another, to assimilate their food, and move from place to place just as the animated tribes now are. The same great principles are observed in their fonnation and habits ; — they i^ereioro link themselves with those now walking the earth ; they are but prr'ous portions of the great chain — steps in the mighty plan. Hence we fi?id that the great classes of animals and vegetables now in being have exisied since life first appeared on our globe — that the classes of the old worlds are still in existence. Let us first consider the vegetable world. Naturalists have discovered, up till the present time, about a hundred thousand species of plants, now growing on the earth. These are divided into two great classes by a very decided characteristic ; one class of plants have no distinct flowers and are named cryptogamian or flowerless plant.v — the others possess flowers, and are called phenogamian, or flowering plants. The flowering and flowerless plants, therefore, embrace all known species. There is another division almost as simple and amounting to the same thing — the seedless plants or acotyledons — the one lobed seed plants or monocytyle^'ons, and the two lobed seed plants or dicotyledons. These divisions arc very simple and easily remembered ; and I have men- tioned the scientific names because you will meet with these in almost every bc.,k on such subjects, and indeed in almost every publication you read. For popular use. it is enough to bear in mind the flowering atid flowerless — or the seedless and seed classes of plants, as the grand divi- sions. Now geologists find, in examining the plants of the ancient worlds, these great divisions in existence from the earliest periods. The lowest beds, in which vegetable remains occur, show both flowering and 37 flowerless plants— or seedless, and one lobed and two lobed seed plants. Representatives of the three are found side by sid.t in the earlier forma- tions. So that the lowest, or seecUess plants, in tlK.'ir lnin»b!est forms such as sea weeds, did not come into existence lirst, and dcveloi)0 them- selves into the more perfect seed plants ; buf both flowering and flower- less are found to have bloomed together from the first. But though this is true, yet an order and progression was observed in the previous crea- tions. In the earlier formations it is found that the fh)Wf rless plants far exceed in number the flowering class— the lower, or seedless \ egetables preponderate ; and the mor(> advanced, though then existing, are'compa- ratively few in number. The difference, Ihcreh.re, betwci-n the vegetable growths of the earlier formations, and tliose now Id exist<'nce, was not, as some fanciful theorists would have it, that the humblest of the flower- less plants alone existed first, and were followed I>y the higher,— ihi^j is not the order of creation— but along with th.-se .sinij)Ie forms, that then vastly jn-eponderated, specimens of the higher flowering plants also ex- isted. At present, in all countries the flowering plants fjir outnumber the flowerless— in the earlier periods the reverse was the (;ase— the low- est infinitely outnumbered the higher. There has iherefbre really l)een progression— not that the lower develop.'d themst^lves into the liiglier. but that the humbler races diminished gradually in nnmbers, and" the nobler forms increased, age ..fter age, so as at length to bntatives of all the three great classes of plants existed in the first period as they do still. This is a law which has only been clearly brought oat within th<' last few years, but it is now placed beyond a doubt. If wt; take the carboniferous* series of formations which occin-s very early, and among which the coral beds lie, we find the era to have be(;n extremely rich in \egetable life. More than five hundred sjwcies of phmts have b.^en found in"tliis group, and all the botanical families from the highest to the lowest have" their representatives— from the fern to the pine and fir. Fossil trunks have been found measuring between sixty and seventy feet in length— and from two to five feet in diameter. These belonged to the highest deve- loped family of the first ordei-. The trees of these early forests bore lux- uriant fruit, and the air was fragrant with flowers. Jn his " Footprints of the Creator" Hugh Miller has given us the figure of a fossil free which he found in the lower Old Red Sandstone, and which has all the marks of being a dicotyledonous plant— or belonging to the highest order. In a beautiful paper read by the same author, at the last meeting of the British Association in Glasgow, on « the less known flora of Scotland," he refers to this venerable specimen of a tree which he struck from a Cromarty rock eighteen years ago, when labouring as a quarryman. He compares S8 it to some araucanians of the wanner latitudes, and states, as additional evidence of its age, that he found close to it a fossil fish, peculiar to the Old Red Sandstone. The case therefore stands thus, according to Miller — " that in the oldest portion of the oldest terrestrial flora yet known, there occurs the fragment of a tree quite as high in the scale as the state- ly Norfolk pine or the noble cedar of Lebanon." Still it is clear the more perfect plants were few in the earliest periods — though the flower- less plants were just as perfect then as now. Of three hundred species, found in or beneatl). tiie oai-boniferous group, two-thirds are tree ferns or water plants : and of the whole secondary formation one-tliird are of a low type called cycadiu, wiiich now do not constitute more than the two-thou- sandth pijirt of our flora. The law therefore which these fiicta point to seems to be this — that when tiie earth was in u certain stage of its pro- gress it was fitted to the lower order of plants, and these then flourished in abundance. Tlie liigher orders were introduced, and abounded only when the oai-th reached a more advanced stage so as to be fitted for their existence. There has therefore always been an exact adaptation of the vegetable growths to the condition of the globe. The same law holds good precisely in regard to the animal rac(w. The animals now living on earth, have been arranged into four great classes, .'ind these like the great classes of plants, have always existed. The low- est class oi" animals is named radiata, because they are radiated or branch- ed in structure, and often resemble plants ;— hence, they are sometimes called zoopliy((;s, w animal-plants. They exist in vsust quantities in the ocean, and one class of them called the coral, builds up reefs thousands of miles in extent. The next class are the articulata— or animals having envelopes connected by annulated plates, or rings. The lobster, blood- sucker, spider, and insects generally, belong to this class. The third di- vision is named the moluscous and includes all animals inhabiting shells. The grand and crowning division is the vertebrata or backboned animal- —composed of tour classes— fish, reptiles, !)irds, and mammalia or ani- mals that suckle their young. At the head of the mannnalia Is man. Now on examining the petrified remains of the animal races the geologist finds that in all periods representations of tluse four great classes have existed. Thus, recent discoveries have made it certain that in the very lowest beds in which animal renuiins occur, the lower Silurian and Cam- brian groups, fish of a high organization existed ; and fish, as we have seen, belong to the highest or backboned class of animals. Thus for example a fish called the onchus has beeti found in the Bala Limestone, one of the Cambrian or lowest rocks in which remains have been discovered. The great naturalist Agussiz found on examination that the spine of this fish was more than twice as large as the spine of the dog-fish now found in our seas, or that even of the Port Jackson shark. It belonged to what is called the placoid order of fishes. Thus, at this early period true and no. B9 ^lll'T^T """'"'f' "^ '°°™°"' proportions, armed with defensive spines five times as large as the dog-fi.h of the present era. The lower ire °^ 7 V'r °' ^"'''' '° "°^ --«^ ^'-^ ' »>"* AdaLTof tfaeir race perfect and admitting of no improvement, lead the way. These Phcoids of the Silurian and Cambrian beds belong 'to the most perfeJt^ of lhe.r cla^s. Thus the lower races did not first exist alone, and gr Ju- aily develope themselves into the higher. But still there has been 1- vZh?. rT "*• '^" ''^''''^^' ^°''^^- ^' «^^^ '^' «-rth was most fa- vourable to the existence of the lower creatures,~the radiata, articulata and molluscs; and these, in the earliest periods quite preponderated .hije the backboned animals were comparatively Ly few in number: ihus for a long penod no backboned animals except fish were in exis- tence_-they were the solitary representative of their class-and at first jere few in number. Then as the physical condition of the earth ad- vanced reptiles appeared and became the preponderating race-marked a whole era and were monarchs of the scene-the lower orders becoming proportionately fewer. Then enormous birds appeared after a farif !flT. 7 '««'«'»>ferous animals of vast size, as the earth became m ted to their existence ; and lastly man. The lower types were as per- fect at first as they are to-day-the higher have l,ecome more and more complex. Thus then the order has been that the fish preceded the rep- tile-tiie reptile preceded the bird-the bird the mammal ;-the vaiTin. condition of the earth receiving from the Creator's hand races adapted to the successive stages. This is a very beautiful law--<,ne that science has but lately succeeded •n evolvmg after an examination of an immense array of facts. It com- petely destroys a very ingenious theory which was first propounded by a naturahst named Lamarck, and which was a few years since venr elo- quently expounded and ably defended in a fascinating volume which most U^fr" rt '^.r '''"^' ''''''^'^ " '^^' ^*^«''e^« «^ ^he Natural His- tory of Creation." The abihty and ingenuity of the anonymous author gave wide currency to his views, but among those only who were but superficially ax^quainted with science. Hi., theory, however plausible and captivating is now entirely exploded, as being utterly unsupported by facts No one with any pi^tensions to science now holds the views announced in The Vestiges of Creation." The replies of Whewell, Sedgwick and MiUer--men of the highest scientific attainments-have shown the theorv of creation contained in « The Vestiges" to have no better support than ancy. It would be foreign to the object I have in view, in these lectures, to enter on the discussion of this subject. To one part only of the deve- lopment theoiy, as it is called, shall I for a moment refe.. The author of The Vestiges" holds that the higher forms of vegetables and animals have been developed, in a direct line, from the lowest ;-that, for exam- ple, the humblest class of animals, the infusoria and others of the radiata 40 were transmuted or changed in the course of ages, into the next higher order — these again into a higher — and so on — till the mammalia were produced. Man himself on this theory is a development, through the in- ferioi" races of animals, from the microscopic infusoria. The theory is not atheistic, as some assert — it requires a Deity to endow matter originally with the wonderful powers of producing these developments— and then supposes it to obey the original law thus impressed upon it. Facts c ^a- tradict this fanciful notion. Geology refutes it completely. If it were true the early fossils would be of a low type of organization— in the earli- est strata mere embryos or fetuses would be found. We have seen that no such order is observed in nature. At the very bottom of the Old Red Sandstone, as we have seen, true wood has been found — and in the Cam- brian Limestone of Bala a real vertebrated fish. In the bwest of the Red Sandstone, Miller has also discovered a fish named the asterolepis, of the ganoid class, which he describes most graphically in his " Footprints," and which he proves to have been a highly organized fish, nine or ten feet in length. The lowest order of fish therefore did not exist first, as the development theory asserts. Not only are true vertebrated fish found among the earliest fossils, but these are of the highest type of their class. In the forcible language of Miller — " the dynasty of the fish was succeed- ed by that of the reptile — the dynasty of the reptile was succeeded by that of the mammiferous quadruped— and the dynasty of the mammifer- ous quadruped by that of man. We know further that the several dynas- ties were introduced, not in their lower but in their higher forms — that, in short, in the imposing programme of creation it was arranged as a ge- neral rule that in each of the great divisions of the procession, the mag- nates should walk first." Tluis it appears that the development theory is left without any support from geology. Indeed the transmutation or change of one species into another is entirely without proof — no instance of it can be produced. Time produces changes, but it is by the extinc- tion of one species and the creation of a different. If there be a law ac- cording to which new species are called into existence, and if second causes are employed in their production, no such discovery has yet been made ; and as far as present knowledge goes we can only refer them to the fiat of the Creator. The most eminent naturalists and philosophers, such as Lyell, Professors Owen and Forbes, Agassiz, Sedgwick, Buckland and Miller, — all reject the development hypothesis. Thus true sciencefhas dis- pelled a dream of false science which if carried out would have ended in gross materialism, and placed man on a level with ^.he beasts that perish. I intended when commencing the composition of the present lecture to have directed your attention to some of the characteristics of the more extraordinary animal races that have lived in the old worlds and are now extinct ; but I find myself so near the prescribed limits that only a very few sentences can be devoted to this topic Let us glance first at the sau- 41 rians, a tiil.o of enormous jTpti'.>>, tlmt in tlin oarlior rpocl.s wcro, die .lo- niinant laceM, an.! existed in .nomious nnmlKiH. One of rtiesc named till* icliUiyosaiirii.s, a speeimen of whieli may l.e Hcen in t..o iJiKi.sli Mu- seum, "luwIHio general eonlour of a ihlpliin, the liea.l of a li/ard, tla^ teetli of a crocoflil.! and llic pa.ldlert of a whale. Tlieso, paddh s were emih composed of more tlian a hunched bones ; and the eavity of tlic eye was fourteen inciies iii diameter. It wjus a marine reptih; of the average lengtJi of thirty feet." More remarkable even was the plesiosaurus. "It hud the head of a hV.ard, thi^ teeth of a croco ap- |»eaian(;(! so many accounts have appeared of late years. The- geologist knows that as a race the saurians are extinct and all lodged in their at«ny shrouds long ages before man's day on earth. The api.earancc of one of them in the shape of a sea-serpent can therefore only arise from a decep- tion of the senses, aided by an excited imagination. Long afti-r the saurians had disappeared a racre of gigantic mammali- ans enlenul on the scene. The dinotherium was a quadruped eighteen feet in length mid of proportionate height, in shape resembling an ele- phant, but immensely larger, with enormous curved tusks reaching two or three feet below it« lowor jaw. The megatherium was twelve feet long and eight feet high, with a thigh Imm tlinic times thicker than that of the elephant, and a width of five feet across the haunches. The skeletons of these creatures together with a gigantic specimen of the mastodon arc among the wonders of the British Museum. They all lived during the formation of the tertiary deposits ; mul must have existed in a climate more than tropical. The bones of some of them found in the northern parts of Europe indicate that a very difierent climate from the present prevailed there at one period. We hav" now gone over the leading results of geology, and glanced at the grand outlines and conclusions of the science; and we arc now pre- pared to compare the record written by the Divine hand in the stony leaves of nature's great volume, with the other volume which is also a Divine pro- duction, in order to see whether they harmonize in their statements. In next lecture I shall endeavour to prove that these discoveries of geology arc in harmony with the account of creation contained in the book of Genesis. 6 LECTUllE V. I DOUBT not that many, who iniiy (or tlic fiivt tiiih' hoar o« ilu- conclusions iviiclud hy (lie nifulcrn scic^nct! «)l" jj;('olo^'y, will he Hlarllcl or ovon iilarniotl by (liosi- (lis<:losiin's in irH'icnc*; (o (lif liisloiy «.j (I,, (iartli and i»,s rcvoliitionH. And tliis nlarni will, in niosl instiniccs uris( from the cironmstance (hat the tledarationw of (hi; Mihle on (h.' same hiiI.- je((, as usually iniderstood, do not .seem to accord with the coneliiKious ot geology ; and thus in (ho rninds of many sincere christian'^, a dread 01 jealousy of this science has sprunf? up, as (houfjfh it were indeavourin;. to undermine tjio foundations of our faith, by shakinj; our confidence in (he (rudis of the Bible. In such circumstances, the proper course fin every honest mind, sincerely desirous of arriving at truth, is to give bodi sides a patient and dispassionate hearing. I,et us put science to (he bar, and candidly listen to a statement of her facts and deductions ; a. d (hen turn to an examination of (ho scriptural record of creation, widi a sinttcre desire in both cases to ascertain what is actually written, on theontOiand, in the volume of nature, rnd on the other, in the volume of revelation. If we pursue this course we .shall find that the two records are in beauti- ful harmony ; and thiit the discoveries of all true science corroborate (he utterances of the Bible. But in following this course it is essential dial we keep our minds open for the reception of fresh (ruth, and be ready (<> welcome more light, from whatever ciuarter it comes. Let us bear in mind that bodi nature and revelation are great, deep volumes, and (hat (heir meaning, in many instances, can only be reached by patient, hum ble and laborious study. In Iwth, much is plain, and much also profound and mysterious. TruUi, in both, is reached by diligence and hard toil. It by no means follows that what li(!s on the surface, and strikes (he eye of the casual observer, is, in either volume, absolute truth. We come to the interpretation of both, very oflen, with narrow and prejudiced views, and minds full of preconceived notions ; and thus, both from nature and revelation, draw false conclusions. Hence there has been always in the world much false science and false theology. For long agea men mis- interpreted the appearances of the starry vault, and arrived at the (al«e 48 ^car of till- *U>vy ut (lir \IK*'>', Hiisf ■ .sum; siib- iioliisioiiH ot a i o givo both lo the hjir, ; It. (\ il»on Ii H siixrcn; e om\ liaml, icvclMlion. '. ill boniiti- )lM>rati' (lie fential thai >c ready Ui IS hear in , nnd (hat iont, hum c> profound Iiard toil. :es the eye ^c come to oed views, lature and ays in the men mis- t tho (iilbo lonclusion that the o«rth was a flat plain, and that the Iioavmly lumina- ries revolved round it, in twenty-four hours. This was a false readinj? o» nature's },'rt'at hook, whieh has I>ecn corrected I)yadvanein{,'Jinowh!d},'(! ; hut while it formed (he curn-nt belief, the IMble, by an crjually fl.lse'in. teiprelation of its pages, was (juoted in support of erroneous science. Now we are satisfied that neither the natural nor the revealed nicord IcacI es sucli a falsity ; but we see from such an instance, that it is iK)Ssi- Me to mJsinterpr.^ both volumes, and (hut increased light may bring ihout a truer interpretation. It beconnis us, in such circumstance's, (o Im' ready to receiv<- fresh ac(;essi<.ns to our knowl.