26 TOWN GEOLOGY. 



sidered ? or that the careful, accurate, and patient 

 consideration of it, even to its minutest details, can be 

 otherwise than useful to man, and can bear witness of 

 aught, save the mind and character of Him who made 

 it ? And if so, can it be a work unfit for, unworthy 

 of, a clergyman whose duty is to preach Him to 

 all, and in all ways, to call on men to consider that 

 physical world which, like the spiritual world, consists, 

 holds together, by Him, and lives and moves and has 

 its being in Him ? 



And here I must pause to answer an objection 

 which I have heard in my youth from many pious and 

 virtuous people better people in God's sight, than I, 

 I fear, can pretend to be. 



They used to say, " This would be all very true if 

 there were not a curse upon the earth." And then 

 they seemed to deduce, from the fact of that curse, a 

 vague notion (for it was little more) that this world 

 was the devil's world, and that therefore physical 

 facts could not be trusted, because they were dis- 

 ordered, and deceptive, and what not. 



Now, in justice to the Bible, and in justice to the 

 Church of England, I am bound to say that such a 

 statement, or anything like it, is contrary to the 

 doctrines of both. It is contrary to Scripture. 

 According to it, the earth is not cursed. For it is 

 said in Gen. viii. 21, "And the Lord said, I will not 

 again curse the ground any more for man's sake. 

 While the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, 

 cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night 

 shall not cease." According to Scripture, again, 

 physical facts are not disordered. The Psalmist says, 

 " They continue this day according to their ordinance; 



