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TWELFTH WEEK-THURSDAY.

III. GEOLOGY.-SUCCESSIVE PERIODS OF ORGANIZED

EXISTENCES.

Ir the view of our modern geologists, which I have adopted, be correct, there is something exceedingly interesting, and certainly, as I have already observed, not inconsistent with the character of the Creator, as we read it inscribed on His works, in the gradual developement of the powers of nature, and in the adaptation of living beings to the progress of that developement. "In the beginning," the earth was, according to this hypothesis, created a mass of inert matter, perhaps in a liquid state, from excessive heat, but crystallizing, as it cooled, till the whole crust of the globe was comprised in the two great divisions of sea and crystallized rocks, surrounded with an atmosphere. This was its primitive state; and, under these circumstances, neither vegetables nor animals could exist; but, being intended for the habitation of living beings, the powers inherent in matter were employed in breaking down, abrading, and disuniting the harder substances, so as to form soil fit for the maintenance of vegetable produce; and thus, in process of time, it passed into the transition state. No sooner was the globe, to this extent, prepared, than vegetables were created by the Almighty hand; and food being thus produced for living creatures, these also were called into being, with faculties and endowments admirably fitted for the earth, as it then was. Still the process of decomposition and crumbling down went on, till the world became fitted for a new change. A catastrophe, therefore, took place, by which all organized existences were destroyed and submerged; and, by a most wonderful provision, these were laid up in storehouses, as it were, below the surface, for the future use of the rational creatures which

were, in the succession of ages, to be created, being meanwhile, by pressure and disintegration converted, the marine productions into lime, and the produce of the land into coal. And now a new operation of creative wisdom takes place. More nourishing qualities have been infused into the waters of the sea, and the surface of the earth has acquired more fertile powers, by which the whole globe is fitted for the maintenance of higher species of plants and animals. They are accordingly produced. A more noble and luxuriant vegetation clothes the face of the earth. Living creatures of gigantic proportions swim in the ocean, or frequent the vast swamps and marshes which compose its shores, or browse among the mighty palms and ferns which spring up on the elevated grounds. But the wonderful plan formed in the Eternal Mind is not yet completed. Another period elapses, in which further changes have been going on, and continued preparations have been making. At length new epochs arrive, and new catastrophes take place. Again and again the surface of the globe is broken up; its vegetable and animal productions are again and again entombed, to add to the stores of the higher race destined to appear in a new era, and a renovated world.

Last of all, the time arrives, when the earth is fitted for a race of rational creatures. "The earth is without form and void." The elements are commixed; and thickest darkness broods over the profound abyss. God speaks; it is light, and the clouds ascend. He speaks again; the solid foundations of the world are disturbed; an irresistible force heaves the ancient granite from its bed, causing it to shake off the superincumbent strata which ages had formed, and to throw aloft its rugged peaks, till they threaten to penetrate the sky. The waters subside, and are gathered together. An effectual separation is thus made between the seas and the dry land, and a new character is given to the earth's surface, which fits it for its coming destiny.* Once more the Creator utters his

"It is marvellous that mankind should have gone on for so many centuries in ignorance of the fact, which is now so fully demonstrated, that no

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voice. "The earth brings forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit." Yet again the command is issued, and the clearing atmosphere gives free admittance to the direct rays of the sun, moon, and stars. Thus is the world once more prepared as the residence of living beings; and they are created. broad spread sea and swelling earth teem with animation; and, last of all, Man is formed in the image of God. His Creator "breathes into his nostrils the breath of

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small part of the present surface of the earth is derived from the remains of animals, that constituted the population of ancient seas. Many extensive plains and massive mountains form, as it were, the great charnel-houses of preceding generations, in which the petrified exuviæ of extinct races of animals and vegetables are piled into stupendous monuments of the operations of life and death, during almost immeasurable periods of past time." "At the sight of a spectacle,' says Cuvier, so imposing, so terrible as that of the wreck of animal life forming almost the entire soil on which we tread, it is difficult to restrain the imagination from hazarding some conjectures as to the causes by which such great effects have been produced.'""-Buckland's, Bridgewater Treatise, p. 112.