-dg,., und lo modify our ystems in accordance with ascertained truth. The case at present be- (Wt.'ii geology in.d revehuioii, is precisely similar to that which formerly "ccurred between astronomy and theology. Owing to the want of any • xact kn<.wledge on (he subject, the connm.nly entertained opini.ui re- I'lmUw^ the earth, until within (he last (ifly years, w.ns that six thousand y.i.rs ag.», at the Almighty fiat, the globe sprang into existence out of nothmg; and that six days of twenty-finn- hours each, were occu))ied in •irranging it8 present conditions. The liible was belicivcid to teach this ilKory; and is still so regarde satisfy you that they arc incontrovertible, becau.se resting on the sure foundation of la(!ts. The casr: therefore is just this— science has investigated success- tally a new df partmenl of creation, and arrived at certain conclusions which must be admitted to be as well sustained as any other in the whole range ,.f modern discovery. They are not theories, or mere guesses, but nnassailabhj truths. Fology has dispcr.sed these dreamy, and read the record more corre(;tly. The false; rendering has given place to the true in sci- •iK-e. And now it only remains that wo enquire whether the interpreta- lion hitherto generally put upon the opening {K)rtion of the book of Gene- Ms, and whi.Ji w!i.. !)elievcd to (cieh what is now known to bo lids.; sci- •nce, may not be an erroneous reading of the volume of truth, having no foundation in the sacred record, but only in our own fallible judgments. l.ot u,s re-inveatigate the utterances of the Bible in regard to the histoiy of creation, and fairly endeavour to ascertain its meaning,— not forcing it 41 into Jicconlancc with a procoiiccivcd system ; uikI wc >liall find, I holievc, that wc liiivf liitliorto bouii roudiiif,' tlu; divine rt'cord incorrortly — ;jii9t us Was done in former jif^eH ; and tiiat ita true intcrjyrtUition Is in entire uc- corduncc with the disclosureij of science. The (irst sublime utterance that meets the rye on lurninj? to the ttret |»agc of the sacred record is—" In tii«! hefjjiimin*!; (Jod created the heavens and the emth." Tiiere can he very little controversy as to the meaninj:!; of this grand enunciation oj the inspired writer. My the phrnao " the ht^a V(iis luid the earth," if taken in lis widest sense, as the. connexion r<'<|uircs. wo must understand the whole universe of dependent l>ein<;;. Tlic 1 leluew lanjfiiage has no more <'ompreh(!n,iive expression li)r this idea. Takin;; it in this sense, we must utliich to the term "created" its hi}>lu'sl HiM;Mi(i<'ii* tion also— namely, to produce out of nothing. Thus the; diiclaration ol the pussage is, that then; was u time in the past eternity wlntn, out of nothing, the material imiversc, or that portion of it which first had exist- ence, was brought into being. This sidilinu! utterance, thcreti>re, ,'tands by ilsidf as an independent proposition, jind forms a meet introduction to the grout volume of revelation. It strikes ut the r(K)lofall idolatry by publishing .h^liovah as the originating nnds of time, by the Omnipotent Creator— thus erecting a barrier against atheism, idolatry and materialism. Let the discoveries of gecdogy, therefore, de- mand |>eriods of duration for the formation of the various strata of enor- mous length, there is nothing in the sacred record to forbid such a suppo- sition, or lead us to deny such a view if sustained by facts. The Bible is silent as to the period when the first creative energy went forth ; and thus the freest scope is affonlcd for the researches of science in determining that which it did not fall within the Mnhere nf revelation t<» unfold. Be- tween the first creative act, described indefinitely as having been perf(>rm- ed « in the beginning," uny th(^ In-st -Titirs to he used fre.iuenlly simply as expressive of the continuation of (Ik; narrative, hut intimating nothing in reference to tiuu-, hetween f.W(. slafenients. Thus, (hen, u most im|K)rtant step is gained— a liiir int.-rpre- lalionofthehildieal record allows an inchlinitely lon;r interval after the (list creativ.i act ; and this is all that ^jeolo^ry ,h.n,«nds. In this interval •I may find spa.e ,-nuuf,di ti.r (he insertion of that ^roai btony record it a.ms at d.eipherin-. Kifiy y,,,rs ago, Dr. Chalmers, one of the first of "".dcrn divines, then a lecturer in St. Andrews', saw <-learly this import- iint truth, and announ<-ed that " the writings of Moses do not tlx the an- (i'Hii(y of the glohe ;' ,ind fourteen years after, in an artieh" in the lidhi- (>uyh Kncyvlopredla, he declared that the sam.' writings " left the anli- <|'»'ty ol the gloho a free suhject lor the Hp.ruhitions .>f phihw<.phers." It H the same principle that, in the present day, after all the mlvm.ces of ge<,logy, nnist 1.0 placed at the Inundation of every scheme devised for harmonizing the conclusions of the science with revelation. Now it is (,viden( that one grand diHiculty is thus completely and safis- Ijictorily removed. By an erroneous interpretation, the Bihie was repre- Hcntcl as asserting that the material universe was no older than six thou- siui«l years— that it spnmg into being only six days hefi.r. nian stepped on the scene. A more wireful t^xamination «»f the written record has shown that there is not the shadow .»f a, 'oundalion for such an exix>sition, and (liat the Bible does not n veal the earth's age. On this point, therefore, <'»mplefe harmony betwiMii sciene.> and iv v,.hitiun is established ; and w.T.« there nothing more in the, sacred rea.rd regarding the history of creation, our work wo.dd be at an end. ! 5ut the inspired writer proc(>eds, idler the first sublime d«;ehirat,ion, fogetaljl(' and animal existences that i^receded those species now in ex- istence. It teaclies that the sacred writer was not instructed to make any declaration regarding tiie pre-existent worlds, whose remains we find em- bedded in the crust of the earth ; but only in retcrence to the present con- dition of the earth, and the order of arrangements which commenced with nian and the earth's preH(Mit occupantsj. Tims this scheme supposes the proAdamile worhls to have appeared and sunk during long ages, as g»io- logy describes— that, a. period «»f destruction, d(!ath and darkness arrived over (he wlu.ie gh»be~" ehaos cmnt; again"— and then tliat <;reativo power uas again put (iulh, and the earth was, during six natural days of twen%r- tour iiours, arranged as it now stands witli its existing races of |>Iants ant tliit, creation alone «l(»es Moses speak. This tli meet :dl (he difrK-ullies reasons I slall not occupy time in going over the sinious objections that may be urged against it; but proceed to a bri<,f statement of the third theory, whu-ii 1 believe to be in acconlance with both physical and re- vealed truth. This scheme, which was first enunciated by the illusti-ious Cuvi.T, an.l modilied and expounded by James,m, Parkinson an.l SiUiman, has been recently brought forward with certain modifications, in accordance with late scientific discoveries, by the eminent geologist Hugh Miller, in the Lectme from ^vhieh I have already quoted. In grandeur of conception -i.h.losophic breadth of view and reverence for Scriptuiv it seem, to commend itself to both the divine and tlie philosopher ; an.l though it may require some ad.litional modifications, a. knowledge advances, irappo-us to have grasped the great principle that must lie at the foundation of ev,-rv scheme of reconciliation betvvcu, the two recorat epochs whose hist..ry geology fills up. During those six great perio.ls, then, successive creations have been going on, in a certain order, which, ,n brief outline the .sacre.1 historian describes. But then he does not evi.lently describe' the various creations minutely or seientificaliy-that wo.ild have been to write a treatise on geology, and it is not in accordance with the Divine method t.. reveal scientific truth to man. It is clear he describ.^s them as they "ppouivd-as they would have presented themselves to u human i'ye, had it been gating on the ,|iflcm.t scenes } ho that it is not tho ac^ 48 tiial but the visible we have in tlie Mo?.iic record— not pliysical but appa- rent Irutli. In fact we might y tluit here is a characterization, adapted to the capacity of ordinary nm ,, of tliC Rreat creative epochs of the past. In a f»;w brief words it rapidly but correctly sketches the prominent fea- tures of each period. Just as we describe great historic, human perioil^ by the most characteristic feature of each, so does the sacred writer fix on wliat is most prominent and distinguishing in each creative period, as it emerged and closed. Hence what we are to expect, in comparing the Mosaic record with the geological^ is not u stri(!t scientific corresjiondence but an agreement in the great general outlines. Before proceeding to point out this eorreaiMindencc I would venture to introduce an idea which luis occurred to me as being of some importjuice, in connexion with this subject ; mid which ■seems to remove some difficul- ties. The (picstion arises, why does Moses vkvh'h the apparent and visi- ble outline of each period, as it would have presented itself, in a miniature jifcture, to the eye of an observer ? No human eye gazed upon those an- cient worlds — no human historians were present to chronicle the great events ; for man's day on earth had not commenced. The writer of the book of Genesis therefore couhl not have deri\»;d his knowledge from hu- man records or observation ; and yet he appears to describe the changes as thougli they had pjmsed before his vision. It seems to me a fair and obvious infi'rence from this, that when CJod was pleased to impart a reve- lation on this subject, to his servent Moses, he did m in the form of a vi- sion ; and that thus there passed before his mind'H «(yo successive pictures of the great creative epochs of the past. This wit'< one of the most usual modes in which Gml communicjited with the ancient prophets, and impart- ed truths to their minds. And if we suppose that in enlightening the mind of Moses, a grand panoramic view of the whole past creative pro- cesses, moved, as it were, before his eye, and was thus imi)rinted on his imagination; and that Moses describes this seer- vision of the past, as il flitted before his gaz«s we obtain a clearer insight into his history, and a more satisfactory idea of the revelation and its import. Thus we may suppose that a chamctcristic outline; of each period presented itself to his mental vision, containing what was most striking and prominent in ejwh ; anon it, could oidy partly, or perhaps very imperfectly if at all, conjecture its full im|>ort. Moses describes the vision of creation that presented itself; but we have no reason whatever to suppose, that it conveyed to hie mind those great 49 facts which geology has unfolded, or that he was inspired so as to be ac- quainted with all the changes which the earth had undergone, in the migh- ty ages of the past. Just as the prophet had to search into the meaning of his own vision, and his own words, and often understood them imper- fectly or not at all ; so it may have been with Moses, as he gazed on the great vision of creation, whose outline he has painted in words. In ma- jestic grandeur it flitted before him— but it did not seem good to the Crea- tor to make his servant acquainted with its mystic import, except so far as moral ends were concerned. The intellect of man was made equal to the task of reading the