my mind, is more absurd or extravagant than the notion of that man who has the moral hardihood of heart, and the obscuration of intellect and common sense, to stand up and assert the monstrous paradox, the unscientific dogma, that there is no God and Governor of heaven and earth. I was amazed the other day, when an individual wrote to me, to find the very first announcement of his letter to be, "I am an atheist." That was to me a perfect key to all the contents of the document. He not only said that he was an atheist, but he gave me the advantages of his reasons for being so. I read them, and I wrote back that I had generally found Atheism to be a fog, that originates in the heart a conviction for the mind, determining to get rid of the idea of God, because the deeds of the life are evil; but I wrote that I could compliment my correspondent on the perfect absence of this, as, judging from his reasons, it was weakness of intellect on his part, and not badness of heart, that made him come to such conclusions.

Another interesting lesson is taught us by Geologythat God has taken an interest in this globe, the most continuous, the most parental. The infidel's objective query has often been, that as God has thousands of orbs of the richest splendor, of which he is the Author, and on the riches of which he sits enthroned, how can God give such attention to this minute speck, which he could expunge from the orbs of the universe, and which would be no more missed than would a grain of sand from the sea-shore, as to send the Son of God to die for it? This argument has been well answered by the late Dr. Chalmers and others. There are a hundred globes or orbs, and there is one truant orb; God will leave the ninety-nine orbs that need no restoration, and will come on the wings of love to restore this prodigal orb; just as the mother who has one child a prodigal, and seven at home, happy, good, and obedient, when

she hears the wind blow and the storms beat, will think far more, and far more deeply, of the prodigal upon the open ocean, than of her seven at her fireside, under the shelter of her roof at home. And if there were no analogy at all, Geology proves in the history of the globe, that God has interposed in this globe so often in the sovereign exercise of creative acts; and the Bible records that he has crowned his interposition with the most glorious of them all, redemption through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The discoveries of Geology extinguish for ever the theory advocated in a well known book, called the "Vestiges of Creation." It is most remarkable how the writer of this book has been overwhelmed. The author of the "Vestiges of Creation" alleges that certain nebulæ in the sky consist of a certain fire-mist, which has been gradually spinning itself into orbs, which gradually become bigger and bigger. Lord Rosse turned his telescope to these nebulæ, and found them to consist of clusters of orbs fully formed. Then again, the idea of the author of the "Vestiges" is, that man is the development of a monkey, that the monkey is the embryo man, so that if you keep a baboon long enough it will develop itself into a man. Hugh Miller states what geologists have discovered, that each successive dynasty (I use the technical geological phrase) was created at its maximum of perfection, and that degradation, not elevation, has been the law of existence. We find no instances of transformation of races in Geology. How can you suppose, I ask, that an ourang-outang can ever develop itself into a man? The ankle of the ourang-outang, for instance, is rotatory; man's ankle is a simple joint that moves forward and backward, and is meant for walking. Man's foot is a beautiful arch, and he is meant to support himself by it erect; but the ourang-outang has a prehensile foot, that is, long fingers meant for clasping boughs of trees, and leaping

from branch to branch-the evidence of a brute, not the basis of the development of a man. But suppose that the ourang-outang's hairy hand were to develop itself into the beautiful hand of a lady, and its prehensile foot were ultimately to become the handsome arched foot, and its head to change into the fine countenance of man; which part of the ourang-outang would develop itself into the grand imagination of Shakspeare, the great intellect of Sir Isaac Newton, the mighty genius of a Bacon? Where are the elements of such a development as this? Echo must answer only, "Where?" But Geology discovers no half monkey, half man, half one race, and half another, in any of the earth's archives, but distinctly defined and indepen`dent and distinct races.

We have in the disclosures of Geology the most triumphant evidence of the possibility of a miracle. Hume, the celebrated atheistic philosopher, says that a miracle is impossible, and on this account, that we have no evidence of a miracle. Dr. Newman says, on the contrary, that his church is so full of miracles that it is like an electric jar, charged, and only needing to be exposed to the outward world to explode with all sorts of brilliant prodigies. We take the moderate course, and we say, miracles have been when there was a necessity for them; and we say, the possibility of miracles is proved by the fact revealed on the stony page in the excavations of the globe, that God has stepped in again and again, and created races, and left evidences of that creation which are unmistakable upon the surface and contents of the globe.

In the next place, we have in Geology the refutation of the theory asserted by men in St. Peter's days, and asserted by men in our day, that "all things continue as they were since the beginning." They do not continue as they were; they have changed; God has changed them again and

again, and they will be changed one day, when what now is shall undergo its last baptism, and the earth shall emerge all beautiful, and end, as it began, with paradise.

And, in the next place, every discovery we have in Geology refutes the idea that life can in any shape, by any chemical combination of material elements, be originated. It shows that life is the gift of God, and that nothing else but God's power begat it.

I notice also, that all the discoveries of Geology show, amid traces of judgment, evidences of death, and intimations of sin that every step in the formation of the globe has, more or less, been beneficent and benevolent to man. For instance, the coal that took thousands of years to form - the lime, which is composed of dead sea-shells and insects the ores of iron— the gold and the silver thrown out in veins and interstices in the rocks. these are all found to be necessary to man. If you had no lime, you would have no flux for melting the metal; if you had no coal, you could have no fire to melt the metal; and if you had no metal, you would not require lime and coal; and yet all three are generally contiguous.

Lastly, Geology tells us very plainly, that all the elements of that great catastrophe predicted by Peter in the third chapter of his Second Epistle, are at this moment ready. It is well ascertained, that Fahrenheit's thermometer rises one degree every forty-five feet we penetrate into the earth, and that if you were to descend sixty miles, the heat at that depth would be so intense that it would melt the hardest flints and the most solid rock; and that this globe is therefore a cooled crust, composed of the granite and the fossiliferous strata, and that underneath at the heart is one molten and surging sea of fire; that the volcanoes are the safety-valves which prevent the earth's crust being riven into atoms, and all humanity perishing. A day will come

when God will remove the restrictions, when the elements shall "melt with fervent heat." Oh! may we, seeing all these things must be dissolved, be found in the happy company, and amid the blessed group, of them who, through Christ Jesus, are looking for a new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.*

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* In making these remarks I am greatly indebted to Hitchcock's wɔrk on Religion and Geology;" to Hugh Miller's able work, "Foot prints of the Creator;" to Dr. King's interesting "Manual;" Dr. Anderson's "Courses of Creation;" and to a valuable work on the "Earth's Antiquity," by the Rev. J. Gray, rector of Dibden.