his act

When, therefore, Geology calls upon us to change the interpretation of scripture, to meet her discoveries or her caprices, we beg leave to decline until she has proved her commission to be from God. This is the age of philosophical as well as of commercial speculation; when statesmen and scholars are willing to unite in preparing for the country an easy and graceful christianity. But when we see those mistaken friends of the Bible uniting their energies to fabricate a modern and fashionable vehicle, called Geology, to carry the Ark of God into a place of safety, it is enough to provoke Balaam's Ass, were it alive, to stand forth and reprove them. To those perplexed and bewildered theorists we apply the satire

of the poet:—

"Some drill and bore

The solid earth, and from the strata there
Extract a register, by which we learn,

That He who made it and revealed its date

To Moses, was mistaken in its age.

Some, more acute, and more industrious still,
Contrive creation; travel nature up

To the sharp peak of her sublimest heights

And tell us whence the stars; why some are fixed,
And planetary some; what gave them first.
Rotation from what fountain flowed their light,
Great contest follows, and much learned dust
Involves the combatants; each claiming truth,
And truth disclaiming both: and thus they spend
The little wick of life's poor shallow lamp

In playing tricks with nature, giving laws,

To distant worlds, and trifling in their own!"

The second objection has arisen out of an apparent contradiction in the narrative itself. The question has been asked, "How is it that light is said to have been created on the first day, and day and night to have succeeded each other, when the sun is described as not having been produced till the fourth day?" The Unbeliever presumptuously replies "this is a palpable coutradiction, and the history that propounds it must be false." To this it may be replied, in the language of Dr. Herchel, "That the body of the sun is an opaque substance, and the splendid matter which dispenses to the world light and heat is a luminous atmosphere attached to its surface, figuratively, though not physically, as flame is attached to the wick of a lamp or a torch," so that the creation of the sun, does not necessarily imply the creation of light: and conversely, the creation of light, does not necessarily imply the creation of the body of the sun. In some localized form, apart from the orb of the sun, light might have arisen over the axal revolution of the earth, divided the day from the night in periodic times, and not have been transferred to the splendid station of one of the foci of an ellipsis, until the fourth diurnal revolution. Then undoubtedly the transfer of light, to its present station in the solar system, took place:

and the earth, which before had only revolved on its axis, began its journey in the plane of the ecliptic, and with it commenced the annual motion of the moon and planets in their orbits. "One remark,” says Pike, is proper to be made, for the sake of the English reader: that wherever he sees the words sun, moon, or stars, in his Bible, they always mean the lights and not the bodies of the sun, moon, or stars; excepting in comparatively few places." In the first creation of the heaven and the earth, not the planetary orbs only, but the solar orb itself, was created in darkness: awaiting the light, which, by one simple divine operation, was to be communicated at once to all. When, then, the Almighty word, commanded the first illumination of the solar atmosphere, its new light was immediately caught, and reflected throughout space, by all the members of the planetary system. And well may we imagine, that, in that sudden and magnificent illumination of the universe, the 'sons of God," again united with "the morning stars," in singing for joy! It was not until "the earth brought forth grass," and became instinct with the glow of botanical glory, that these lights were necessary "for signs, and for seasons, and for days

Sacred Philosophy, 36.

and years!"

Prior to this, the word "season," would have been inappropriate because the periodic vicissitudes implied in it could have had no affinity!

Having disposed of the above objections, we

now return to the narrative.

God, regarding man as a sentient being, placed him in paradise, as a rational and religious being, subjected him to a divine law, and as a social being furnished him with human fellowship. The Lord, commanded the man, saying, "of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it." The test was simple and the task was easy. Obedience was to be followed with a continuance of the divine favour: transgression with death! "Now the serpent beguiled Eve and she took of the fruit of the tree, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her and he did eat." In that moment the "eyes of them both were opened," and behold! the entire aspect of nature was changed. A consciousness of guilt produced terror and distrust: they were afraid and “hid themselves from the presence of the Lord amongst the trees of the garden." As a righteous governor, God inflicted the penalty with a promptitude and severity which showed the magnitude of their crime. After he had cursed the author of their seduction and

the "ground for their sake," he closed the sentence upon themselves with the following emphatic announcement"in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground: for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." During this interview the condecension of Jehovah was conspicuously manifested by a promise respecting the " seed of the woman," the import and subsequent amplification of which, the sceptic would do well to consider. These awful events, in the history of the human race, are related with an affecting brevity. The sinning principle, which had been transfused into the nature of man, soon displayed itself, by a practical renunciation of the primitive religion, by a public defiance of God's authority, and by a general denial of the claims of justice, mercy, and truth. Pride, ambition, and revenge, gained the ascendancy over man and sought gratification at the altar of God, where the blood of the first victim was "mingled with his sacrifice."

"The wickedness of man was great on the earth, and every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." "The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence." Thus it would appear that the whole race