earth's histoiy, and revelation was not required. But then, just as in other prophetic visions, the event when it arrived, was found in beautiful correspondence and harmony with the vision, so now that science has unfolded the history of creation it is found in strikingly beautiful accordance with the vision that moved before themmdof Moses. The picture and the realit;^, when confronted, are found to correspond. And thus we obtain the most powerful testimony to ihe inspiration of the Mosaic history— geology willingly bearing witness. At the same time we see abundant reason for the sacred writ, speaking of « morning and even- ing," in describing his vision— P > , are saved from all necessity of supposing Moses to have bee -J by inspiration with a complete knowledge of the whole circle of geological discovery— a supposition which has made many turn away from all former theories of reconcihng the re- cords, because of its extravagance and utter improbability. For these and other reasons which T cannot now enumerate, the theory I have ex- plained seems to meet the whole case most completely, and to remove all apparent difficulties ; while it appears far more reasonable and consistent than that wlxich supposes the account to have been dictated by the spirit of inspiration in verbal form. Let us now turn and enquire whether, taking the six days of creaUon as lengthened periods, we find a correspondence between the history of creation contained in the first chapter of Genesis, and that written in the rocks. This has been so clearly and ably bix)ught out by Miller, that I cannot do better than present you with a brief abstract of his views. He states tha*. it is only of three out of the six days' creative operations that any recoi'd could be found in the rocks. On the first day light was cre- ated,— on the second the firmament was made to separate the waters from the waters,— and on the fourth the two great lights, and the heavenly bo- dies became visible from the earth's surface. Of these operations no tra- ces could appear on the stony tablets which the geologist reads. Thus it is only the remaining three in which a correspondence can exist— namely, the 01 erations of the third period, in which plants were created— the fifth period marked by great sea monsters and creeping things,— and the sixth distinguished by cattle and beasts of the earth. Now, says Miller, "all geologists agree in holding that the vast geological scale naturally divides 7 50 into three great parts. There are many lesser divisions— divisions into •ystems, formations, deposits, beds, strata ; but the master divisions, in each of which we find a type of life so unlike that of the others, that even the unpractised eye can detect the difference, are simply three — the Pa- laeozoic, or oldest fossilifero^s division — the secondary or middle fossil- iferous division, — and the to Jary or latest fossiliferous division." He then goes on to state that though there were animals, such as corals, fishes, and even reptiles, m the first of these divisions, these did not give its leading character to the period, or form its most remarkable feature. But what chiefly distinguished the Palaeozoic from the secondary and tertiary was its gorgeous flora. It was emphatically the period of plants — " of herbs yielding seed after their kind." " In no other age did the world ever witness such a flora. Wherever dry land, or shallow lake, or run- ning stream appeared, from where Melville Island now spreads out its ice«wa8tes, under the star of the pole, to where the arid plains of Aus- tralia lie solitary beneath the bright cross of the south, a rank and luxu- rious herbage covered every foot breadth of the dark and steaming soil ; and even to distant planets our earth must have shone, through the en- veloping cloud, with a green and delicate ray." Of this extraordinary age of plants our immense coal fields are the petrified remains. Here then, according to Miller, we have the record of the third period of cre- ation, of which, when it passed before his vision, Moses, describing it by its most prominent feature, said, " the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth." The correspondence is at once accurate and remarkably impressive. Passing now to (liC secondary period, it had its plants, but they were greatly less luxuriant than the former ; and its grand distinguishing ex- ij»tences were " its huge creeping things — its enormous monsters of the deep, and, as shown by the impression of their foot prints stamped upon the rocl;s, its gigantic birds. Itr. wonderful whales, not however, as now of tiie mamma.-an but of the reptilian class — ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, and cetiosaurs must have tempested the deep ; its creeping lizards and crocodiles, some of which more than rivalled the existing elephant in height, and greatly more tnan rivalled him in bulk, must have crowded the plains or haunted by myriads the rivers of the period. We are thus prepared to demonstrate that the second period of the geologist was pecu- liarly and characteiistically a period of whale-like reptiles of the land, and of numerous birds — some of them of gigantic size ; — and in meet ac- cordance with the fact, we find that the s tiles I "but its beasts of the 9eld were by far the most wondeiially devel- oped, both in size and numbers, that ever appeared upon the earth. Its mammoths and its mastodons, its rhinoceri and its hippopotami, its enor- mous dinotherium and colossal megatherium, greatly more than equalled in bulk the hugest mammals of the present time, and vastly exceeded them in number. How accurately and strikingly does Moscs describe his vision of this period ! And God said let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth, after his kind, and it was so." ♦' Thus," Miller adds, " if taking the Mosaic days as equivalent to leng- thened periods, we hold that in giving their brief history, the inspired writer seized on but those salient points that would have arrested most powerfully, during those periods, a human eye, we ahall find the testimo- ny of the two records complete. And it is surely worthy of remark, that while in both the sacred and geologic records a strongly defined line se- parates between the period of plants, and the succeeding period of rep- tiles ; and again between the period of reptiles and the succeeding period of mammals, no line in either record, separates between this period of mammals and the human period. Man came into being as the last born of creation, just ere the close of the sixth day— the third and terminal period of organic creation— to which ine grand mammals belong." A word or two in conclusion, on two points : First, in reference to the propriety of regarding the word "day" in the first chapter of Genesis, not as signifying a natural da> of twenty-four hours, but a large period. This does no violence to the genius of the Hebrew language. The best critics admit both renderings. Besides there is unmistakable intimation in the first chapter of Genesis itself that the word " day " is there used in the sense of an extended period. The measure of a natural day is the revolution of the earth on its axis, before an illuminated sun : but thia standard was not established till the fourth day, or period ; consequently the three preceding days could not have been natural days, m the ordi- nary sense. In the fourth verse of the second chapter of Genesis, we read, « these are the generations of the heavens and the earth in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens." Here the whole six creative periods are called " a dai/;'^that is, not one of twenty-four hours, but a;?enorf/— a conclusive intimation of the sense in which it is to be understood in the Mosaic account of creation. The word is used ia the same sense in other parts of scripture. In Job, 14th ch., 6th verse, it is said, « turn from him that he may rest, till he shall accomplish as an hireling his t^ay,"— tliat is, the period of his existence on earth. These examples then will suffice to prove that in understanding the word day in the first chapter of Genesis as a period, we are not violating the ordinary usage of the Hebrew language. The second point is the Sabbath :— what are we to make of the reason for its institution, on the interpretation we have adopted ? On this point I would quote the words of Miller, which seem to me to remove all dif ficulty. He says, « God the Creator, who wrought during six periods, rested during the seventh period ; and as we have no evidence whatever that he recommenced his work of creation— as, on the contrary man seems to be the last formed of creatures—God may be resting still. The pre- sumption is strong that his Sabbath is an extended period, not a natural day, and that the work of redemption is his Sabbath-day's work. And so I caimot see that it in the least interferes with the integrity of the rea- son rendered, to read it as follows :— Work during six periods and rest on the seventh ; for in six periods the Lord created the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh period he rested. The divine periods may have been very great, the human periods very mail ; just as a vast con- tinent or the huge earth itself is very great, and a map or geographical globe very small ; but if in the map or globe the proportion be faithfully maintained ; and the scale, though a minute one, be true in all its parts and applications, we pronounce the map or the globe, notwithstanding the smallness of the size, a faithful copy." He adds,—" God's seventh day's work is the work of redemption. And, read in this light, his rea- son vouchsafed to man for the institution of the Sabbath, is found to yield a meaning of peculiar breadth and emphasis. God, it seems ij say, rests on his Sabbath from his creative labours ; in order that by his Sabbath- day's work he may save and elevate you ; rest ye also, on your Sabbaths, that through your co-operation with him, in this great work, ye may be elevated and saved. Made in the image of God, let God be your pattern and example. Engaged in your material and temporal employments, la- bour in the proportions in which he laboured ; but in order that you may enjoy an eternal future with him, rest also in the pi-oportions in which he rests." LECTURE YI. There is a short but exceedingly beautiful pc".!!, by the American poet Bryant, called « Thanatopsis," in which an attempt is made to em- body the teachings ol' nature, in reference to