REVIEWS. 



129 



tmtliful manner, and without apparently the remotest desire to garble any topic 

 to his own purposes, or to pander to any prejudices. " It is," he says in his com- 

 mencing words, " a Christian duty to meditate upon the character of God, not 

 only as exhibited in gi-ace and redemption, but also as displayed in creation. God 

 is the Author of nature as well as of revelation. His existence is declared and his 

 perfections are manifested in the one as well as in the other, and therefore both 

 claim om' devout attention and earnest study." 



The first half of the work is an epitome of geological doctrines ; the following 

 passage, describing the order of organic remains, well exemplifies that intelligibi- 

 lity of language and admirable brevity, simplicity, and accuracy by which Mr. 

 Gloag's writmg is characterized : — 



"And now let us endeavour, if possible, to realize these facts which we have 

 stated. Let us travel in imagination into the distant past. Let us fix our atten- 

 tion upon a small portion of the earth. It is the ocean-bed. Fish of peculiar 

 shape are swimming about it ; some with fins spread like wings, and others with 

 huge scales hke a coat of armour. In general they are carnivorous, and prey upon 

 their fellows. Ages roll on. These fish have ceased to exist ; then- remains have 

 been embedded in the mud or sand at the bottom of the ocean ; this has been 

 consolidated into stone, and has been gradually elevated until it forms part of the 

 dry land. And now we are led, as it were, into a different world. Gigantic ferns 

 or reeds, hke trees, now grow upon the earth. A vegetation has sprung up far 

 ranker and more luxuriant than that which we read of in tropical climes ; but not 

 one tree, not one plant is the same as any which now exists. Ages again roll on. 

 The vegetation has disappeared ; the trees have been swept into the ocean, or the 

 gromid on which they gTew has been submerged ; the diy land has again become 

 sea. And in that sea we behold strange shapes and forms— huge reptiles and 

 terrible monsters of the deep ; there is one, at least thirty feet long, with a neck 

 longer than that of any swan, a head of a lizard, a body of a crocodile, and the 

 paddles of a whale : there is another, a flying monster, a reptile covered with 

 scales, with wings similar to those of a bat, rivalling in its shape any of the fabu- 

 lous dragons of antiquity. But their existence also has its limits ; the species dies 

 as well as the mdividual ; the age of reptiles has come to its close ; and after ages 

 upon ages have passed away, after another series of elevations and submersions, 

 after this portion of the earth has been sea and land alternately, it is ultimately 

 raised, and peopled with created intelligences, and is the seat of the mightiest 

 empire that ever existed upon earth, and has become the abode of civilisation and 

 religion ; for this portion of earth, the past history of which we have traced, is 

 a part of the island of Great Britain. 



" Every formation has, of course, been formed at the bottom of the sea, and is, 

 therefore, a decisive proof that the district where it is now found once constituted 

 the ocean-bed. It is also a proof that dry land and sea existed contem])oraneously, 

 for the materials of which the formation is composed were all originally washed off 

 from the land ; and thus in past geological eras, whilst the stratified rocks were 

 deposited, there never was a time when all was land or when all was water. 

 Indeed, every portion of the dry land has, in all probability, been frequently at the 

 bottom of the sea. ' By an abundance of various complicated evidence,' says Dr. 

 Pye Smith, ' it is proved that there is probably no spot on the face of the earth, 

 both the dry land and the seas as they at present exist, which has not gone 

 repeatedly through the conditions of being alternately the floor of the waters, and 

 an earthy surface exposed to the atmosphere and occupied by appropriate tribes of 

 vegetable and animal creatures.' " 



In Chapter IV. the consideration of the Mosaic days of creation is taken up, 

 and the creation of the world is put by the author at that beginning which may 

 now be regarded as popularly considered to have been divided by a lengthened 

 period of vast ages from the six days of the Mosaic account. " The sacred Scrip- 

 tures," writes Mr. Gloag, " open with a description of the creation and arrange- 

 ment of the universe— a description which, for the unity of simplicity of diction 

 with sublimity of thought, is probably unequalled by any composition. The first 

 sentence contains a comprehensive statement of the creation of the universe. It 

 reveals God to us as the Creator of heaven and earth, the Great First Cause, the 



VOL. II. K 