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* Speaking of the 14th, and four succeeding verses of the first chapter of Genesis, Dr Buckland, in precise agreement with what is stated in the text, thus argues :-"What is herein stated of the celestial luminaries, seems to be spoken solely with reference to our planet, and more especially to the human race, then about to be placed upon it. We are not told that the substance of the sun and moon were first called into existence upon the fourth day. The text may equally imply that these bodies were then prepared, and appointed to certain offices of high importance to mankind: "to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day, and over the night;' 'to be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years.' The fact of the creation had been stated before in the 1st verse. The stars also are mentioned (Gen. i. 16.), in three words only, almost parenthetically, as if for the sole purpose of announcing that they also were made by the same Power, as those luminaries which are more important to us-the sun and the moon. The interpretation here proposed seems, moreover, to solve the difficulty which would otherwise attend the statement of the appearance of light on the first day, while the sun and moon and stars were not made to appear until the fourth. If we suppose all the heavenly bodies and the earth to have been created at the indefinitely distant time designated by the word 'beginning,' and that the darkness described on the evening of the first day, was a temporary darkness, produced by an accumulation of dense vapours upon the face of the deep,' an incipient dispersion of these vapours may have readmitted light to the earth, upon the first day, while the existing cause of light was still obscured; and the further purification of the atmosphere, upon the fourth day, may have caused the sun and moon and stars to reappear in the firmament of heaven, to assume their new relations to the newly modified earth, and to the human race."

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life, and he becomes a living soul," the lord of this nether sphere stands confessed.

Such is the progress which, according to modern geology, corrected by the lights of Scripture, has formed the earliest history of creation. The system, perhaps, deserves no higher name than that of a theory; but it is a beautiful and consistent theory, which accounts for many facts, and is contradicted, so far as I know, by none. It is exceedingly gratifying to human genius to have thus found the means of penetrating beyond the darkness of ancient chaos, and the confusion of mingled elements; and it is not less instructive than gratifying, to be able to trace, even in these mysterious primeval times, the designing hand of Infinite Wisdom and Goodness; to see the very same character impressed on the works of the Creator, in such incalculably remote periods, which we mark with so much delight in the history of the world, since that latest epoch, in which the human race was formed the chief of His terrestrial works; and in which subordinate organized beings, in a scale descending by almost imperceptible links, till they become confounded with inanimate matter, were associated with him.

One objection I anticipate. Why, it may naturally be asked, this progression and long delay? Why was that Infinite Power not put forth at once, which was to form the world in its highest state of perfection? Could not the same Almighty hand, which, according to this theory, formed the earth an inert mass, and left the developement of its productive qualities to a succession of ages, have called it into being, in all its glory, by a single word? Undoubtedly it could; and the reason of a different mode of operation may be inscrutable by the human mind. But who does not see that such progression is in accordance with the usual analogy of the Divine operations; and that the very same objection might be urged against the progress of society in the arts and in civilization; against the gradual unfolding of the eternal

decrees in the history of revealed religion; against the slow growth of an oak; or against the tardy expansion of the human powers through the various stages of infancy, youth, and manhood. Time is, even with man, but a relative term. In the counsels of Him, with whom 66 a thousand years are but as one day," it dwindles to a point.

TWELFTH WEEK-FRIDAY.

IV. GEOLOGY.-STATE OF THE ANTEDILUVIAN WORLD.

THE arrangements on the surface of the earth, at the Mosaic Creation, were, doubtless, in many respects, different from what they are at present. I do not allude to its state as it came first from the hands of its Creator, when all things bore the recent impress of a Divine hand, when Paradise bloomed, and the gentle air breathed balm, and, on the young vegetable and animal world, the blessing of a benignant Heaven shed peace, grandeur, and loveliness; but I speak of it after the blight of an alienated Deity had fitted it for the habitation of a fallen and guilty race, who were to earn their subsistence amidst toil and care, strangers and pilgrims on their native earth, and under training, by a course of discipline, for new states of existence in another sphere.

Of the actual state of the antediluvian world, we have scarcely any recorded materials from which we can draw correct geological conclusions. We are informed, however, that the life of man extended to a period of tenfold greater duration than it does at present, which indicates a much greater salubrity of the atmosphere; and it is remarkable, that the organic remains of that first period of the human history, corresponds with this indication. The state of the air and of the seasons, which was so healthful for man, may readily be supposed to have been equally favourable to the nourishment of other organized

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