that mysterious law under which every thing that lives is placed— the great law of death. When dark and oppressive thoughts of the last " stern agony," and the "narrow house," " make us to shudder and grow sick at heart," the poet would have us to go forth and hear that still, clear voice that rises from ocean, earth and air, revealing something to man, tliough in deep, mysti-^ tones, of the meaning of this great, God-created universe, and of his own mys- terious destiny. Brightly the morning sun flings his glorious rays over his encircling worlds,— brilliantly the glittering stars shine down upon us from their serene heights,— like electric lights placed by the Creator's hand to illuminate the fathomless gulfs of space ;— gloriously the cloud- capped mountains lift their heads to heaven, and fling their giant shadows over the green vales. And joyously life bursts forth in its myriad forma, drinking in enjoyment and happiness at every pore,— leaping and dis- porting itself in the vigour of youth. How glad are the animated crea- tures of earth ! How joyously the lark mounts upward to the cloud, " and singing stiU doth soar, and soaring ever singeth !" How playful the lamb over the flowery mead ! How sweet the song of birds- the rushing of the health-giving breeze of mommg— the joyous shouts of childhood at its sports! Is it not a happy world? But then rises up within us the saddening thought— all these must die ; a few short years, and all that is now so bright and beautiful and happy, will be mouldering in the dust. Decay and death are stamped upon all, and all are on their march to the tomb. Even as we gaze the havoc of death goes on,— the lion leaps upon his shrieking prey,— the lark drops lifeless from his canopy of cloud,— the mother in agony hangs over the couch of her expiring child, and slakes his death-thirst. Death is shouldering life in every corner of cre- ation, and the world is but their battle-ground. This earth that looks so beautiful, is a great chamel house, full of heaped up bones, and once animated dust. Its very rocks are tombstones inscribed with countieas 6i " in memoriams" of the forms they lock in their cold embrace. Ite moun- tains are the piled up remains of creatures that once disported themselves in the sunbeams, and are now reduced to dust. Not a pebble you can pick up but is the sepulchre of thousands of once living creatures — not a particle of dust but has been many times alive. How strange that all things live only to die ; and, strangest of all — man, with his soaring ge- nius, and heaven searching eye, and intellect that scans and comprehends the eternal plan — man, who has weighed the earth, and tracked the comet in its flaming course, and interpreted the starry scriptures of the skies- man too is under the great law of death ! In the words of the poet,— " Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again, To mix forever with the elements, To be a brother to the insensible rock, And to the sluggish clod which the rude swain Turns with his share and treads upon. The Oak Shall send his roots abroad and pierce thy mould." The view seems dark and depressing enough. Man, who in reason is so godlike, is, with the insect of an hour, travelling to the still realms of death ! Wiiat says nature to this mystery of mysteries ? What word of consolation has she for man, her doomed favourite ? Thus the poet in- terprets her whisperings, — " Yet not to thine eternal resting place Shalt thou retire alone — nor couldst thou wish Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down With patriarchs of the infant world — with Kings, The jiowerful of the earth — the wise, the good, Fair forma and hoary seers of apes past, All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun ; the vales Stretching in pensive quietness between : The venerable woods — rivers that move In majesty ; and the complaining brook i That make the meadows green ; and poured round all Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste, — Are but the solemn decorations all Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun, The planets, all the infinite host o heaven, Are shining on the sad abodes of death, Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread The globe are but a handful to the tribes That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings Of morning — and the Barcan desert pierce, Or loose thyself in the continuous woods Where rolls the Oregon and hears no sound, Save his own dashings — yet — the dead are there ; And millions in those solitudes, since first The flight of years began, have laid them down In their last sleep,— the dead reign there alone. So shalt thou rest." * ♦ * " All that breathe Shall have thy destiny." Admitting the beauty and grandeur of this poetical strain, »tiU tbe mys- 55 ^17 !l ".^ T"^"" * solution-still the enquiry presses upon us. wherefore should aUlmng things receive their existence, and possess their tenure of being under the universal law of death ? Still more-why should that death, under which all must pass, be accompanied with circumstances of pain, and often terror. There may be something consolatory in the thought that our great mother earth clasps us all to her bosom at last,- and that our great sepulchre is so richly garnished-gilded over with flasWng sunbeams-lighted up with the far off palaxies-carpPted with green, and clad with the gaily tinted flowers. The poet may well say thou couldst not wish couch more magnificent." But why must all these glories and beauties cover a tomb and garnish a grave-why are they all cypress-wreathes decking out a corpse, and hiding the deformities of death f We might reconcile ourselves to the idea of flowers and animals passmg away, generation after generation; but why must intellectual man, with his deep longings after immortality, his imagination that rang- es the universe, his great heart of love that clings so fondly to home and kindred-why must he enter the gloomy halls of death, and lie downside by side with the saurian and ephemeron ? We need not hope to solve such mysteries in the present stage of being ;-only by entering "the dark valley" will its meaning be unfolded ;_only in a future world of clearer vision, will the mystery of death be explained fully. Still like most other mysteries, we are permitted to know it in part here ; and from the light cast on it both by science and revelation, we have sufficient as- surance that one day this dark shadow on our world will be seen to have bnght sunshine behind it; and this cloud, like all others, to float only near the earth, and to rise from its vapours, while the serene azure depths are far above. ^ " Wise and noble is the feeling, And the thought should make you strons. That no ill of God's revealing Can be altogether wrong. " Through the spheres and through the ages Flows a oompensating la^, If you search the starry pages You will find a grace in awe." There is one theory regarding the universal law of death, which I be- hevo 18 still the most generally accepted, as being taught in the Bible and which I now propose briefly to examine. I refer to the opinion that the introduction of death into this platform of existence, and its effects not only upon man, but also the inferior animals, have been owing to man's transgression. Previous to man's apostacy, it is supposed by ma- ny that death was unknown, and had he remained innocent would be still unknown in the world ; and that in consequence of human sin, the plants and animals that before were immortal, were brought under the operation of the Iftw of death, as a primitive wTongement. It seemg to me that liil M this doctrine, so far as it connects the inferior animal races and the plants with man's sin, and involves them in man's punishment, must have been adopted from some very loose and imaginative interpretation of scripture, taken up without much reflection ; for it is impossible to find any passage in the Bible that tc: ches us V believe that death came upon the irrUional and vegetable creations because of man's fall, luad the account in Ge- nesis of the human ftdl from innocence and obedience, and you find no hint there that some vast change passed over the creation when Adam fell— no description of animals suddenly becoming ferocious, and preyinj; on one another, wliile previously they were mild and Iiarmle!-.-, and fed only on vegetables. It is probable, indeed, that Milton's great Epic — Paradise Lost, — with its majesuo verse, and noble figurative garb, has had most influence in giving currency to the theory in question. Not that our great poet, with his lofty philosophic genius, n iilly !ield ^uch views or meant to teach them ; but his bold figures were hardened into facts by dull prosaic minds ; and his lofty images, in this as in many other things, instead of being talten as they were meant— a poetic bodying forth of the spiritual and invisible — were understood as realities, by un- poetic souls. Hence, when he spoke of " Man's first disobedience and the fruit Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste Brought death into the world, and all our woes," his language was interpreted literally and without limitation. And when he said, in describing the effects of the fall upon the lower orders of cre- ation, that " Discord first Daughter of sin, among the irrational. Death introduced .