142 THE OLD BED SANDSTONE. 



joy. It must indeed be a dull and incurious mind thai 

 cannot be induced to take an interest in the history of tht 

 . world he inhabits, and to trace in its formations the record 

 of operations which took place, and the nature of beings 

 that lived and died, thousands of ages before the humar 

 race was created to become participators in the same ever 

 varying and ever-advancing scheme of vitality. Astronomy 

 may be a loftier theme, but the loftiness of its topics onlj 

 renders them the colder and more remote. Geology, on th( 

 other hand, has ever an immediate and human interest 

 The Earth's Past is inseparably interwoven with her Pre- 

 sent ; that which now lives is intimately associated in plar 

 and relationship with that which lies fossil in the rocks 

 beneath us; this plan has been steadily evolving during 

 untold ages ; man's own history is but part and parcel oJ 

 that plan ; and surely whatever tends to exalt our concep- 

 tions of creation can never tend to weaken our reverence 

 for the power, wisdom, and goodness by which it is directed 

 and sustained. 



