REVIEWS. 
129 
truthful manner, and without apparently the remotest desire to garble any topic 
to his own inirposes, or to i)auder to any iirejuJices. " It is," he says in his com- 
mencing words, " a Christian duty to meditate ui-ion the cliaracter of God, not 
only as exhibited in grace and rede"m})tion, but also as displayed in creation. God 
is the Autlior 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 our 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 writing 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. Fisii of peculiar 
shajie are swinmiing about it ; some with fins spread like wings, and others with 
huge scales like a coat of armour. Li 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 nuul 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 dift'erent world. Gigantic ferns 
or reeds, like trees, now grow upiin the earth. A vegetation has sprang up far 
ranker and more luxm-iant 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 
ground on which they gi'ew has been submerged ; the diy land has again become 
sea. And in that sea we behold strange shapes and forms — huge rejitiles 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 rei^tOe 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 individual ; the age of reptiles has come to its close ; and after ages 
upon ages have passed away, after another series of elevations and submersions, 
alter this portion of the earth has been sea and land alternately, it is ultimately 
raised, and peopled witli created intelligences, and is the seat of the mightiest 
emph'e that ever existed upon earth, and has become the abode of civilisation and 
reMgion ; 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 jiroof that dry land and sea existed contemporaneously, 
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 eai-thy 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 jjrobably unequalled by any composition. The first 
sentence contains a comi)rehensive 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 
