90 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



DISCOUKSE ON THE DEATH OF LYELL. 



Bt Dean STANLEY. 



DEAN STANLEY selected for bis sermon the words of the sec- 

 ond verse of the first chapter of Genesis : " The earth was with- 

 out form, and void ; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. 

 And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." The 

 sermon was, in fact, a discourse on the religious aspect of geology. 



The words of the text, the dean said, have a sense wider than the 

 mere literal transcript. They express the transition from that gulf 

 which the Greeks called chaos, to the order of the universe which a 

 modern philosopher described under the head of " cosmos." The 

 words in the original, which portray the formless void of the earth, 

 convey most precisely the image of warring elements, while the 

 words used for the moving of the Divine Spirit on the face of the 

 waters express the gentle brooding, as it were, of a bird of peace. 

 The language, however poetic, childlike, parabolical, and unscientific, 

 impresses upon us the principle which applies, in both the moral and 

 iu the material world, that the law of the divine operation is the 

 gradual, peaceful, progressive development of discord into hannony, 

 confusion into order, dai'kness into light. 



It chanced that within the short month of February, by a most 

 unusual coincidence of mortality, twice had the gates of the abbey 

 been opened to pay the last honors to two men widely apart in all 

 else, but alike in the share they took in unfolding and exemplifying 

 this divine law, the one the acknowledged chief of the English musi- 

 cians of our time, the other the acknowledged head of those who, 

 whether here or elsewhere, have devoted their talents to the study of 

 the history of our motlier earth. Of all the branches of art and letters, 

 none more reveals the hidden capacities of the human soul, or the 

 fearful and wonderful structure of the human frame, than the slow 

 process through which, from the most barbarous sounds, the spirit 

 which brooded over the harp of David, and inspired the genius of 

 Beethoven and Mendelssohn, has gained its majesty and glory. 



This passing allusion to a great musician, this indication of the 

 latent capacities for spiritual emotion brought out by abstract and in- 

 animate things, elements seemingly without form and void, was no 

 unfitting prelude to the consideration of the study of Nature, of 

 wliich he who has just gone was so bright an example. 



It is well known that, when the study of geology first arose, it was 

 involved in interminable schemes of reconciliation with the letter of 

 Scripture. There were and dre two modes of reconciliation, which 

 have eacli totally and deservedly failed. The one attempts to wrest 

 the words of the Bible from tlieir real meaning, and force them to 



