280 Testimony of the Rods. [June, 



It is against this modern and most attractive, and therefore most 

 mischievous, " apotheosis of error " that Hugh Miller has arrang- 

 ed the well-knit and unimpeachable " Testimony of the Rocks." — 

 To every intelligent and candid reader of this work, it will become 

 manifest that, instead of having carelessly skimmed, the author has 

 critically scanned the recondite records which nature invited him to 

 peruse, — that, instead of merely glorifying the sublimity and elo- 

 quently lauding the loveliness of creation, with the microscope for 

 his eye and geologic science for his scalpel, he has cut through the 

 superficial integuments and dissected Earth's skeleton iorms, and has 

 revealed thereon the primal stamp of the Creator's seal. 



But little more than one quarter of a century has passed since it 

 became obvious to the world that the last and most severe attack 

 that Infidelity could make upon the authenticity of Divine Revela- 

 tion was to be contested upon the field of Physical Science. The 

 weapons of logic, of moral testimony, of historic traditions, of verbal 

 criticisms, of textual exegesis, had all been tried upon, and all turned 

 pointless from, the divinely-tempered pages of Holy Writ. Foiled 

 in the use of the metaphysical. Skepticism eagerly seized the panoply 

 provided by discoveries in the physical ; and, with much of vain 

 and vaunting boast, Pantheism, cased in what he called " impervious 

 mail " wrought by the hand of science in nature's armory, as the 

 champion knight of this latest apotheosis of error, entered the lists 

 and dared the defenders of Divine Revelation to the combat. Some, 

 whose faith was the most implicit, were merely shocked at the pre- 

 sumption, and others were startled and staggered by the very bold- 

 ness of the challenge. Several unwary champions of the Christian 

 faith, miscalculating the force of this most courtly and accomplish- 

 ed knight, and trusting in the simple shepherd's sling of literal 

 word and text — essaying " to build a system of natural philosophy, 

 on the first chapter of Genesis " — were soon found worsted in the 

 combat. The wide-echoing plaudits of atheistic crowds attracted 

 the attention of the scientific world to these achievements of their 

 most puissant champion. And now, to this doughty knight and 

 mail-clad braggart, the humble quarrier, Hroii Miller, with his 

 "Testimony of the Rocks," has proven himself as " Ithuriel with 

 his spear," in the use of which he has most amply shown that — 



" no falsehood can endure 



Touch of celestial temper ; but returns 

 Of force to its own likeness. " 



All the by-play of philological criticism which some have employ- 



