puzzled many a mind that may not have been disposed to regard the truths of Revelation with any disposition to doubt. We have been told unmistakably there that the cause of death was man's sin; and it is clear that an indispensable condition, as well as the justice, of this belief was, that no interruption should have completely severed the race of Adam from the living man that occupied the earth after the Deluge. Accordingly, we find in the Mosaic account of the diluvial destruction, there is a means furnished, which at once inseparably connects the whole race of man, from the time of the fall to the present day.

I want here to correct an error which many believers have fallen into in company with geologists, and which calls for some of that charity which, I have before said, is especially required in all those who attempt to combat a vexed question like that before us.

This difficulty appears to have arisen out of a circumstance which believers may not have suspected to exist. It is connected with the construction and position of the words in the original Hebrew, which first announce the Deluge. It is there first expressed in these words: "Of every living thing of all flesh, pairs of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee." Now it is to be observed that this command, "every living thing," seems to be an universal expression. Accordingly, without any knowledge of this fact, that in the Hebrew, as well as in other languages, it is not at all uncommon to announce the fact of a subject in general or universal terms, but that afterwards, in continuing the subject, as it becomes more special, those terms are qualified by the context. This is the case in the instance before us; for in the next chapter we find, as the particulars become more minutely stated, that the clean and the unclean animals are now distinguished; so that we find seven, and not two, formed the numbers of some of the animals that were taken into the ark. The clean and the unclean beasts, being all that were named. This is important to be noticed, because, by correcting it, we shall remove the doubts of many over the popular idea, that the Scripture warrants the inference that two of every sort of all living flesh was commanded to be brought into the ark. And it is so important that we should be correct upon this point, that I shall not apologize for adding in this place the Scripture authority, which makes it certain that the word "all" is not used in an universal sense in many parts of Scripture, and that it is customary there to use universal terms with limited significations, This fact is well known to

many divines. Thus, we find the word used in 1 Cor. xiii. cannot be used but in a limited sense.

Our Lord himself said: "All things which I have heard of my Father, I have made known unto you." Here it is evident that the term is not to be understood universally, but restrictively. So, in the vision of St. Peter, he beheld "a certain vessel wherein were all manner of four-footed beasts of the earth, and wild beasts and creeping things, and fowls of the air." It is not necessary to suppose that the animals here were, zoologically and numerically, all the living creation, but only a variety sufficiently great for the selection that Peter was called upon to make. Besides, Peter afterwards qualifies it in chap. xi. 6, in which the word "all" is left out altogether. "I considered," he says, "and saw fourfooted beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air." We have another example where an universal term could not have any other than a limited sense. Obadiah says to Elijah, "As the Lord thy God liveth, there is no nation or kingdom whither my lord hath not sent to seek thee."

But there is no instance we could mention, perhaps, which bears so closely upon our present subject, while it will, I hope, help to make it more definite and clear, as the word day, which, whether in its wider or more limited sense, is so differently rendered in different places, as thereby to lead to the most painful doubts. If geologists had always borne in mind this fact, that whenever the word day was limited in its sense, to mean only twenty-four hours, that limitation is always borne out by the context,-the words evening and morning, or some like expression, being invariably added, they would have been unmistakably sure, that in rendering the six days of creation in Genesis i. the words evening and morning take it quite out of our power to attach the more lengthened period to the word day in this place.

The words of Scripture do not oblige us to understand that every variety of living creature at the time of the Deluge was necessarily taken by Noah into the ark, though all flesh wherein was the breath of life at that time perished. And if it were possible for such a thing to have taken place, we should actually have attributed to God an unnecessary act. For, while there was an unerring design in not breaking the moral chain which was to link the existing man with the old Adam, there could be no such necessity for linking the brute creationthose animals which were unable to see the cause which brought their existence to an end.

It seems, therefore, that the idea of taking animals into the

ark for any other purpose than the accommodation of man, and to preserve seed alive for his comfort, places a gratuitous restraint upon our creed, and causes many to believe that those things which really are stated for our belief have a meaning attached to them which Scripture does not

warrant.

The introduction of the ark in the position that it takes in the Mosaic account justifies us in saying that, while it was only there for man's accommodation and comfort, without which he could not have existed or continued on the earth, it brings him inseparably and morally in contact with those parents that first brought him into existence upon the earth, and identifies him immediately with the punishment that had been denounced upon his progenitors; thereby showing the imperative necessity there is for man's believing that the sin of Adam was the only cause which led to the death of any creature, and that, therefore, without this cause, there would have been no death. The ark, therefore, placed where it is in the Mosaic account, not only shows the justice and consistency of God in uniting in this way by blood relationship the antediluvial with the post-diluvial man, but it still further verifies the truth of the Scriptures, that for man's sin, and for no other cause, death first came into the world, at the time stated by the Prophet.

