Sound knowledge by no means leads to infidelity and scepticism, but the reverse. Were it so, then

"The poor Indian whose untutor❜d mind

Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind,"

should surpass in Christian belief, and in the practice of Christian principles the votaries of science. But, no! The rational influence of religious and moral sentiments in which we believe, settles such a question in favour of the progress of knowledge most undeniably. We grant that a little learning may prove dangerous. Yet more exact and enlarged information unfailingly contributes to reclaim lost truth, and re-establish more sober conceptions in the mind of man. That this may be the effect of a better acquaintance with Geological truths is what we firmly believe, as evinced by a statement of the most obvious facts. Nothing could have been more skilfully devised than the skeleton of the earth given in the foregoing pages. The more we study its influence in accordance with physical laws, the more are we convinced of the infinite wisdom by which it has been projected, and the correctness of that intelligence and those powers by which it has been carried into effect.

DISSERTATION ON GEOLOGY.

In its outlines as a science, Geology owes its exactness to an inspired author--to Moses-brought up and educated in the court of Pharaoh; and therefore skilled in all the learning and wisdom of the ancients. If simplicity in abstract forms, be a test of purity in science, that which is figured out so plainly in the first chapter of Genesis, may be accepted as a perfect model to go by. On the contrary, if a multifarious collection of facts, without connexion, and devoid of order and form, be compared with Mosaic exactness and learning, then a lucid system of geology, springing from the fountains of Infinite Wisdom, and illustrated by providential evidences, has given place to the crude spawn of a delusive philosophy.

Bounding over the fundamental truth, that the earth and all life dwelling thereon, are works of design, and therefore emanations from an Allwise Being attributes of almighty goodness-in our day we have substituted verbal data, labelled with pedantic terms, which confuse every right-minded student, and erase the sober truths of divine revelation-giving place to bewildered phantoms and

R

delusive conclusions. Whilst the geology of Moses, truly classed under numeral heads, and concording with the rigid rules of certainty in knowledge, has been obliterated in all the riot and assurance of a visionary infidelity. Let us then pass by a fabric so baseless.

The primary Mosaic class, as given in the first chapter of Genesis, and first five verses, describes the beginning of the earth and the heaven, by God's creative wisdom and almighty power; distinctly alluding to the forces of gravitation, by which the earth has been originally moulded as a material and organic body: passive substance being an instrument of self-organization, by which the active powers of mind are alone indicated."Darkness," says the inspired author, was upon the face of the deep; and the SPIRIT OF GOD MOVED upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and God divided the light from the darkness." Geology rests, then, upon an organic base, created by almighty foreknowledge. In the beginning of the earth, therefore, an intelligent process commenced, in which confused crystals were formed in the bowels thereof. These were necessarily compressed, thereby indurated and cemented in masses, beneath a semi-fluid rim, which formed the basis of the great deeps. Then uplifting forces heaved up the granite formation, which, in figurative words, "divided the light from the darkness." The primary

process in the construction of the earth is therefore "the evening and the morning of the first day," or space of time allotted in the work of creation.

In the next three verses (the 6th, 7th, and 8th), the terms of the second order in geology are made known. Uplifted granite having decided the figure of the earth as it still remains, a deposition of aluminous, siliferous, calcareous, and ferruginous detritus, which previously moved around the earth, opposite to its axillar motion, would seem to have begun and ended within the space of time assigned to the second Mosaic day in the order of creation. Animated being had not then commenced; and fossil organic remains are not discoverable until about the close of a deposition of the fragmentary and mud series of rocks.

In the 9th, and four following verses of the same chapter, Moses describes a tertiary space of time, or day, in which "the waters were gathered together into one place, dry land appeared, and earth bringing forth grass, the earth yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit," and the evening and the morning were the third day. Coincident with a third order in geology here framed, a period in time may be aptly assigned, in which the argillosiliceous, calcareo-carboniferous and carbonaceous series of strata were deposited--including in these terms lime and coal.

The 14th, and five following verses, give a fourth order in the work of creation, when God

set "

lights in the firmament of the heaven, to divide the day from the night, for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years; to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness; and the evening and the morning were the fourth day." In this space of time, a deposition of an argillo-silico-calcareous series of rocks may be fairly placed; beginning with lias and the oolitic groups, and ending with chalk.

The next four verses of the chapter, the 20th, 21st, 22nd, and 23rd, declare the work of creation complete, as concerns animated nature, with the exception of man; and the evening and the morning were the fifth day, or order, in the Mosaic geology. Coeval with this space in time, a fifth class of strata, composed of debris, may be placed; which finishes the five different orders of rocks and substrata belonging to the earth.

In the 24th, and remaining verses of the first chapter of Genesis, we find the commands of God revealed to mankind on general matters, through the medium of Moses. And further, "God said, Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness; and God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day."

Man was not made, on the terms here stated, until the rest of the work of creation had been finished. His remains, therefore, should not be discoverable in any series of rocks, or deposits,