• — through fierce antipathy Beast now with beast 'gan war, and fowl with fowl, And fish with fish : to graze the herb all leaving, Devoured each other." This fine poetic fancy was transformed into a scientific fact ; and men be- lieved as a reality, what to IVIilton's great mind was but a noble phrenzy of imagination. Thus the notion may have gained acceptance. Let us see whether it rests upon any solid foundation, either in science or reve- lation. And first, let us enquire what science teaches in regard to thi.s great law of death. Nothing can be more clear and emphatic than the decision of geology sus to the fact of death having been in the world, long ages before man's creation,— indeed, from the very time that life, in its humblest form, commenced. We have seen, in former lectures, that, with the exception of the primary, or unstratified rocks, which gave evidence of having been formed by the action of intense heat, and cooled from a molten condition, even the earliest formations abound M'ith animal and vegetable remains. Here are found, in countless multitudes, tlte petrified forms of creaturebi if that, In the gfray dawn of time, i-an thdr t«tin of cxfsience, and found a rocky tomb, wLere they Imve rested till the present l,oi,r. And here too, .n mynads are the ruin, of mighty forest., and of ..orgeous flora after flora, that bloomed and ,lied on the bo.som. of these ancient worlds. Such remams in fact, are found to constitute the principal, and some- times almos the entire substance of ditTcrent beds, that are hundreds and thousands of foet „, thickness, and many square miles in extent. Rocks of enormous thickness, when examined by th.micro.cope, are found to consist entirely of beautiful shells, invisible to the naked eye, and which were once the residence of living creatures. Several of the pyramids of Egypt are budt of a kind of limestono composed of microscopic shells of extraordinary beauty. So minute arc these shells that in a kind of pol- ishing stone called Tripoli, because first found at. Tripoli, in Africa, a cnbe one tenth of an inch is calculated to contain Hve hundred millions of iiidividuals. Ihe immense chalk beds that come near the surface in va nous places, are the catacombs of countless myriads <.f once-living forms. Add to these the remains of those gi.u.ts of the old worlds,-the sea- dragons or huge saurians, of which I «poke on a previous occasion-that dragged along their slow length of 40 or CO feet-and the great mammals, whose bones are shown in our museums and strike the beholder with amazement-the dinotheriums and masto ns of the tertiary period ; and cb we not see, on looking at facts like these, that much of the earth's crust s actually composc-d of the piled up dead bodies of the animal races that have hved and d,ed during the great revolutions of the globe, and of the vegetable remains that era after era grew to die. That these races of animals and plants ,,receded man is satisfactorily proved by the circum- and died, beyond all doubt his petrified remains would be found mingled Mth th ,rs; butno trace of man is discovered till wereachthe very high- est stratum Mams, therefore, comparatively of recent origin, indeed .«eh was the condition of the globe during the eariier epochs when these annuals existed that such a creature as man could not have lived on eal! A herce heat-far more than tropical-raged ; and the air, judging by the n nk vegetation that prevailed, must have been loaded witil carbonic acid and other poisonous gases. These entombed ammals, therefore, must ha^e preceded man ; and if so, death has been at work since the fi^t mi- croscopic insect appeared, and the first vegetable took root in the earth. There ,s another important consideration. Wc know that at present a very lurgc proportion of the animal creation is formed expressly to lire by devouring the bodies of other animals; and these carniverous ra I are provided with organs fitted for pursuing, seizing, killing and swaUow mg t ose creatures that are their prey. Now the Ugul finds"! rl mams of similar carmverous classes in aU the various formations; so that 8 68 tliey must have exist, a from the firrit, an.l been inflicting painful death from f ho very beginning. Not only docs tlieir structure and poweifid teetli indicate wlmt were their habits, and prove that tiiey could only have lived by eating (he ])o(lie,s of others; but us if to put the matter beyond a doubt, one animal is often found enclosed in the body of another, by whom it Iiad been devoured as food— an.l beneath the ribs their stomachs are found replen! hed with chewed pieces of bone, (ish-scales, an.l other renmins of animal fbod. Can mi doubt after this that death was in the world long before /V.lani tasted Ih.; fatal fruit ? Stdl farther, the very constitution of both plants and aninuds shows that death nmst have been a part of the j)resent system t.f things, as it came from tlw. Creator's hand. The plmi on which plants and animals are constnicted, renders death, or something ecpiivalent to death, abso- lutely necessary. IMaiUs derive their nourishment from dead inorganic matter— but animals can oidy be >ustained on something that has had life —that is, either on \ cgetable or animal food. Thus, constituted as things are, life is only possible where death is operating. That animals may live at all there must be death— the death of plants and of other animals. Even in the case of animals that live exclusively on vegetabh^ food, eve- ry leaf or root, or fruit they eat, contains nmltitudes of living forms, most exquisitely organized, that are thus inevitably put to death by gramin- ivorous creatures, in the very act of swallowing their foal. The cai-nivor- ous animals, again, could not live on vegetable food— their digestive ap- paratus, nuiscular system, and teeth, being only fitted for destroying and digesting other animals. The structure of every animal determines its food, and hence, from these fossil remains, we can determine the habits of the pre-adamite creatures ; and we find their constitution to have been the same as that of existing carnivorous races. The general plan we find to have been the same through all the great creative epochs of the past. In fact tlie evidence is irresistible that from the beginning it was intend- ed that one generation of plants and animals should be removed by death in order to supply nourishment and make room for their successors.— The All-Wise Creator designed that life and death should minister to one another throughout the whole extent of the animal tribes. The very constitution of the universe implies this. Production and re-production, where the qyace is limited, recplire removal of race after race ; for only thus could life go on. Death, therefore, among the inferior races, is no accident,— but inherent in the constitution of things, and operating from the beginning. A limited space could not accommodate an indefinite number. Having ascertained these facts let us now turn to a consideration of the inspired record on this point. The question is, does the Bible teacli that death had no place in the world before man sinned ; and that it has fallen upon the inferior creation in consequence of man'a apostacy ?— •nans. - \y „„,. „,, , iIT', ' " "'" ^''" '^"""" I^^^^'W' in Uc- ••l<"Hr Iron. .Ms uLJ 1"\ '" "'"""'• ^^ ''^ l"''-^*'<''t'y M-.KJuo.daZ, J^^^^^^^^^ ...any <.,ho,-s, „,..., ,„,„. ,.as been in «r r„v,.i,ui„„. „,„, ,„.,, „„. |, J,„; i I, ' ■.„, '", " " "'•'"• '^■"■""' ;r '-'"*■» "■" '"'." c, ;:::;;■;;:::;:,;;;:;'; ;;;,^:-""::t ;«r::;r:',r^;r\;::;' -y:'-''---- -'cr. i, . ,„,',: „: rr: ;";;;:;: ' t ""■ ;;«" -" '-« '^"-'■" , «voi4o \ luisr, came tlif! rcsurrpctinn f'lv.m h. i i fo animated heinss wa.s exm-essp.! ;. *» ^"enn.u, will m reference successors— and secure (lie continmrim, „f ,i ■ ^ "■*"■ so .l.a. „ci.he,.food „or eve,, s^udiu'^'Z™ T ^f,"-"'*"-^. ■• 1» Iraillul ami multiply,- ,|,c„,|bre i,n„lie,I ,l ■ ■'^'''"■"""""n"'. .lisobedieuce, Jresse ,„ t So,,??"" f'""' '" ""= °'' knowledge of whut deal,, ™_ j: 2' t' 2, 1"''' ''"'^ ""■' "»"« 60 of what death was by seeing it in operation among the inferior creatures. Gifted with reason, and thus infinitely removed from the irrational crea- tion, man was made aware tliat so long as he continued obedient he would be also distinguished from the beasts that perish by being free from that law of decay and dissolution under which they received existence ; but if he transgressed, he was to be put on a level with them, and fall under the law of death. Such appears to be the plain teachings of Scripture on this point. No vast physical change is spoken of as passing over the whole constitution of nature, animate and inmiimate, when man fell; as would have been the case had death then first found admittance. No great physical change even is said to have passed on man. It was mainly the soul— the immortal pait—that was affected by sin ; and its havoc here re-acted upon the body. Man was no longer fitted for the beauteous and luxuriant region called Eden— but now must go forth and wrestle with a barren ejirth outside, for his subsistence, and wring his food from a soil that yielded thorns and thistles if uncultivated ; and now, too, sub- ject to pains, diseases and decay, leading on to, and terminating in, death of the body, he had to anticipate the spiritual penalties of sin in that stat(^ into which death must introduce him ; and thus death came to him clothed as « the king of terrors." From these woes and penalties he could only be rescued by that Redeemer who « abolished death and brought life and iramortaUty to light." Now this view of the case implies, that constituted as man was originaJly, even had he remamed innocent, it would have been necessary to remove one generation to make way for the next, by some process equivalent to death, but not having death's pains and terrors. On this point we have no distinct revelation ; but it «-„ms reasonable to sup- pose, that afler having been preserved during his period of probation, man, had he continued sinless, would have been transferred without dy- ing, to a more exalted state of existence. Such a change, to an innocent being, might have been not only free from all terror, but most desirable, as being painless in the process, and elevating in its results. Thus if might have been looked forward to with delight and welcomed with rap- ture. We know from Scripture that such a change is possible ; and in at least two instances it has occurred. Enoch ar-l Elijah, without going through the pangs of dissolution, were removed to heaven— they were no^ « unclothed but clothed upon, and mortality Avas swaUowed up of life."— What took place in the case of these holy men might as easily have taken place in the case of the whole human family; and in all probability such would have been the happy lot of man had he not sinned. IMultitudes, we are told, at the closing scene, \' ill uiKlcrgo the same great and gloriou« change— ''We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed-in a mo- mentr-in the twinkling of an eye; for the a-mnpet shall sourd, and the dead shall be raised incorrupible, and we shall ho changed." It may be objected to this view that w-; cannot conceive of man, con- fmm the sovereign mil „f .he C-el, n n '" '° "' '"" "^""<' go on for an indeflnile le„R,|, „f ,i,„e 1 ,1 """"' "'""""'J' '" f» .he ,a„ of ,eoa, Jt^^^J^'t '::^lJZ "'"f^ atom,™ in hi, existing eo„»li,„,i„„ n,ig|,i ije "I lei I e ' ", "^' of 1..S frame to work withont deeaj- for „„y Te„» t^i T ""'"^ seems to intimate mysterionsly soilhin "iL thf ' n ^"'^ " ."B of life that g,.w in the GaJe"! H „ A , w nr""" "''"" " behold the man hath beeome a, one of ■,r.e t , " " """'- no», lest he should n„l forth 1^1 1 i "'','",'""'"' ««"' """l «vil , „nd and live forever JlCf„°"tl,eLoMftl m -^ t° "' "'" ""'" "' '"" of Eden." I. is evidl t|>eZi f „"" " '"''"' ^""" ""= Sa'*'" .0 »hich man had ^t t^'^^^^' T "'" '"^ '■'"^'■' po»erofs,„taininglifebynerha„s m^.