MACKIE — REMNANTS OF THE FIRST LIFE-WORLD. 135 



graphical range, none to which a considerable other portion of this 

 world has not been useless and unserviceable. Is it so with man ? 

 The stars of heaven — how many ages old ! — tell him the track of the 

 world he lives upon ; mysterious magnetism guides the slender needle 

 by which his freighted ships are safely steered from shore to shore ; 

 the very lightning is his messenger. The coal and iron of his mighty 

 engines are ages old ; the clay of the bricks of which he builds his 

 houses, and the marble of the statues with which he adorns his 

 palaces, have passed through ages of preparation ; innumerable and 

 diversified as are the materials of the earth, has he not a use for them 

 all, from the lowermost granites to the uppermost surface-soils ? 



Would there have been all these elaborations of the mineral 

 substances, all these ages of manipulation, all these preparatory 

 creations for the hero of seventy years, for the mere animal that was to 

 perish with the beasts of the field ? H'o. 



Life is real ! life is earnest ! 

 And the grave is not its goal ; 

 ♦ Dust thou art, to dust returnest,' 

 Was not spoken of the soul." 



As on summer's eve, when twilight is fading, the gentle air springs 

 up, tranquillizing the spirit with its cool fragrance ; so, o'er the study 

 of the past, come refreshing thoughts of the Eternal. 



CHAPTEH ni. 



The Remnants of the First Life- World, and the Bottom Rooks, 



Thousands — millions — millions upon millions of years ago ! Time, we 

 know, had no beginning, and time, we know, can never cease. IN'ot so 

 creation. Our senses may appal at the thought of the fearful cycles 

 through which the creative energy has been acting ; our frames may 

 tremble with emotion in contemplating the vast realms of space through 

 which the Godhead has passed, bringing life out of darkness ; but the 

 mind puts a boundary to creation, vast as it is. It looks back to the 

 the time when nothing was, and around, in all directions, to the 

 vast blank beyond the universe of worlds and stellar systems. It feels 

 creation may be going on in the unbounded regions far beyond the limits 

 of our own, and that it may be ever and ever extending ; once begun 

 never ceasing, and always exhibiting beneficence and perfection. 



