as conveying any very decided evidence of a positive kind for the harmony of both; yet it will be admitted they are of special subsidiary value when contrasted with those uninspired histories of the world which have been given forth in succeeding ages, and in different lands, not one of whose general outlines can, for an instant, bear the application of those crucial tests which even the allusions of Scripture not only sustain but welcome, as more fully eliciting their meaning.

Let it be understood, that it is only on this ground we have submitted these considerations for your acceptance. While we freely acknowledge that the Scriptures represent facts in those aspects which are most familiar to ordinary observation, and not in their more recondite or exactly scientific relations, we may legitimately regard these references or allusions as indicatives of the accuracy and value of the Bible, when we find it covering at once the results of common experience and the more recent discoveries of science.

CHAPTER VI.

The Geologic Fulness of Time when Man Appeared.

"It is surely no incredible thing, that He who, in the dispensation of the human period, spake by type and symbol, and who, when He walked the earth in the flesh, taught in parable and allegory, should have also spoken in the geologic ages by prophetic figures, embodied in the form and structure of animals."-Hugh Miller.

IN

N the distant past, not a trace of man's presence has been found. He is "of yesterday." While the stone volume has preserved for us the slight impressions of the Annelid and the foot-trail of perished Molluscs in the soft mud over which they crawled; while it has restored to us in perfect shape the delicately-constructed many-lensed eye of the Trilobite, and has kept exact record of the death struggles of fishes on the sands of olden seas; while it has delineated, on carboniferous columns, fern-leaves exquisitely delicate in structure as the finest species of modern times; and while the rain-drops of long bygone ages have left imprints which reveal to us the course which even the wind followed; not a trace of man is visible. Only at the close does he appear; science finds him where the Scriptures placed him, and sees in him the crown which continuous type had long foreshadowed.

Not only are there advances in animal structure which are prophetic of man's higher organisation, but, through what at one time seemed utterly confused and meaningless, there is abundant evidence of definite purpose in storing the earth with those plants and animals which are best fitted to meet man's necessities. He was not introduced to a barren region or

an empty home. There clearly appears, about the time of his taking his place on the earth, such a series of adjustments for his use and comfort, as cannot be even plausibly connected with the chance struggles of natural selection. The plants and animals which are discoverable only in comparatively recent periods, are so numerous and so fully suited to the wants of man, that we cannot find an explanation of this harmony of production apart from PURPOSE in relation to him. Plants, fishes, quadrupeds, and even the delicate distribution of colours, furnish evidence which is by far too commonly overlooked. We can do little more than allude to some of the leading facts which have been brought within the easy reach of every inquirer. Agassiz and Hugh Miller have given special prominence to the proof of a gradual preparation of the earth for man.

1. As to Plants.-Not until we enter on the Tertiary period do we find flowers amid which man might have profitably laboured as a dresser of gardens, a tiller of fields, or a keeper of flocks and herds. "Nay, there are whole orders and families of plants, of the very first importance to man, which do not appear until late in the Tertiary age. Some degree of doubt must always attach to merely negative evidence; but Agassiz, a geologist whose statements must be received with respect by every student of the science, finds reason to conclude that the order of the rosaceæ, -an order more important to the gardener than almost any other, and to which the apple, the pear, the quince, the cherry, the plum, the peach, the apricot, the nectarine, the almond, the raspberry, the strawberry, and the various brambleberries belong, together with all the roses and the potentillas, was introduced only a short time previous to the appearance of man.” 1

1 "Testimony of the Rocks," p. 48.

It is no less remarkable that the true grasses,—a still more important order,-including the grain-giving plants, oats, barley, wheat, and others, which sustain "at least twothirds of the human species," and which also, "in their humble varieties, form the staple food of the grazing animals," do not appear until close on the human period. There are other plants, also, which add to man's comfort or gratify his senses, which are not found in the fossil state,-lavender, mint, thyme, hyssop, basil, rosemary, marjoram. They have apparently been introduced to prepare for man their varied fragrance and virtues.

2. As to Fishes.—And not until this recent period did the sea become the home of fishes that could prove nutritious or tasteful to man. "This conclusion may be drawn," says Professor Owen, "from a general retrospect of the mutations in the forms of fishes at different epochs of the earth's history, viz., that those species, such as the nutritious cod, the savoury herring, the rich-flavoured salmon, and the succulent turbot, have greatly predominated at the period immediately preceding and accompanying the advent of man; and that they have superseded species which, to judge by the bony garpikes, were much less fitted to afford mankind a sapid and wholesome food."

3. As to Quadrupeds.-While we admit the weakness of merely negative statements in establishing any fact, there is yet so much that is forcible in the absence from the fossil state of so many of those life-forms which now surround man, that we are justifiable in explicitly referring to it as probable evidence. The only quadruped which we notice is the sheep, because the information as to others is not equally full. Hugh Miller thus speaks of the fact: "But of one of our domestic tribes no trace has yet been found in the rocks: like the cod-family among fishes, or the rosaceæ among plants, it

seems to have preceded man by but a very brief period. And certainly, if created specially for his use, though the pride of the herald might prevent him from selecting it as in aught typical of the human race, it would yet not be easy to instance a family of animals that has ministered more extensively to his necessities. I refer to the sheep,—that soft and harmless creature that clothes civilised man everywhere in the colder latitudes with its fleece,-that feeds him with its flesh, that gives its bowels to be spun into the catgut with which he refits his musical instruments,-whose horns he has learned to fashion into a thousand useful trinkets, and whose skin, converted into parchment, served to convey to later times the thinking of the first full blow of the human intellect across the dreary gulf of the middle ages."

4. As to Colour.-There is distinct evidence of preparation for man in the distribution and adjustments of colour, which alone must interest every student of the Bible and the natural sciences. The very appearance of all things has been adapted to the human constitution. This important fact has been commonly overlooked. The notion had long prevailed that there was no law in the distribution of colours; but this error has been corrected. The subject has been elaborately discussed by Dr. Dickie and Principal M'Cosh, who have shown that there is, in flowers, a permanent relation between form and colour, and an unfailing harmony in the distribution of colours in the same plant.

True, it cannot yet be demonstrated that these relations rest on a scientific basis, so as to connect the adjustments in colours with æsthetic tendencies or laws in the human mind; yet the evidence warrants the conclusion that there has been a gradual evolution of forms and colours until those results have been educed most pleasing to the eye, and