SCIENCE AND RELIGION. 139 



to believe that a widely different destiny awaits us; that 

 the God who endowed us with those wonderful powers, 

 which enable us to live in every departed era, every 

 coming period, has given us to possess these powers for 

 ever ; that not only does He number the hairs of our 

 heads, but that His cares are extended to even our very 

 remains ; that our very bones, instead of being left, like 

 the exuviae around us, to form the rocks and clays of a 

 future world, shall, like those in the valley of vision, be 

 again clothed with muscle and sinew; and that our bodies, 

 animated by the warmth and vigour of life, shall again 

 connect our souls to the matter existing around us, and 

 be obedient to every impulse of the will. It is surely 

 no time, when we walk amid the dark cemeteries of a de- 

 parted world, and see the cold blank shadows of the 

 tombs falling drearily athwart the way, it is surely no 

 time to extinguish the light given us to shine so fully 

 and so cheerfully on our own proper path, merely because 

 its beams do not enlighten the recesses that yawn around 

 us. And oh, what more unworthy of reasonable man 

 than to reject so consoling a revelation on no juster quar- 

 rel than that, when it unveils to us much of what could 

 not otherwise be known, and without the knowledge of 

 which we could not be other than unhappy, it leaves to 

 the invigorating exercise of our own powers whatever 

 in the wide circle of creation lies fully within their 

 grasp ! ' 



His literary essays and his legendary tales had drawn 

 upon Miller the attention of men eminent in the world 

 of literature ; this chapter of his book constituted his in- 

 troduction to circles interested in the pursuit of science. 

 ' I may mention/ he says in a letter to Mr Robert 

 Chambers, ' that a geological chapter in my little volume 

 of Scenes and Legends has attracted more notice among 



