386 
inals that peopled the dry land belonged to the reptile tribes^ 
and other genera which are distinguished for their tenacity of 
life, while the fishes that swam in the primeval seas had bones 
of gristle, the better to endure the stunning effects of a blow, 
and were covered with scales of bone, that, clad in coats of 
mail like the knights of olden time, they might pass unscathed 
through the elemental war. Other epochs came, and saw 
other races rise, conformed to the altered conditions of the 
time. “ Fishes and reptiles/" says Mr. Miller, “ were the pro- 
per inhabitants of our planet during the age of the earth" s 
tempests ; and when, under the operation of the chemical 
laws, these had become less frequent and terrible, the higher 
mammals were introduced. That prolonged ages of these tem- 
pests did exist, and that they gradually settled down until the 
state of things became at length comparatively fixed and stable, 
few geologists will be disposed to deny. The evidence which sup- 
ports this special theory of development of our planet, in its 
capabilities as a scene of organized and sentient being, seems 
palpable at every step. When the coniferae could flourish on 
the land, and fishes subsist in the seas, fishes and cone-bearing 
plants were created ; when the earth became a fit habitat for 
reptiles and birds, reptiles and birds were produced ; and with 
the dawn of a more stable and mature state of things, the 
sagacious quadruped was ushered in."" 
The Lesson taught by Geology in regard to the Nature 
op God. 
We now direct attention to the lesson that Geology teaches 
in regard to the Author of All. In all these lengthened eras, 
amid all the changes which the globe has undergone, we can 
trace the same unwearying power, the same unerring wisdom, 
and the same beneficent design, that we discover in the scenes 
that now surround us. We review the list of epochs past, we 
stretch our ideas of time along the far receding array, till we 
are oppressed with a sense of the vastness of a duration which 
the mind of man attempts in vain to conceive ; and still the 
world testifies of Him that made it, that in all the varied mani- 
festations of His providence, which the terrestrial scene has 
beheld, the character of the Creator has remained the same. 
Geology and Scripture alike declare that the Lord hath reigned 
through all the ages of the past, as He reigns in the time that 
now is— infinite in wisdom, in power, and in goodness— the 
unchanged and unchangeable God. 
