86 SELECTED ESSAYS FROM LAY SERMONS 



The longest line of human ancestry must hide its dimin- 

 ished head before the pedigree of this insignificant shell- 

 fish. We Englishmen are proud to have an ancestor who 

 was present at the Battle of Hastings. The ancestors of 

 Terebratiilina caput serpentis may have been present at a 

 battle of I chthyosauria in that part of the sea which, when 

 the chalk was forming, flowed over the site of Hastings. 

 When all around has changed, this Terebratulina has peace- 

 fully propagated its species from generation to generation, 

 and stands to this day, as a living testimony to the con- 

 tinuity of the present with the past history of the globe. 



Up to this moment I have stated, so far as I know, noth- 

 ing but well-authenticated facts, and the immediate con- 

 clusions which they force upon the mind. But the mind 

 is so constituted that it does not willingly rest in facts and 

 immediate causes, but seeks always after a knowledge of 

 the remoter links in the chain of causation. 



Taking the many changes of any given spot of the earth's 

 surface, from sea to land and from land to sea, as an estab- 

 lished fact, we cannot refrain from asking ourselves how 

 these changes have occurred. And when we have explained 

 them — as they must be explained — by the alternate slow 

 movements of elevation and depression which have affected 

 the crust of the earth, we go still further back, and ask, 

 Why these movements? 



I am not certain that any one can give you a satisfactory 

 answer to that question. Assuredly I cannot. All that can 

 be said, for certain, is, that such movements are part of the 

 ordinary course of nature, inasmuch as they are going on 

 at the present time. Direct proof may be given, that some 

 parts of the land of the northern hemisphere are at this mo- 

 ment insensibly rising and others insensibly sinking; and 



