suddenly appeared in motion, and sweeping round on each side, was gathered together to the southward of the zenith. Immediately thereafter, a large portion of it was seen in the S.E., assuming an exact resemblance to a curtain suspended in a circular form in the air, and hanging perpendicularly to the earth's surface. The lower edge of this curtain was very luminous, and had a waving motion; and the illusion was farther heightened by the momentary appearance of perpendicular dark lines or breaks in the light, in rapid succession round the circle, exactly as the waving of a curtain would cause the dark shades of its folds to move along it. This beautiful curtain of light was about 40° high, and of a paleyellowish colour, and sent forth on the one side a process which approached the S.E. by E. point of the horizon, and the other was connected with a long regular arch, terminating in the N.W. horizon, similarly constructed, and having the same waving motion with the curtain itself. All this time the sky was perfectly clear, except in the southern quarter, which to the height of 4° or 5° was occupied by dark clouds, apparently intermediate between stratus and cirro-stratus.

"Half an hour after its first appearance, this curtainformed Aurora was resolved into a number of detached irregular portions, which sometimes increased rapidly in every direction, until they met with other masses, either before existing, or appearing at the instant, and formed an uniform sheet of light, which covered the whole sky. The formation of this great sheet of light was so rapid, that the eye could only trace its progress partially, and its dissolution and reappearance were equally sudden."*

*Franklin's Narrative, p. 621.

TWELFTH WEEK-TUESDAY.

I. GEOLOGY.-ITS PHENOMENA CONSISTENT WITH THE MOSAIC ACCOUNT OF THE CREATION.

THE existence of mountains, which shall afterward be shown to be a most beneficent arrangement, modern geology has proved to be owing to a general disruption of the original crust of the earth. On its first formation, the surface of our globe must have been a plain, or, at least, very nearly approaching to it. The rocks and minerals of which it is now composed, are, on good grounds, believed to have been originally in a liquid state; and, whether fire or water were the agents employed, or if, what is more probable, both of them were employed either separately or together, the strata of the earth must, by the law of gravitation, have been formed horizontally, and the surface must then have been level. This introduces us to a most curious and interesting subject; and I intend to devote a few papers to a rapid view of the discoveries of the geologist; but before entering on this alluring field, it seems proper to advert to the attack which has been made by infidel writers on the Mosaic account of the creation; that this matter being put on its proper footing, we may be enabled to proceed with safety and freedom.

These writers allege, that there are incontrovertible proofs of the existence of the world before the era assigned to the Mosaic creation; and that all geological appearances concur in bearing evidence, that many existences, both organized and unorganized, instead of being created in six days, have been successively produced and remodelled in the course of many hundreds, perhaps thousands of ages.

Now, granting all this to be distinctly established,— for I do not think it necessary to dispute the general

view thus stated, much less am I inclined to call in question the facts by which it is supported, there are two ways by which these appearances have been attempted to be reconciled to the Mosaic account. The first, and ordinary way is, by supposing that the six days, mentioned by Moses as the period in which creative power was exerted, may be interpreted to mean so many ages of indefinite extent: And in support of this opinion there are not wanting plausible arguments. The word day is assuredly often taken in Scripture to signify an age or an era; thus, we read of an acceptable day, and a day of vengeance, and, still more distinctly, of the latter day, the day of judgement, and the day of salvation, all which expressions are evidently meant to indicate, not a natural day of twenty-four hours, but a peculiar period in the actings of God's providence. Again, it has been argued, that the various works assigned to each day, when taken for an era, correspond, with wonderful exactness, to the geological indications; the chaos, when all the elements were in a mixed and turbid state; the separation of the principle of light; the subsidence of the waters, and the appearance of dry ground; the creation of the vegetable kingdom; then of the inhabitants of the sea; then of the inhabitants of the land; and last of all of man, seem to follow in the precise order of succession which the various periods marked by the labours of the geologist appear very clearly to sanction. All this might appear to be satisfactory, were it not that the sacred writer seems anxiously to preclude the possibility of such an explanation, by ending the account of each day's operations in these words, "And the evening and the morning were the first-(the second, the third, &c.) -day," a mode of expression which seems very emphatically to confine the duration of the work in each instance to a natural day.

This method of getting quit of the difficulty, seeming, therefore, to be untenable, we are bound to receive the Mosaic account of the creation in the natural and un

strained sense of the words, as an inspired, and therefore true representation of the succession of visible appearances on each of the six days of this first week of time, as connected with the system in which man was brought into existence; but the inquiry is still open, whether or not the materials, of which our present world is composed, might have been made use of by the Eternal Creator, at a period, or during a succession of periods, previous to that of the creation recorded by Moses.

In looking at the account contained in the first chapter of Genesis, with this inquiry in our minds, what do we see? First of all we have an affirmation, in general terms, that God is the Creator of all things; for, I think it will readily be conceded, that nothing more than this is meant by the expression, " In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Then follows a declaration, that immediately before the commencement of the Mosaic creation, the materials of which the new world was to be composed were already in existence, but in a chaotic state, "The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." Nothing is said of the preceding state of this chaos; because the business of the sacred historian lay entirely with the world as it now exists; but, undoubtedly, there is here no assertion which precludes the previous use of the materials, on which the Almighty was now beginning to operate; on the contrary, the very existence of these materials, if it does not imply, at least renders plausible, the supposition, that they may at some still earlier period have been employed in some other manifestation of the Divine perfections.

Now, if we are permitted to take this view, all the objections of the geologist, arising from the appearances which indicate the existence of organized and living beings long before the era of man, vanish at once. Should it be found, that for many thousands, or even millions of years, the matter of the earth was in existence before

the creation of the human race, and that it had been made use of by Him whose being is from eternity, as the habitation of other modes of vegetable and animal life, in many successive epochs, and with a constant progression toward higher powers and more perfect forms, such facts, so far from invalidating the Mosaic account, seem perfectly consistent with the analogy of revealed religion, which is itself progressive, and the belief of them is even favoured by the manner in which the account of what must then be considered as the latest creation, is introduced.

This is the view, then, which I am disposed to take, though I am quite aware that some highly ingenious attempts have been made to reconcile all geological appearances to the opinion, that the materials of the world did not exist previous to the Mosaic account, the soundness of which I am not interested to dispute. In any case, the evidence of Scripture, which rests on separate grounds, and is unimpeachable, must be received as paramount. Let every human system, however plausible, perish, which contradicts the word of eternal truth. Magna est veritas et prevalebit.*

* Since writing the above and the succeeding articles on Geology, and while this work was going through the press, Dr Buckland has published his highly interesting and valuable Bridgewater Treatise on this important subject. The additional information which I have derived from perusing it, and which my limited plan suffers me to notice, as it cannot now be readily embodied in the text, will be added in foot notes. It is a great satisfaction to me to observe that this intelligent author has adopted the same view with myself as to the mode of reconciling the Mosaic account with the discoveries of Geology-a view which he states himself to have long entertained, and to have previously given to the world in his Inaugural Lecture in 1820. He also quotes some other authors as agreeing with him in this method of reconciliation, such as Dr Chalmers, Bishop Gleig, a writer in the Christian Observer, &c. My own opinion, which was formed independently of these writers, I can now advance with greater confidence. Dr Buckland enters into some details of the six days creation, supported by critical notices on the Hebrew text, by the Regius Professor of Hebrew in Oxford (Pusey), which are very satisfactory. It is shown that the Hebrew word (bara), which we translate "created," does not necessarily signify formed out of nothing, though it is a stronger word than asah, made; and it is also stated, that when in the fourth commandment it is declared, that "in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in VOL. I. Y