GOSSIP ON ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 101 



their truths, seemg that, although in their own hands, they lead to 

 nothing, and are nothing. Such an impotent conclusion has met 

 Lyell, Avho expects to find remains of man in the submerged forest 

 at Cromer, where they are not to be found. Such also has met 

 Darwin, who has let go his belief in creation, and adopts variation 

 of species instead ; and such also meets Huxley, who traces back 

 organized being to molecules, so much alike in e^-ery species, that 

 all his philosophy cannot distinguish one from another, and who is 

 yet compelled to acknowledge that the molecule of a horse pro- 

 duces a horse, that of a bear a bear, that of a camel a camel, and 

 that of a man — although exactly like the others — a man. We 

 must, therefore, be careful while giving due credit for the truths 

 that such men teach, not to be led away by speculation which is not 

 truth, and to which the test of truth cannot be applied with any 

 satisfactory results. 



But it is time that I should bring these observations to a close. 

 We are all searching after truth — Avhether we look to find it in the 

 past, of the beginning and progress of which we know so little, 

 and which seems to our finite capacities an eternity of duration, — 

 or in the present, in which we have an interest for three score 

 years and ten, to mould it for the future, — or forward to that 

 future, whose duration will be infinite, and in which we expect to 

 be partakers of another form of existence that shall not change. 

 We glean here and there, with the depths of the wisdom so dearly 

 purchased for us by the first man \^dth the penalty of a short life, 

 a few startling facts, which create in us wonder and aAve at the 

 stupendous work of creation. We reason upon them >^ith the aid 

 of science, and make a little progress in unravelling their history, 

 and are then brought to a stand still, or are lost in endless and 

 unprofitable speculation. Looking backward or forAvard, and inves- 

 tigating as we may. Me find no theory so stable as the recorded 

 order of creation — none with which our geological facts so well 

 agree ; — and as this has not been written in detail, and therefore 

 not so much for our learning as the exercise of our faith and for 

 our edification, w-e may rest assured that our faculties are given 

 us, less on account of Avhat has been done, than for what there is 

 to do ; and that the exploration of the earth for the past history 

 of man is of little consequence as it concerns his present happiness. 