The CHAIRMAN.-It is my pleasing duty to ask you to tender your most grateful thanks to Dr. Burnett for the admirable paper just read, which has lost none of its force from the manner in which it has been read by Mr. Montagu Burnett. I feel that this paper is one which requires attentive study. Though it may appear contrary to the popular views of geology, I believe it to be most accordant with the recent progress of that science. I venture to characterize it as a far-sighted paper,-one which could only have been written by a person thoroughly conversant with geological progress, while it is penetrated by a profound reverence for revealed truth. Dr. Burnett has not shrunk from any of the difficulties of the question. He has shown that geology has made no discoveries inconsistent with Revelation, while he has also shown that it has not yet developed itself into a perfect science. The popular theory among geologists a few years since—a theory retained in many modern text-books-was to ascribe the fossil remains of certain strata to different successive creations; the plants and animals of one creation being destroyed by some cataclysm before those of the succeeding creation made their appearance. This theory is now for the most part abandoned as inconsistent with the facts accumulated within the last few years. The tendency is to abandon it altogether, and to admit one creation only. It is true that some would spread this creation over a large period, and that most still require millions or billions of years for the formation of

the various strata of the earth yet explored. When we ask, however, for demonstrative proof that these strata could not have been formed in any shorter space of time, we are met, not with proof, but the mere assertion that they cannot be conceived to have been formed in a lesser space of time. When instead of mere assertion, we find attempted proof, from the rate of the deposition of mud in deltas, the gradual upheaval of strata in certain periods of time, the formation of coral reefs, &c., we find the assumed data of calculation altogether upset by other data obtained from a more careful survey of the phenomena relied upon. Dr. Burnett treats the subject from another point of view; from a wide range of induction, he argues, from the unity of plan, anatomically and physiologically considered, of all the fossil remains of the earth yet discovered, for one, not many successive creations. Natural history has only been studied with anything like scientific accuracy for less than a couple of centuries; yet within that time we know races of animals have become extinct. One picture and a few bones in the British Museum and Oxford, are all that we now possess as records of the Dodo. We cannot therefore argue, that because an animal has become extinct, it belongs to a former creation. Only some two specimens of the encrinite, so abundant in fossil strata, have yet been dredged from the bottom of the sea, yet there may be zones of animal life, in which it may still exist in great abundance, in the vast unexplored beds of the ocean. I do not think that geologists need complain if we call their science an imperfect one. It is yet in its infancy. The first meeting of the British Association gave a gold medal to William Smith, the father of English geology, so called, because he first pointed out the identification of strata, not by their mineralogical character, but by their fossil remains. Hasty generalization and reasoning on the contents of these strata led to the successive-creation theory, a theory opposed entirely to the analogy of the present distribution of creatures on the earth. As an example: had Australia been submerged, and its present fauna been embedded in sand, clay, or calcareous matter, and then raised again, that fauna would certainly a few years since have been classed as a fauna of great geological antiquity. Geology, as a science, is one of the most difficult and intricate man has undertaken to explore. We need not be surprised if its progress be slow. The presumed great and vast antiquity of its many strata has not been proved; the progress of facts tends rather to disprove it. In this, geology seems to be passing through the same phase which other sciences have done. We hear little now of the vast antiquity of Chinese civilization, though some would still maintain a fabulous antiquity for ancient Egyptian civilization. We may doubt, with Sir G. Lewis, whether much real progress has been made in deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics; but analogy with the ideographic writing of the Chinese would lead us to suppose that foreign names at least were represented by phonetic characters. In this we may credit hieroglyphists, when they decipher the names of foreign rulers of Egypt. Judged in this manner, the vaunted antiquity of the Zodiac of Denderah, assumed from astronomical considerations, collapsed into that of comparatively modern times, by the discovery of its dedication to a

Roman emperor. I am sure you will not feel less indebted to Dr. Burnett for the great mass of information he has given us in his paper, than gratified by the noble love of truth which pervades it from beginning to end. (Hear, hear.)

Captain FISHBOURNE.—I was very much struck by the observations which Dr. Burnett has made with respect to the disorganization of the human mind which had resulted from the fall of Adam. Those who disputed the truth of the events related in the Bible, ignore the fact that something had taken place with respect to the mind of man which constantly caused him to run contrary to his whole reason. How was this accounted for? The opposition of science to revelation appeared to him to proceed in a great measure from ignorance on the part of those who raised the objections-ignorance of science and ignorance of Scripture. An instance of that was afforded in the objection to the passage in the Bible with regard to the serpent. Here was a very complex question, a very difficult passage; and the scientific man putting his own construction upon it, and bringing in his science to his aid, rushed at once to the conclusion that the Scripture was all wrong. He did not descend to the question of exegesis; he read the passage in the sense which he thought proper to put upon it himself, and, without waiting for further inquiry, he pronounced it to be all wrong. He added, that having examined the serpent, he found that it was never adapted for walking; but he had no right to presume that the serpent had walked. There was not a word in the text about its having been previously erect. But he assumed too much, and he failed to give any proof in support of his assumption. It would be necessary for him first to prove that there was a pre-Adamite serpent; secondly, that the interpretation which he put upon the passage in the Scripture was the correct one; and thirdly, that the curse pronounced by God had reference to the serpent, and not to the devil. But instead of doing that, what did the scientific man do? Why, he simply told them he had examined the physical organs of the serpent, and found that serpents never walked. He might as well have examined the dumb ass of Balaam, and told them it did not speak. (Hear.) He passed entirely out of his province when he entered into these questions; he was not in a position to deal with them. They were things supernatural, which he could not investigate. With a miracle once granted, they could afford to make the man of science a present of all such arguments. (Hear, hear.) Now, it was only necessary to observe the effect which Christianity produced on those who practised its teachings, in order to be convinced of its truth. With such demonstrative evidence in favour of the Scriptures, I think we have very good grounds for not accepting the deductions of simple reason, when we find them in opposition to the doctrines taught by the Bible. But what was the position which men of science took up with regard to this question? They said, "Oh, you have so many different forms of belief. When you are as much agreed on the subject of religion as we are with regard to science, we will be prepared to listen to you." This was the most monstrous assertion I ever heard in my life. What is the act? Let us take, for instance, the Apostles' Creed: Christians of all ages,