188 CONCLUSION. 



And now, ere we close, we must survey, very 

 briefly, some considerations which are suggested 

 by the facts which have passed in review before 

 us. We are accustomed to regard the land, the 

 rocks, the mountains, " the everlasting hills," 

 as some of the most stable and unalterable of 

 created things ; and yet we have just seen that 

 the Avhole crust of this globe is perpetually 

 oscillating, as it were, changing and being 

 changed. When we couple with this the fact, 

 apparently so well established, of the intense 

 heat, and, probably, the fluidity of the internal 

 portion of our globe, we see an agency ever 

 present with us, fully adequate to produce, at 

 any moment when God shall so will i^, the 

 awful event which is to terminate the present 

 order of things, and the reign of sin on the 

 earth ; Avhen " the heavens shall pass away 

 with a great noise, and the elements shall melt 

 with fervent heat, the earth also and the works 

 that are therein shall be burned up." It is but 

 the rupture of the shell — the skin of rock which 

 covers this fiery ocean, and the catastrophe is 

 accomplished. It is only His almighty power 

 who says to the ocean, " Hitherto shalt thou 

 come, but no further," that has kept those burn- 

 ing waves within their bounds till now. We see 

 how continually we li\c, and move, and have 



