residence of living beings; and they are created. The 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 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 them.

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 power, which, according to this theory, formed the earth an inert mass, and left the devel

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 vapors upon the face of the deep,' an incipient dispersion of these vapors may have readmitted light to the earth, upon the first day, while the exciting 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.'

VII.

opement 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 "a thousand years are but as one day," it dwindles to a point.

THIRTEENTH WEEK-WEDNESDAY.

IV. GEOLOGY.-STATE OF THE ANTEDILUVIAN WORLD.

THE arrangements on the surface of the earth, in its antediluvian state, 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 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 condition 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, correspond 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 favorable to the nourishment of other organized existences; and if we are to look for proofs from geology, to confirm the assertion of the sacred volume on this point, we must seek for it in a greater luxuriance in the growth of plants and animals. Man, himself, who seems not to have arrived at the period of puberty before sixty or seventy years of age, was probably of superior stature, a conjecture which is confirmed by the existence of giants, as we are expressly assured, both before the flood, and for some time after it. However this may be, it is remarkable, that we have undoubted proofs, from antediluvian remains, that many of the organized existences of that period were of much greater dimensions than are now to be found, either in the vegetable or animal kingdoms. Tropical plants seem to have spread over our temperate regions in great luxuriance of vegetation, and among animals there are found, in these regions, some of immense proportions, whose species are now extinct, or, if still existing, as in the case of the tapir, are greatly diminished in size. From these facts, we have evidence that the antediluvian climate was peculiarly genial, and therefore we need not be surprised to find that it was far more favorable to human life, than the atmosphere in which we at present exist.*

* In this view of the superior salubrity of the antediluvian climate, the author is directly opposed to the speculations of Bishop Sherlock, who imagines that the curse pronounced on the ground rested upon it, "in all its rigor, only till the flood, up to which period it rendered the work and toil necessary to raise from the ground a sufficient support for life, a grievous and irksome burden;" but that, after this catastrophe, that part of the curse which referred to the soil was removed, and the world was, in this respect, restored to its primeval beauty and fertility. This strange notion rests for its support on two texts of Scrip

In another respect, too, the aspect of the antediluvian world must have been considerably different from its present state. Since that early period, a deluge has swept over its surface with tremendous force, levelling hills, filling up valleys, scooping out ravines, altering the bed of the ocean, and blotting out, perhaps, whole continents from the map of the world, while it raised others in their place. By the action of this great catastrophe, very large additions must have been made to the productive soil of the earth, from the effects of detrition; but even then the soil appears to have been abundant, at least in many and extensive portions of the globe; and, whatever changes have been made, of which we shall speak more particularly in another paper, the general character of the terraqueous globe, and its inhabitants, must have been, with the exceptions already hinted at, ture, the first of which is the reason given by Lamech for naming his firstborn son Noah, which means comfort, viz. "This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed," (Gen. v. 29.) Those who have noted the custom which prevailed from the earliest times, of recording a reason for the naming of children at or soon after their birth, will scarcely see in this passage any thing more than the delight and pious gratitude of a father, for the gift of a son who should assist him in his agricultural labors. The Bible is full of similar birthday sayings; thus Eve called her firstborn son Cain, which signifies gotten, for she said, "I have gotten a man from the Lord ;" and when, after the murder of Abel, she had another son, she called him Seth, which signifies appointed. "For God," said she, "hath appointed me another seed, instead of Abel, whom Cain slew." Many other instances might be mentioned.

The other text, on which Sherlock builds his theory, can scarcely be considered of greater weight. It is the promise contained in the two last verses of the eighth chapter of Genesis. "I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake, neither will I again smite any more every thing living as I have done. While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease." The Bishop argues that these words intimate the removal of the curse, and the restoration of a greater stability of the seasons; but surely this is an unwarranted stretch of the meaning of a text which simply declares that no such calamity as the flood shall ever again visit the earth. The vigor of the human constitution in the antediluvian ages, which is distinctly asserted, is alone sufficient to overturn the Bishop's theory; and the same thing seems to follow from the fact, that the gift of animal food was not added to that of vegetables, till after the flood,-an indication of the superior fertility and abundance, in the earliest ages, of plants fit for human subsistence.

nearly the same as at present. There was not only an abundant vegetation on its suface, but there were metals (brass and iron) which the labor of man could reach, and his ingenuity could convert to his use. Fire must have been employed in smelting and manufacturing these metals; and, from the slight hints which the sacred historian affords, it would appear, that the domestic arrangements of families could not have greatly differed from our own.

This may suffice as a rapid introduction to the changes which I shall next have occasion to notice-those which were occasioned by the universal Deluge. Meanwhile, what a wonderful period have we been surveying !—a new world of organized beings has been created, and has perished. It came fair and perfect from the hands of its Creator. Throughout its whole bounds, there was no evil, no deformity, no death. The eye of the Almighty, as He beheld His work, "saw that it was good." But the adversary and destroyer came. By a mysterious providence, he was permitted to prevail. Moral evil was introduced into the rational creation, and a new order of things arose. Man waxed more and more rebellious, till the whole world was filled with violence, and the measure of his iniquity being full, the sentence came forth from the Creator,-"Behold! I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die." How mysterious was the forbearance which permitted the rebellion, but how just was the judgement which punished it!

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