500 Rough Notes on the controversy against Geologists. 



butes, they might have ever new and increasing displays of 

 His glory. And, if the angels, as the apostle tells us, desire 

 to look into the mysteries of grace, certainly they, the spirits 

 of the departed righteous, and perhaps other intellectual 

 beings besides, must equally desire to look into the mysteries 

 of the creative and preserving providence of the Deity. In 

 this point of view the progressive changes upon this our 

 earth afford a beautiful and instructive lesson, a series of 

 appearing and evanishing pictures, on which are traced in 

 every lineament the handywork of the Omnipotent. First, 

 the world appears as a chaotic, dark, and probably a vapor- 

 ous undefined mass. In this we see light breaking out, and 

 the gradual arrangement of its components into the earth, 

 consisting of dry land and sea, and the atmosphere surround- 

 ing it. Next, we perceive the dry land covered with a most 

 luxuriant vegetation, as the distinguishing character of the 

 earth at that time, that vegetation, however, being still only 

 the lowest step in the scale of organised being. Following 

 this, there is a farther improvement in the order and econo- 

 my of the earth, by the creation of the sun and planetary 

 system, and its assuming the proper orbit in which it at pre- 

 sent moves. Then it becomes the abode of the lower grades 

 of living and sentient beings, fishes, reptiles and birds, and is a 

 world of which the abundance of these is the characteristic. 

 To these succeed the higher orders of such beings, the mam- 

 malia, as occupying the chief place in it ; and lastly, man is 

 created, not merely living and sentient, but also intellectual 

 and morally accountable. This is the presently existing state 

 of the earth, moral agents being now the distinguishing class 

 of being on its surface ; and, in this state, it is presented to us 

 under three successive aspects, as having on it man, created 

 holy but soon sinful ; man, sunk in ignorance of God, and 

 degraded by the abominations of sin ; man, now under the 

 influence of grace, through which, by the universal spread- 

 ing of the Gospel, the human race shall be intellectually 



