5.94 GEOLOGICAL PROOF OF A DEITY. 
the volume of witness, which has been sealed 
up for ages beneath the surface of the earth, than 
impose on the student in Natural Theology the 
duty of investigatingits contents; aduty, in which 
for lack of experience they may anticipate a ha- 
zardous or a laborious task, but which by those 
engaged in it is found to afford a rational and 
righteous and delightful exercise of their highest 
faculties, in multiplying the evidences of the 
Existence and attributes and Providence of 
God.* 
The alarm however which was excited by the 
novelty of its first discoveries has well nigh passed 
* A study of the natural world teaches not the truths of re- 
vealed religion, nor do the truths of religion inform us of the 
inductions of physical science. Hence it is, that men whose 
studies are too much confined to one branch of knowledge, often 
learn to overrate themselves, and so become narrow-minded. 
Bigotry is a besetting sin of our nature. Too often it has been 
the attendant of religious zeal : but it is perhaps most bitter and 
unsparing when found with the irreligious. A philosopher, un- 
derstanding not one atom of their spirit, will sometimes scoff at 
the labours of religious men ; and one who calls himself religious, 
will perhaps return a like harsh judgment, and thank God that 
he is not as the philosophers, — forgetting all the while, that man 
can ascend to no knowledge, except by faculties given to him by 
his Creator's hand, and that all natural knowledge is but a re- 
flection of the will of God. In harsh judgments such as these 
there is not only much folly, but much sin. True wisdom con- 
sists in seeing how all the faculties of the mind, and all parts of 
knowledge bear upon each other, so as to work together to a 
common end ; ministering at once to the happiness of man, and 
his Maker's glory. — Sedg-wick's Discourse on the Studies of the 
University, Cambridge, 1833, App. note F. p. 102, 103. 
