SCIENCE AND RELIGION. 67 



prophet ; for to him the " valley of dry bones " becomes a vision of 

 death passed away, and a prevision of a resurrection and a life to 

 come. As he gazes upon the vast multitude of dead, sapless me- 

 morials of beings long since perished, " there is a shaking, and the 

 bones come together " once again ; their fleshy clothing is restored 

 to them ; the vital fluid courses through their bodies ; the spirit of 

 life is breathed into them ; " and they live and stand upon their 

 feet. v Ages upon ages roll back their tides, and once more the vast 

 reptile epoch reigns on earth. The huge saurians shake the ground 

 with their heavy tread, wallow in the slimy ooze, or glide sinuous 

 through the waters ; while winged reptiles flap their course through 

 the miasmatic vapours that hang dank and heavy over the marshy 

 world. As with them, so with us an inevitable progression 

 towards higher stages of existence, the effete and undeveloped 

 beings passing away to make room for new and loftier and more 

 perfect creations. What is the volume that has thus recorded the 

 chronicles of an age so long past, and prophecies of so far-distant 

 a future ? Simply a little fragment of mouldering bone, tossed aside 

 contemptuously by the careless labourer as miner's " rubbish." 



Not only is the past history of each being written in every 

 particle of which its material frame is constructed, but the past 

 records of the universe to which it belongs, and a prediction of its 

 future. God can make no one thing that is not universal in its 

 teachings, if we would only be so taught ; if not the fault is with the 

 pupils, not with the Teacher. He writes His ever-living words in 

 all the works of His hand ; He spreads this ample book before us, 

 always ready to teach, if we will only learn. We walk in the midst 

 of miracles with closed eyes and stopped ears, dazzled and be- 

 wildered with the light, fearful and distrustful of the Word. 



It is not enough to accumulate facts as misers gather coins, and 

 then to put them away on our bookshelves, guarded by the bars and 

 bolts of technical phraseology. As coins, the facts must be circu- 

 lated, and given to the public for their use. It is no matter of 

 wonder that the generality of readers recoil from works on the 

 natural sciences, and look upon them as mere collections of tedious 

 names, irksome to read, unmanageable of utterance, and impossible 

 to remember. Our scientific libraries are filled with facts, dead, 

 hard, dry, and material as the fossil bones that fill the sealed and 



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