1 REPORT—1858. 
be regarded as preordained instruments in making known the power of God, 
without a knowledge of which, as well as of Scripture, we are told that we 
shall err. 
Great and marvellous have been the manifestations of this power imparted 
to us of late times, not only in respect of the shape, motions, and solar 
relations of the earth, but also of its age and inhabitants. 
In regard to the period during which the globe allotted to man has revolved 
in its orbit, present evidence strains the mind to grasp such sum of past time 
with an effort like that by which it tries to realize the space dividing that 
orbit from the fixed stars and remoter nebulez. Yet, during all those eras 
that have passed since the Cambrian rocks were deposited which bear the 
impressed record of Creative power, as it was then manifested, we know, 
through the interpreters of these ‘ writings on stone,’ that the earth was 
vivified by the sun’s light and heat, was fertilized by refreshing showers, and 
washed by tidal waves. 
No stagnation has been permitted to air or ocean. The vast body 
of waters not only moved, as a whole, in orderly oscillations, regulated, as 
now, by sun and moon; but were rippled and agitated by winds and storms. 
The atmosphere was healthily influenced by its horizontal currents; and by 
ever-varying clouds and vapours, rising, condensing, dissolving, and falling 
in endless vertical circulation. With these conditions of life, we know that 
life itself has been enjoyed throughout the same countless thousands of years ; 
and that with life, from the beginning, there has been death. 
The earliest testimony of the living thing, whether shell, crust, or coral in 
the oldest fossiliferous rock, is at the same time proof that it died. 
At no period has the gift of life been monopolized by a few contemporary 
individuals through a stagnant sameness of untold time; but it has been 
handed over from generation to generation, and successively enjoyed by the 
myriads that constitute the species. And, herein, we discern the greater 
beneficence and wisdom; that, through death, whether sudden or preceded 
by a brief decay, the individual enjoys the varying phases of life,—healthy 
assimilative growth, active youth, and vigorous maturity, with the procreative 
faculties and instincts to boot. And as life rises in the scale, even to the 
present highest form, foreknowing of his end, death is still the condition on 
which are enjoyed man’s purest pleasures,—the reverential love of parents— 
the holy affections of wedlock—the fond yearning towards offspring. 
It has further been given us to know, that not only the individual but 
the species perishes ; that as death is balanced by generation, so extinction 
has been concomitant with creative power, which has continued to provide a 
succession of species; and furthermore, that, as regards the varying forms 
of life which this planet has witnessed, there has been “an advance and 
progress in the main.” 
Geology demonstrates that the Creative foree has not deserted this earth ' 
during any of her epochs of time; and that in respect to no one class of 