«T , ' "'' '°""' "'y^o*"- *ney,„ decay, and renewi'; Xetorihe"" ito"'T','"" "'" '™- rest and sleep „„„ do in a^Snf;^ tree "'S^tn", u 1° '.:?? "^ might have been perpetually ,T„e,,ed .nd lift "' """' '^™ -liminished vigour anS fi.slf„e J Afc lis M r"°" """""" '" ""■ this life-renewing antidote ; and then t W I tl X: I'*'' "■"'" over his f.me, as it had always ruled over t'hr^t;:".*:^™^ ;-:^^r::,-i:r.™s~h:;^rr': eatest thereof thou shalt surelv dio" „.n ,i ' "^"'- ^" t''« ^iay (hoii did not take place, in tL "1 o ouH: " "'"'"" ^ '"^ ^^•^^'^^""•- forbidden fruit. Somethinrire 7 ^T"''' ^^■''^"" *''«^ '''»^^*^^'^ «'« ofsoulandbod^^rt We^ri e^^^^^^^^^ S'e^ff^ '''''' '''"'^'^^ to correspond with it the nenaltv TuT^,: J ?'? '"'"' «^«m/-and for that it included all tL rn" ri ua^T oL. "'f '' '"" ^^^'^'^ "« "- --^.ei,, ^eathofthe:rrx:;^;:^t::s^^^^ his favour, and endurance of his disnleasure T. '^'~''^' of ..emugemen. of his spiritual part t^tXL fo 007:17: n!"' :::r:i::r.z:r:r^*--"---™^^^^^^^ ;.ea.h in deep'estgCan? :-^^ZZ::7t """ *'"'"« Thi, condiUon commenced the day man Aned 12, ! ""'"'■"/'»"=• «... Of death the .oment he tjg.s.ed. "1 ^il' rdel^ olL" 62 him in physical of evil in the em- pire of the infinitely powerful and good God~an^shp iirp« r.f lift ii . " " ?'^'^**t oharnel-house, before ^n.ne:::Z:^tt:^:^ t''eir"^:.iu,e,e,es ,o,.,' ea the brightest offering ro.on,rctS Geology has carried us away back to cre^finn'! , Sovereign. a sea of crimson flame, the C^)^:^ 0^)"",!; "' "'^"' """ granite foundations of the worhl werrLw t^I p^ ""'''' ^"^ '*'^' the fiery flood. Life had notyj^^ ^^^'^ l^^"^'^-^' ^^-e tient creature had yet appeared on e ne IT"""'"!"' ""■ wa^ tenantless, not bein- fith..i fi„. ,u *«r long ages the globe Timeisnothin.wtrGod « I T'''''"'' of animated beings.- «"re,nnd"establishin.. then, that hLT n '' '"™ ''»"'' 'irst step in his majesty nl 1 7/^ "'' '''P^^'" ^^ ^«« ^^^^^ •ions of being 11^^ to ", w T "'''"■''^" '"'" ^'^^ ^"'•'^«* ^^«'"- Kven in iho,rutZl'r^r '"'''"^^^^^'•^-'^ P'^tfonnofexistence. t..c Divine ^IZ: f I^^l':^ ir'""^" «^^"^ ^^'^"^ - betbre and substance. And th^ "11 L ''"""' """ ^''"''^ *"'^'"^' ^-™ «>h-tude passed away and th Z "' ""'"'' ''^ "'^'^" '''^^'^ «^ ^J--^-'' <'.e primitive oce n "^elt iU TxT" """l f "" "—-I-when overspread the Tl ^d^v " the ""' :"'^'--'-" l^^nts and trees -que shadows ova- "enrd^^^^^^^^^^ -ajest.e pine first threw its pictur- .■al melody ol" son^ste T^f^TT'"' '""^^^'•"'^' ^^'^^' '^e cho- J •-'""osters, 01 re-echoed with the w-ir nf «i.^ creatures « seeking their meat from God" : ''•'"•mvorous PlnTn 1 « r *''". ^"<^'^"* oceans ran, Plated fisl&es-horned creatures, Jire the earth was fit for man. H '• toVely forms aftd noblo racea From the mother-earth have pawed— Fabled fauns and fabled graces Own your prototypes at last I " Palm and fern that grew colossal, Beast from field and bird from glen, Now as dust and now as fossil, Meet the wandering eye of men." And as eiU'h race of ;»lants and animals disappeared, new and yet lovelier fbrins arose at the fiat of the Infinite Creator — swept across the stage of being and sank info eternal Hleep. Still, exhaustless nature poured forth now types of being— .still, wondrous creations emerged, enjoyed and passed away. To all those it was said "occupy till man — creation's king — the epitome of all that precedes I un— man 'made in the image of God' shall come." These prtivious ages M'ere but the prologue of the great drama—the hero had yet to appear. And yet nothing was in vain,— all were parts of one mighty j)lan,— all working for one end,— all discover Uw Eternal Mind presiding over every change, regulating every move- ment, and guiding the play of nature's wheels in their majestic revolu- tions. The p 2-exisfent creations were making preparation for the birth- hour of the present. Those strange varieties of animal life that sported over the rocks beneath our feet, and found a tomb in t'leir bosoin, had all some influence in preparing the globe for man. Not a marine insect of the ancient worlds— not a saurian, bird, or mammal but was a vital labor- atory foi- cari-ying on the etemal change that the Creator's laws have or- dained—not a plant but ha.s had its share in working out that great pro- cess through which our earth has become fitted for man— that creature who, being a ray from the divine intelligence, is able to comprehend and adore, and, as nature's high-priest, to offer creation's worship to the Al- mighty Creator. IMark how the divine wisdom, foreseeing the future in the present, was makmg beneficent preparation for creation's expected guest, long agjs before he appeared. That glowing central furnace, spouting forth pillars of fiamc, was fusing and casting those metals that man now extracts from the secret veins of earth, and turns into instru- ments for conquering the rude forces of nature, fertilizing the world, and aiding the march of civilization. Wanting even one of these metals iron alone — how powerless in comparison would man be — how far beliind his jjiesent stage of progression ! And those very fires that prepared his metals, by their volcanic heavings hurled them uj), through the superin- cumbent bods, so as to be within reach of man's hand. And then consi- der how that tangled luxuriance which, perhaps millions of years ago, wrapped the earth in such a garb of green as never was worn before or since, and those majestic forests that waved their foliage in the breeze when yet the world was young— connect themselves with our own nine- teenth century. They were fonning the great coal beds that now furnish V) 65 ftiol to a lai'pro portion of U.e Imman vwo Ti „ i oceans, wlu-rc. ti.ev I'lv fJ... n , ; ''^^ '"''"^ ''^ '^'^"«"^« o^ Tl.ink oftho .„.„Wits le arc ^^ " r^, v^ ""'' "''^"- •"• •'- finger can oontroul-.., ^1^ It "^1 'T ""'/""" ^ ^^'"^'^ -so powerful is it -nvprv «fn • '"'''' "" '"''''' ""''^ rCHist ailiincoflifi;."— is,l,.„p,„i,.„f r ., /'''•'•^"t w«ilka the walTH like. «■■-' r„ v.h:,^t;:' I ::^^ : J- .:::' >-««'" .-■-v., 'oalilugoutofthcc'irtJ. nn. .] • " , "''^' '' stoam engines, niovect by t, "1 iiic eaitJi, arc doing t he work nCiwt^ m:M: r moving maehinery whicl. accomnlli ! ^^^o millions of men ; and lHlK>urs of three or fl ,mrT' ""'"' """''* '''^'''''^ "^^ ""■'^''l-l .«any millions olom: :^^Tf '"?' A"" ^'^ «^-- '- ''"ring the winter^ cold by trrho ""V"^"'''' ''^ and healthful the Cator's h..l;!l;w'^, ^r*^]^ ":^^'7^ «"r>plics accumulated under -e lighted up bnl,Ltly^;2 t^^'r" '7"'""^ "" ''"^'""^^ rich stores ;-and how us li f^fi , ^""^ ^'^^racted from the same i- «t-«th ..m th^i : j t ^ TS^V^^^'" ^"^r ^"^"^^^"« "Hkcd-manufa.,turing his tools ndL^ ,^ T '"^"-''"^'""g the ..ecessaries;~and can wlf^l t ^' ^"^ '"' ""™'^ '^'"^"''^^ ^nd 'hms veget^^bCCrof 1 „ "' '"' '''* '""^ "'^' '^^J-^ ^>f ^hese won. -idenccl^roHntiilect!:, r^^^^^^^^ T ^ ^^'-^-'^^^ ^ -et isginlling the globe, ani LL^X the w^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ wn-e itself, which v> -th thought answering to thought an llu nw 7 . ' ^''^' ^^'""^• ages before man a„ne.u-ed li T ? '*"'''''*' ^^'^ '"<"»"fitctured •caps, an,,oco:T;:^:J:::ti:^,r:' ^""'" ^^^ «'-^- ^i-^ of ages before Wheatstone I Cs I 1^^^^^^^ «-' ™"-- here we are " Th„. i . "^ hghtnuigs come and « sav .•cm .tat all are po lion, of^tl "f I "*' ' '"'' "'™ "« '»'■ - -0? Tlior.T„ T , ?^ '^ ' '"'' ''"P*"^ "'«' '"'"fully to (lie T» i. no. a w,«„c::s„,!:„rL:r:t:p"^:v!:^i' '- 66 Trust tho I.'! majestic forcos, Trust thf jwcr that could create." Leaving those general view., let us pass to the .subject which is more directly to engage our attention tl.is evcni„g,-..,unely, the .lelugc which occurred „. the days of Noah, an.I is recorded i. scripture. It if a qt . tion of deep interest whether CJeology has discovered any traces of this great deva.tat.on and is thus able to furnish oov^-ohoration. of .criptu! "Story; or whether no evidence of it^occurrenc has been disclosed by he lesearches of geology, and none, from the nat.avof the cn«. need b. looked for. Not many years .inc<. it was usual to n fer all ,;,; . .traor- dinary appearauecs presented by the different .strata beneath the suifa^-.. o the earth to the elTccts of Noah's deluge. When .helLs, bonrs ad other rcmmns of .uimals were found, it v, .. common to dispo,se of 'the,, ^manly Uy ,,;,:„„ a^y ^,,, ,,,odiluviaa relics, and hai been swo,. into the,r present s.tuat.on by n. ,io.,l The suporficiai drifj, compos d of sand gravel, pebbles, and hug. Lo,.,?...., whi.-h is so fren„;ntly foun n«u- the surface, wa. at once ref= ,n.i t. th., deluge; sea-shells on tho summtts o mountams,-lon. vali.v., . ooped .at by the action of water, ■~«.ves full o. bones,-..!, r.. .i v ,J the same explanation. To this day among the ignorant and m.reflocting portion of the community, thcs^' ulo,:« are stdl prevalent; and Noah's flood is put down as the cause of eve. J wonderful appearance in rock or stratum; but geology has di.sper- sed such dreams a.nong all men who are acquainted with the discoveries of scene., or quaUfied to judge of the evidences which she presents. All the de(.ds i have laid before you in previous lectures, a.s ^o the wayin which the crust of the earth has been formed, and the v.xst peZ ' •me occupied m .Ls formation, will sati,sfy your minds, I trust, of the ut- ter absm;dity of accounting fi.r the presence of the.se animal and vegeta- ble remams, and otl.er appearances, by the action of a flood which was but of a year's contmuance. The idea is sc utterly opposed to the plain- est evidence that I shall not w.ste time in refuting it! The almost una- nimous opmion of the best geologists now is that no traces of the mZ described m scripture have been found, or from the nature of the cato the flood and the numerous supposed relics of it that have repeatedly been produced, have all been caused by the belief that the Noaehian do- h.ge extended over the whole surface of the globe, and covered all lands and even the tops of the loftiest mountain.. Independent altogether! geological discovery, there are, I think, insuperable difficulties in tlie way of sucha supposition; and the weightiest r- . sons for holding thot the d uge only extended over the small portioi. , r he world then occupied b. the human race. These obstacles I shall now briefly state , and then en- deavour to prove that a fan- interpretation of the sacred record shows that only a partial deluge is described by Moses. which is mor(> ' dehige whicli It is ji qnos- tracca of t\m s of scriptti,':il I disclosed Uy CT-'v, tioed he II tUx 1 ,-ctruor- tth the HUi-fiif.' s, bonf,'i, ard ™lu(e.l it <„ii...i,lou,lv in,l ,. ! , """"S"' <» »ay that God KnmnWl'y, „h .nZt,;,;^ ' ."