94 THE OLD RED SANDSTONE. 
brought to feel, if not to conceive of it—to be made to know 
that we ourselves are barren-minded, and that in Him “all 
fulness dwelleth.” Succeeding creations, each with its 
myriads of existences, do not exhaust Him. He never re- 
peats Himself. The curtain drops, at his command, over 
one scene of existence full of wisdom and beauty; it rises 
again, and all is glorious, wise, and beautiful as before, and 
all is new. Who can sum up the amount of wisdom whose 
record He has written in the rocks— wisdom exhibited in 
the succeeding creations of earth, ere man was, but which 
was exhibited surely not in vain? May we not say with 
Milton, — 
Think not, though men were none, 
That heaven could want spectators, God want praise ; 
Millions of spiritual creatures walked the earth, 
And these with ceaseless praise his works beheld? 
It is well to return on the record, and to read in its une 
quivocal characters the lessons which it was intended to 
teach. Infidelity has often misinterpreted its meaning, but 
not the less on that account has it been inscribed for purposes 
alike wise and benevolent. Is it nothing to be taught, with a 
demonstrative evidence which the metaphysician cannot sup- 
ply, that races are not eternal— that every family had its 
beginning, and that whole creations have come to an end ? 
