30 SKETCHES OF CREATION. 



most demonstrable for that which is contrary to all obser 

 vation. The geological doctrine is not to deny the unlim 

 ited power of Deity, for nothing has done more than geol 

 ogy to unfold and demonstrate that power. It is to apply 

 the same reasoning to geological facts as we apply to other 

 phenomena. In the material world, and within the scope 

 of our investigation, we witness no result which is not the 

 effect of the antecedent energy of what we call secondary 

 causes, operating according to established methods. What 

 ever can be accounted for by reference to such modes of 

 operation, we feel ourselves precluded from attributing to 

 an extraordinary and miraculous agency. 



In view of the facts, therefore, we regard it as certain 

 that a large part of the solid crust of our globe has passed 

 through an ablution in the sea. Particle by particle, grain 

 by grain, pebble by pebble, has been worn from the pre 

 existing rocks; and, after being rolled to and fro for ages 

 by the surges of the sea, has found its way to the deep 

 and quiet ocean-bed. There layers innumerable have been 

 piled upon it. Some of the agencies of Nature have solid 

 ified these vast accumulations of sediment; an earthquake- 

 throe has resulted in the birth of a continent, over which 

 the mighty mutations of a geological epoch have swept in 

 grandeur which no human eye was yet created to contem 

 plate; then, in the preappointed order of Providence, man 

 came upon the earth; and to-day, after the lapse of an in 

 terval of time which, to human apprehension, is infinite, we 

 split open the solid layer, and behold ! the very pebble of 

 granite which was loosed from the primitive rock in the 

 dim ages of the earth s history, which reach far back into 

 the eternity of God ! And by its side is a form an ani 

 mal form Nearly an animal form ; but, if we search the 

 world through, we shall not find its like among existing 

 beings. It is a strange and uncouth form. It was one of 



