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PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 
the connecting links between this family and the Ananchytes demonstrated ; the 
only living representative of which is the Pentacrinus (Caput Medusce) of the 
West-Indian Seas. The lecturer gave the history of this ancient family of fixed 
radiate animals, and explained their singular structure, and showed the affinities 
between them and the Starfish, Ophiura, and Euryale of our seas. In conclusion, 
Mr. Wright observed, u In reviewing the vast number of facts I have submitted 
for your consideration, I trust I have succeeded in convincing you that the study 
of fossil remains, and of the strata that contain them, can no longer be supposed 
to lead the mind astray from its first and most holy duty—the worship of its 
Adorable Creator. Is is possible that the Christian’s fondest and dearest hopes 
can be at all weakened by surveying the stupendous grandeur of the material 
world ?—that his assurance of a future can be at all weakened by contemplating 
the immensity of the past ? No, it cannot be. Geology, so far from being 
opposed to the religion of the Bible, is the only science that is capable of demon¬ 
strating that a special Providence alike directs the fiery vomit of the volcano and 
the development of the zoophyte; it teaches Man that there was a time when 
no living thing animated the primeval ocean ; that there was a starting point— 
a beginning ; it shews him that the regulating hand of Omnipotence has, through 
all the immensity of the past, adjusted and maintained the economy of our 
planet; that peculiar forms of animal life were created, to perform a certain part 
in the “ police of Natureand that, when that part was no longer required, they 
were annihilated, to give place to others better adapted, by some new feature 
in their organization, to the character of the changing scene they were for a brief 
span destined to animate; and finally, Geology shows that, when the appointed 
time had arrived, Man—-stamped with the image of his God —was placed upon 
its surface, just at that period when the external world had been prepared, by a 
long series of eventful changes, for his reception; with the furniture of the 
universe wonderfully adapted to his nature, and calculated to arouse to action 
his noblest faculties. It is thus the brilliant discoveries of modern Geology 
become the handmaids of natural theology, and show, in the most striking and 
satisfactory manner, the unity of the stupendous design and creative intelligence 
of the Great First Cause ; for whilst the crust of our planet was destined by 
its Creator to pass through a series of successive though turbulent changes, still 
do we find the structure and functions of the myriads of animals that have lived 
and died upon its surface, through all the periods of geological chronology, to 
present the same exquisite organization—the same perfect adaptation to sur¬ 
rounding nature, and to their varied habits and instincts, as the countless 
numbers of happy beings that fill, with life and activity, the air, the earth, and 
the waters of the present day. 
At the close of the lecture the President of the Institution (Dr. Boisragon) 
