SERMONS IN STONES,

&c.

CHAPTER I.

THE TWO RECORDS OF THE CREATION.

"Read Nature: Nature is the friend of Truth."-Young.

In the beginning God made the earth and all that therein is not by the exercise of a single act of creative power, but by a series of such acts, and according to a certain system or order of progression. It is thus written in the first page of the Bible; and the Record is believed by the great body of Christians merely because it is so written. Some, however, in a sceptical, or, it may be, a more inquiring spirit, seek for a confirmation of the authenticity, authority, and inspiration of the sacred narrative; and if what is there recorded admits of confirmation, the believer in its divine origin cannot resist the demand that there should be some proof given of the Record being consistent with what sense and experience teaches us of the

B

origin and order of the creation. For upwards of 3000 years after its publication, man was without the means of testing the accuracy of the divine penman: but the progress of observation and science has gradually enlarged the sphere of his knowledge, and furnished him with the means of perusing the early history of our planet, and of ascertaining, with some accuracy, the order of the appearance of the animal and vegetable existences with which it has, from time to time, been furnished. This knowledge has been imparted principally through the medium of the science of Geology, which exhibits to our view what the author of Genesis has described of the pre-Adamite world in the opening scene of the Bible.

Though frequent allusions to geological phenomena are to be found in the writings of philosophers and poets of antiquity, it is only within the last half century that Geology has been admitted into the rank of the sciences, and established as such on the firm basis of legitimate induction. But though it is the youngest born of the physical sciences, yet in the magnitude and sublimity of the objects of its fascinating researches, its practical utility, and the extent and importance of its religious applications, it is second to none. Hence it is, that the study of Geology has attracted and engaged the attention of the most inquiring and

best informed of our philosophers; who, from its collected and classified discoveries, have already compiled an authentic history of the world and its occupants, during the countless ages which have intervened between its creation and the creation of man-a history which rests on surer foundations than the records of any portion or period of the world since the human race came into existence. In this Record, we have presented to our view, the various races of the animal and vegetable creation which have successively occupied the surface of the globe, from the time that the Spirit of God first moved on the face of the deep, until He breathed the breath of life into the nostrils of the first man, and the many changes of condition and vicissitudes which our planet has witnessed throughout the long periods of its preparation for his reception.

It is from the rocks which compose the crust of the earth on which we tread that this information has been derived. In the fossil remains with which they are charged, we behold the very creatures as they existed, in some instances, converted into silex, limestone, or quartz, according to the character of the substance in which they were imbedded, without the slightest alteration in form; in others, we have the lineaments of the animal or plant pourtrayed with the utmost accuracy, and