ANCIENT GEOLOGIC ORGANISMS. O 



of discovery, in the fact that the lowest class of the Heterogangliate 

 division does not make its appearance till the tertiary system was being 

 formed, in other words, not for numberless unreckoned ages after the 

 highest Molluscan genera had been called into being. 



But all this, it may be urged, does away with the six days of creation, 

 either as literal or prophetic periods. No such thing; nature's own testi- 

 mony, engraved in ancient rocks and cliffs, is to the contrary; any tyro 

 in geology knows to the contrary, and can tell you that great eras of 

 development were elaborated in successive periods of the world's history, 

 that, notwithstanding the appearance of lower orders of the higher animal 

 divisions during the acritous sway, they were merely the forerunners of a 

 nobler world afterwards to be perfected, and that the successive but con- 

 tinuous deposits of the Silurian and other systems, speaking of them as 

 periods of time, were the eras of greatest development of different tribes 

 of animals. 



And when, ic may be asked, did the last and highest kingdom appear? 

 Its creation began in the days of the Upper Silurian age, when water 

 prevailed over the surface of the earth, when the coral of acritous Polyps 

 was in a high state of formation; it began with the lowest class of the 

 vertebrate division, tribes which alone could live in that watery age, when 

 higher genera would, like Noah's dove, have found no rest for the soles 

 of their feet, an age adapted entirely to fishes; and afterwards, when the 

 dry land began to appear, in the time of the uppermost deposits of the 

 old red sandstone, then those great monsters, whose bony remains may be 

 found imbedded in such numbers in our liassic and oolitic deposits, those 



"Dragons of the Prime, 

 That tore each other in their slime," 



appeared with it. Truly nature never receded, but from the time when 

 God first clothed the material world with life, till the day of perfection 

 arrived, when He placed the pinnacle on the noble structure He had raised, 

 and formed the spirit of man within him, and fitted him to serve and 

 worship Him, nature never receded. God's work was complete, but it was 

 left to man to recede. It is a beautiful fact, fully in accordance with 

 geologic truth, that, when God had finished all His work, "behold it was 

 very good," and that man, now, alas ! so degraded, was good too, a fitting 

 head to such an edifice. God formed him perfect, but from that original 

 righteousness, from his high estate, puffed up with pride, and seared with 

 ingratitude, man himself receded and fell; and I know not whether there 

 is a more striking proof of the mighty foresight and wisdom of God than 

 that, though He had made him perfect, and doubtless meant him but for 

 his rebel sins to continue so, still, foreseeing the dire calamity of his fall, 



