192 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
day Btares vacantly around, so the most gigantic mind first gazes, by 
God's will mercifully, on the first aspect of creation. 
Like that of the child, day by day the mind of the student acquires 
strength, until at last it grasps within its own capacity the whole 
expanse, and bravely treads in fields unknown, undaunted, undeterred ; 
at every stride becoming more and more reverently and devoutly 
impressed with the mysterious powers and attributes of our great 
Eternal Father. 
We have spoken all that is known of the first world and its inha- 
bitants, and these are the legends of the Bottom-rocks. In one of the 
sweet tales bequeathed to us by our Saxon forefathers of the Venerable 
Bede, we are told that a boy in mockery once led the venerable old 
man, when blind with age, into a vale " that lay all thickly sowed 
with mighty rocks," and in mischief told him " many men wanted to 
hear him." Eloquently and long the gentle preacher expounded on 
the wonderful ways and goodness of God, until " the tears ran down 
his hoary beard," and " when at the close, as seemeth always meet, 
he prayed ' Our Father,' and pronounced aloud 
' Thine is the kingdom, and the power. Thine 
The glory now and through eternity,' 
" at once there rang through all the echoing vale a sound of many 
thousand voices, crying. Amen ! most reverend sire. Amen ! Amen ! " 
Truly, from the primeval rocks rings out the universal response, 
echoed and re-echoed from innumerable world-clusters, and from every 
portion of illimitable space through which the Creative Energy has 
passed in its eternal and ever-expanding progress, Thine is the 
kingdom, the power, and the glory. Amen, Amen. 
