"All observers admit that the strata were formed beneath the waters, and have been subsequently converted into dry land.”—Buckland's Bridgewater Treatise, p. 44.

So, then, the most superficial observation is sufficient to show that the calculating the probability of the continuance" of things as they were at first would make a man a very sorry philospher. Any one may satisfy himself, if he will use his eyes, that the earth has undergone a series of vast changes, and that there was a time when it was not fit for human habitation, and another, when, although habitable by man, it yet was submerged. What a series of transitions from zoophytes to man-what changes of nature from a brute world to a world of minds, reasoning concerning their Maker, acknowledging His benevolence, and hoping for an end in keeping with God's character; or else, like Hume, studying history without religion, and despising the forewarnings of Heaven, and viewing humanity in all its pathos only as an accident of the elements, without a purpose but to die.

It would, no doubt, be argued that these changes are themselves the results of the invariable laws which govern the universe. Where is this discovered? There is nothing in the known laws of matter and of motion, as manifest in earth or heaven, to account for changes such as have transpired. Unalterable ordinances can not create new eras. Some hypothesis must be invented, some cosmogony indiscoverable in facts, and unrevealed to man, must be imagined to suit the nice reason of the skeptic. The secret is this-he has an object to serve, some motive for disparaging the claims of the Bible; like Rousseau and Hume, he wishes to prove it false, because he can not bear to believe Christianity. It will not administer to pride, nor suffer a man to hope without holiness: it demands self-denial. It can not be endured-away with it. But how? Can

not they direct us to a theory which will dispense with Divine legation and Almighty interference with the workings of worlds? Will not the nebulous notions account for every thing like successive developments, geological and astronomical? and may not man be an expanded monkey, and a monkey an expanded monad? Laplace mathematically sets the heavens in motion, to dispense with the management of their Creator; but he derives his vortices from his own fancies. There are no nebulæ but in our minds and in our defective vision. Wherever man can penetrate with the telescope into open space, he sees only orderly worlds, with nothing among them, in all the planes of all the planets, to warrant the notion that things might not have always been as they now are. And yet this earth takes her place among these planets, with the records of many changes in her bosom. What is the conclusion, but that God has interfered with the regulations of his own world, and may do so again? There is no power but in the hand of the Almighty to alter the aspect of worlds, and what that hand sets in order no other can disturb. The motive with which man regards creation will determine his conclusion; and if he has no reverence for God, he will soon contrive to find that there is no evidence of his superintendence. Newton saw the universe with his soul enlightened by religion; he believed in Christianity, and thus saw heaven opened, and the throne of God: and the devout spirits of olden time looked with the same intelligence; and though they did not measure the spaces between the stars, nor calculate the speed of light, they had yet a sublimer motive for looking up into the skies, for they felt that the Almighty was " riding on the heaven of heavens by His name, Jah."

CHAPTER X.

KNOWLEDGE.

Notional knowledge, or that knowingness which comes to nought, is twin-born with ignorance; and it is that for which mankind naturally entertain an early passion, since it serves to occupy the mind, and divert it from those realities which are of too solemn a nature to allow guilty beings quietly to forget that they have an account to render to the great Judge. It is that, also, which gives rise to all those wordy disputes which cause unmeaning divisions among men, because those disputes, being destitute of definite or real ideas, present nothing for minds to perceive and agree on. It is the opposite of that confident apprehension of something imparted by the Almighty to the mind, and which therefore is worth contending for, as pro traditá fide, and without which we have none but the fool's right to dispute, since, in fact, we have no assured truth to offer, and nothing to testify but that our opinion is superior to our wisdom.

True knowledge is the knowledge of truth, and truth is the parent of faith, hope, and charity. To understand is to perceive the meaning of another mind, and we must perceive the intentions of our Maker before we can adore. Man willingly co-operates with man, from mutual intelligence; and when man discerns the Divine idea in any thing or event, and is personally and affectionately influenced by that idea, then he becomes truly devout his religion being founded on a felt truth, which so operates on his rational nature, that his motives and actions correspond with the light in his understanding. Thus true knowledge is essential to true

religion, for this consists in conformity of mind with the recognized teaching of God, both in natural and in spiritual revelation, for the divinity in Nature requires her seers as well as the divinity in the Bible. Hence every real science contributes to theology, and instructs man concerning the goodness and power of his Maker, and thus far, also, sustains the reliance of the mind upon His providence for intellectual, moral, and physical supply, according to the demand rightfully made upon his bounty as a faithful Creator. But this always implies the use of means, in accordance with the plan of creation, as regards both mind and body. Faith in a falsehood is a false faith, and that will not save us. True faith trusts in what God has done, and therefore what He also will do.

It requires a clear soul to see a truth so as to believe it at first sight, and there is nothing more doubtful than a fact to an ignorant mind. The reason of this is that nothing is understood while standing alone. To separate any idea from its connection is to put it out of its place, and thus to make it a puzzle. It is like presenting a fossil to a man, and asking him what it belonged to when alive, and begging him to describe the nature, property, and fashion of the creature of which it once formed a part. A large and exact extent of knowledge is demanded mentally to allocate any thing, or to form a complete idea of any object before us. Small knowledge has a small vocabulary, and no meanings, or at least few truths, and whatever does not seem to fall in with these few is looked at as a wonder or a lie.

Science is not salvation, and every truth does not confer liberty of spirit; there may be health of soul with very little knowledge. A robust infancy of spirit is indeed often witnessed among comparatively uninformed persons, who evince a strong appetite for truth, and eagerly enjoy it, as the sincere food of the soul.

There are others, however, who have a voracious desire for informotion, who yet, morally speaking, are but atrophies and living skeletons, simply because they are vitally wrong in their intellectual functions, and, like Pharaoh's kine, devour, not that they may digest, grow strong in spirit, and be fit for work, but that they may gratify a depraved disposition, and merely please themselves. These persons are like intellectual cretins, living and moving and chattering among the great wonders of creation; but, not seeing the meanings of things, they do not worship God nor learn any thing of Him. They are too busy with phenomena to look beyond the elements of their amusement; they make knowledge a thing of mere sensation, and thus truth itself deceives them, because their affections are awry.

Self-denial is in no case more requisite than in resisting our appetency for knowledge. The fair tree that flourished in the midst of the lost Paradise shed its seed upon the earth, and the deluge did not destroy it. The tempting fruit is now habitually eaten, but still it is forbidden; and its effects are still to make us feel our nakedness, not with the shame of repentance, but of pride. To indulge our curiosity, irrespective of right ends, is the worst of sensualities. But, of course, the pleasure of indulgence is the sole object with minds not morally enlightened, and if our affections are not trained by association and sympathy with charitable and loving spirits, we must live selfishly.

Yet, how gracious in His tenderness is our God! He constitutes the senses and the soul of the young child to dally with its dangers and its safety with equal delight; and the little creature, ignorant of evil, plays with the crested snake as it would with its mother's tresses. But affection watches over its dalliance, and while it drinks knowledge and finds amusement in every object that does not bear on its front the aspect of anger, it also learns to love and to smile. It needs