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subject. If they are not earnest, then they avoid the toil on 
other grounds. If they see in some degree the momentous 
character of the agreement of popular science with religious 
belief, and so turn their hearts to do something in the way of 
promoting that agreement, they are tempted to study rather 
the things that make for peace than those by which a really 
solid edification may be secured in the public mind. They too 
readily accept the decisions of the great leaders of science, 
and set to work to make the ideas given forth in Scripture 
harmonize with these decisions. Hence the almost incalculable 
amount of utterly groundless thought that has been made to 
overlie the clear ideas of God put before us in the Sacred 
Scriptures. It is not possible to see the relations of geological 
science to the Sacred Word, without some knowledge of the 
effect which has been thus produced on its interpretation. 
We have illustrations of this in the productions of some of 
the most noble minds. One of the first of these, a truly 
representative man of an important class, may be quoted as 
an example. Hr. John Pye Smith, of Homert on College, was 
not only a man of the most earnest religion, but also of the 
most intensely scientific spirit. In his masterly book, “ On 
the Relations between the Holy Scriptures and some parts of 
Geological Science,” he shows that he felt himself forced to 
give a new and startling interpretation to the teaching of the 
Bible, by what he thought were the irresistible conclusions of 
geology. It is most instructive to observe where the centre 
ol this fancied compulsion lay. He imagines one opposing 
his views, and says, " If, for example, the objector could say 
to us, f You have arrived at no term. You cannot show us 
the indications of a cessation of the materials which you say 
have been deposited, and which form the portion through 
which yon have passed. The series may be repeated, pos- 
sioly again and again ; . or there may be another series of 
entirely different composition, such as precipitates from sus- 
pension in water, or products of chemical action, or results of 
igneous fusion, and so on indefinitely. Unless you had 
penetrated through all these, you can draw no conclusion on 
winch dependence can be placed/ ” How does the good man 
reply to this supposed objector ? He says,—" But the objector 
cannot say this. He would be guilty of a false assumption. 
I he true state of the facts is the very contrary to what he 
supposes. \V e are acquainted certainly, I might almost say 
perfectly, with the character and succession of the deposited 
substances, which, laid upon each other, compose the crust of 
our globe ; and we know the totally different constitution of 
the materials which lie underneath. We see demonstrated 
