320 SKETCHES OF CREATION. 



of the following one. Thus grew into being those " pro- 

 phetic types" which show that One Intelligence has ordered 

 creation — an intelligence to which the past and the future 

 are both present. Here are relations of thought which pro- 

 claim in the ears of all men that chance has never swayed 

 the sceptre of the world, and that unthinking and blind 

 material force has only been the servant of an Intelligent 

 Will. 



Hardly less interesting are the phenomena of retrospect- 

 ive types. These lie on the vanishing side of the eclipse. 

 They are the last shadows cast by a type whose central 

 passage was ages ago. The "garpike" or " billfish" of our 

 Western waters is a notable example of retrospective 

 types. Some geological cycles since, the garpikes were the 

 monarch-occupants of the waters of the earth. Helmeted 

 and mailed in impenetrable* armor, they w T ere secure from 

 the attacks of the most formidable foes. With jaws armed 

 with triple rows of sharp and conical teeth, and endowed 

 with the power of darting like an arrow through the water, 

 there was no contemporary too swift to capture or too 

 powerful to destroy. The meridian of this dynasty was in 

 the Mesozoic ages. From that time its power has contin- 

 ued to w^ane ; and in the present age, so far as shown by 

 the published records of science, only the Polypterus of the 

 Nile and Senegal Rivers, and the JLepidostens of North 

 American waters, survive to represent the prestige, and 

 glory, and prowess of a reign which was once inexorable 

 and universal. We may look upon the " billfish" of our 

 rivers and lakes wit'h a veneration infinitely more exalted 

 than any belonging to the survivors of the decaying dynas- 

 ties of human history. Here are the relics of empires in 

 which the Almighty Will has wrought its own purposes; 

 on the other hand are the ruins of fabrics built and de- 

 fended at the cost of human liberty and human blood, in 