^^.r ""f "-"^ "f "venting „i«,„, ^. natuml ,,,.,«,. ^l™™ ," " '' " ™ "'" ""x"'""" »f *« water, .'".•■1 i..ce.«n,iy\; i;\ !'™' '''"-r «■'• '-".-anJ tat .hi, ™ti. t.n.i. But the. „a!;..^ '^2 t^L^Z: IT """ °™"'°"«' "" five miles in depth rfvn., . ^ •^''"'^*' ^ univei-sal deluge - it i, e„„„hS „i rs: r rz-r "■ "■"* "" '"^ -'■ 10 discharge it on (he earth it !,„ J "i ' ^ """" ""''*" """WSe, ll« whole'f thi, .1^0.! Zrr ' "f "™'"' «"»'-.«£" 'I"ck over the .nrfaee o^f TZ° Th" " *' "^ ''™''^ "^^ '"*" ■try land, i, equally insoffirienTtl ; J T'"'"" °' *' "«~ »"-"■ ">" would not ineL/the t:lZ ""of tr'''^^ *ed over the tand it „o„Id tes,! 'T. ^ ! ""'*'' ™ *" g'»b''.-if dim.- wo suppose a Untited^Hi rft^e rht h"e''" T" ': "''"°"^™- rain of forty dam, and the irrad,.,! • u , '"""''"'oA a continuous level, or the elev ti^of tie |^d !f "f'"* f/"^ *'™' "*«- ".» ^ea- .luce such a deluge rCe! dell "'''"""""« """'" «"'" P™" ■ "^ 'vl"' to Grange the who et L ^,trT„r '"".«"'"'"'•"»" P»«r of tl.e globe, cles tosave the whole fl^'tlTtfr"'" " "™ "^ »'"P-*--™- Another serious difficulty arisen f«>„. .i iu «» nri, if „e ,„ppo« the iZe ^ T"™""" "'' """ """""I" but those „,. ,, fo„rj X w t fZh™! r' "" ,^"™* '^'"y^ "'<■: forcible „.d striking langnag' oft P™ stth™ If' ' """ """'^ esistmg mammalia, (animals wInVh „„ • ,f ■ "" '"5"' «' "m *'en.hly mo™ tha^Ltn^" "l^tV'^-J'i'''^'''^ - .us,md i of reptiles, very few kind T J \ '' "' '''* ^""f ««= -usand, and.he„;eaie:V:*I:'- TtuS- ,!" '"-=\'- re.,uent and most i„te,«ting mldition, to' the „„mt, „f 1."' "f"^ *r classes. Of insects, (nsingthe wotd in ."Z^Ll.:::^^^. * SeeDr. Pye Smith's " Scripture mi Geology." €8 ber of species ia immense ; to say one hundred thousand would be mode- rate ; each has its appropriate habitation and food, and these are neces- sary to its life, and the larger number could not live in water. Also the innumerable millions upon millions of animalcules must be provided for ; for they have all their appropriate and diversified places and circumstan- ces of existence. But all land animals have their geographical regions, to whicli their constitutional natures are congenial ; and many could not live in any other situation. We cannot represent to ourselves tlie idea o( their being brought into one small spot, from the polar regions, the torrid zone, and all the other climates of Asia, Afi ii a, Europ(>, America, Aus- tralia, and the thousands of islands ; their preservation and provision ; and the final disposal of them ; without bringing up the idea of miracles more stupendous than any that are recorded in scripture, even what ap- pear appalling in comparison. The great decisive mimcle of Christiani- ty, the resurrection of the Lord Jesus,— sinks down before it." It is needless to enlarge on this powerful statement. The same writer shows that provision would have to be made for the inhabitants of the waters, as well as land animals, on the supposition of a universal deluge. The addition of such a Large mass of fresh water to the ocean, would render it unfit for the existence of all creatures not formed to live in fresh water ; and of those also adapted only to fresh water. To save these from de- struction, therefore, acommodation for them must be found in the ark, however inconceivable the mode. Let me add to this the opinion of Pro- fessor Hitchcock, of America, who says — " A thousand species of mam- malia, six thousand species of birds, two thousand species of reptiles, and one hundred and twenty thousand species of insects are already describ- ed, and must have been provided with space and food. Will any one b(,'- lieve this possible in a vessel not more than four hundred and fifty feet long, sevety-five feet broad, and forty-five feet high." He adds, " we have reason to suppose that the ark was constructed in some part of the temperate zone. Now suppose the animals of the torrid zone, at the present day, to attempt by natural means to reach the temperate zone, who does not know that nearly all of them must perish. Nor is it easier to conceive how after the flood they could have migrated into all conti- nents, and islands, and climates, and how each species should have found the place exactly fitted to its constitution, as we now find them. Indeed, the idea of their collection and dispersion, in a natural way, is altogether too absurd to be believed." Such is the opinion of two men distinguished at once for great scientific attainments, and profound reverence for the Bible as the word of God. From these insuperable difficulties there is only one way of escape — by supposing that the deluge, though extensive, was local, and confined to a region of central Asia, then inhabited by man : — ^and that pairs and septuples of the most common animals in that region were preserved in the ark. I shall now endeavour to prove that 6D sucli a conclusion is precisely that which a fair interpretation of the Mo- saic narrative would warrant-that there is no authority in the Bible for beheving the deluge universal ; and that only an unfair inference from .ts hmtory ha. rendered such a belief current. If this can be proved all difficulty vanishes ; harmony is restored between science and revelation ; and geology, as we shall see, corroborates the Bible history IV main question is whether the language of the Bible is such as to teach the universality of the flood clearly and absolutely, so that by no fair interpretation can we suppose it to imply a local and limited deluge. At first sight and on a superficial glance, we might conclude that no choice was lea us as to the meaning of the Mosaic account, and that the •erms used are unequivocally universal; but in this, as in many other uisumces, the first meaning that arises in the mu.d on reading hilly u passage of scrq,ture, may not be the correct one. The passages wldch seem to imply a universal flood are the following :_" I even l do brin. a flocKl of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breatl" o hie, fmm under heaven-and every thing that is in the earth shall 111 » ^^r\ T"^ '"^''^'' ^'" * ^'''*'""^' ''••°'» ««" the face of the earth. And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth : and all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered." Those who are familiar with the language of the Bible are well aware that when universal terms are employed, such as "all flesh under heaven"-«all he high hilk that were under the whole heaven"_we are to understand then, frequently in a limited sense, as signifying a vei^ large amount in number or quantity. In other words, these universal terms are often fi- gurative not literal ; and are to be intei-preted in a figurative, not in an absolute and literal sense. Innumerable examples of this might be pro- duced. Thus m the history of Joseph we are told that « the famine was upon all the face of the earth" ; and that " all countries came into E^pt to Joseph to buy corn, because the famine was sore in all Imids " It i, self evident that " all countries" « on the face of the earth" mean only some countries, that lay contiguous to Egypt ; for of course that « all countries " hMy, should send to Egypt for corn and can-y it, as was the common method at tha time, on the backs of asses or camels, to distant regions was a physica impossibility. Again-in the account of the plagues of tgypt It IS said " all the cattle of Egypt died" ; but the connexion shows that only a great number is meant ; for in the same chapter reference is made to cattle that remained in possession of the kmg and people after the destruction referred to. It is also , . J « the hail smote evei^ herb of lie held and brake eveiy tree of the deld" ; but it is afterwards said that the locusts "did eat every herb of the land, and all the fruit of the trees wluch the hail had left." « This day," said God to the Israelites while in the wddemess, « wiU I begin to put ihe fear of thee and the dread of thee upon the face ofthenationa under; if the heavens"; and yet on'y the 70 Canannitish tribes and those oii tlioir frontiers could have been meant.— Take anotlier instance from the New Testament ; it is said that at tho time of the Pentecost « there were dwelling at Jerusalem, Jews, devout men, out of every nation und.r heaven";- m ihig statement ir, a gcograpliicnl enumeration showing tlii t ' "every nation un- der heaven" was meant a region cxWndmg Horn Italy to Persia and from Egypt to the Hiuck Sea. In the sani-^ way Paul says (hat in his day " tlie gospel was preached to every ci-eature which is under heaven"— not literally so, but simply meaning that it was very extensively preached.— So in the description of Peter's vision it is said he saw a "< • , • let down (o the earth « wherein were all manner of four-footed beasts of the earth, and wild beasts and creeping things and fowls of the air." But who will suppose that litendly he had a vision of aU the different species of terrestrial aninifls. Co-nmon sense teaches us that the meaning is, a great number of these passed before him in vision. BVequently too we (artli" signifying only the land of Palestine—at other times the Chalde.m or Macedonian empire.* Now here is a very important principle of interpretation established— that univ(!rsal terms are often used when we must understand them with limitations. Tn the examples I have quoted, phraseology, precisely simi- lar to that used in the narrative of the deluge, occurs, which caimot be understood literally and must be taken in a limited sense. And what we plead for is that the same liberty be extended to us when we come to interpret the Mosaic account of the deluge. It is utterly contrary to sound principles of interpretation to tie us down absolutely to the literal meaning of the words. When it is said "all flesh from under heaven" were destroyed, and " all the high hills which were under the whole hea- ven were covered"— why should w>. not understand these universal terms in a limited signification as meaning that i vast number of < ; uticncc and u; iittcniiKc ■miikin