OF CREATION. 181 



its large tail, the monster darts through the water 

 at a rate which the eye can scarcely follow towards 

 the surface. The vast jaws, lined with formidable 

 rows of teeth, soon open wide to their full extent ; 

 the object of attack is approached is overtaken. 

 With a motion quicker than thought the jaws are 

 snapped together, and the work is done. The mon- 

 ster, becoming gorged, floats languidly near the sur- 

 face, with a portion of the top of its head and its 

 nostrils visible, like an island covered with black mud, 

 above the water. 



Such scenes as these must have been every day 

 enacted during the many ages when the waters of 

 the ocean were spread over what is now land in the 

 eastern hemisphere, and when the land then adja- 

 cent provided the calcareous mud now forming the 

 lias. 



But a description of such scenes of horror and car- 

 nage, enacted at former periods of the earth's history, 

 may perhaps induce some of my readers to question 

 the wisdom that permitted, nay enacted them, and 

 conclude rashly that they are opposed to the ideas we 

 are encouraged to form of the goodness of that Being, 

 the necessary action of whose laws, enforced on all 

 living beings, gives rise to them. By no means, how- 

 ever, is this the case. These very results are perfectly 

 compatible with the greatest wisdom and goodness, 

 and, even according to our limited views of the course 

 of nature, they may be shewn not to involve any need- 

 less suffering. To us men, constituted as we are, and 

 looking upon death as a punishment which must be 

 endured, premature and violent destruction seems to 

 involve unnecessary pain. But such is not the law of 



