160 SKETCHES OF CREATION. 



their hiding-places, or the thunder-voice of Deity spoke, as 

 it still speaks, from the terror-striking tempest. 



The office of this redundant vegetation was finally ful 

 filled. The atmosphere was purified of its noxious ele 

 ments, and higher creatures could live upon 4he soil. Be 

 hold the wisdom and providence of the creative Architect ! 

 Carbonic acid was to be removed from the atmosphere, to 

 fit it for animal respiration. A finite mind might have 

 aimed to effect this end alone. Omnipotence was compe 

 tent to annihilate the poison, or convert it to some solid 

 or liquid form. The infinite Intelligence, however, had so 

 planned the universe that the poison of the quadruped was 

 the food of the plant. The very execution of one portion 

 of the cosmical plan created a use for that which impeded 

 the execution of another. A double object was thus ef 

 fected. Nor was this all. Should these enormous crops 

 of vegetation grow up and pass away unutilized for the 

 want of an intelligent population to consume and use the 

 fuel ? It was not so to be. Though man was not except 

 in the conceptions of the Almighty, man was regarded in 

 the preparations of this age. The far-seeing Planner of 

 the universe stored the carboniferous fuel in repositories 

 where it could never perish, and where it could await the 

 uses of the coming race of man. Nor was this even the 

 end of the providential purposes. In a subsequent age 

 those barren rocks and those beds of coal became covered, 

 first with the basis of a soil, and then with the soil itself; 

 so that man, when he should come upon the stage, might 

 find an inexhaustible mine of fuel, and a foothold for the 

 products of his farm, upon the self-same acres. Another 

 circumstance should also be here remarked. The preser 

 vation of these carboniferous stores was effected by the 

 packing down of layer after layer, while beds of clay, and 

 sand, and calcareous sediment were interposed between 



