suffering is individual in its very nature, and there are many individuals, whom, by a wise economy of our own resources, we can relieve. It is a cold-hearted excuse to let all suffer, because we cannot relieve all, or to recur to the words of our Irish friend, it is conduct which will never win the approving smile of Him, who said, 'She hath done what she could.'

[We would remind such of our readers as have not seen Mr. Stewart's Annual Address, that the first day of the year will be observed by many of the Lord's people, as a time of special prayer for the outpouring of the Spirit. Many of our readers too are watching with interest, and some with full approval, the progress of the Evangelical Alliance; we would inform them, that the week beginning with the first Sabbath in January, is appointed as a special season of prayer for the blessings of union. We intreat them to comply with this request, if they love the Alliance; it needs their prayers, for its opponents do not overrate its difficulties, and its only hope and strength is fervent wrestling prayer. If they do not approve its organization, at least they love its object, and they may, without any fear of evil results, yield to the sympathy of Christian love, by uniting in spirit at the appointed time, to call down from above the blessings of peace and union.]

THE

CHRISTIAN LADY'S MAGAZINE.

FEBRUARY, 1847.

THE TREASURES OF WISDOM.

No. V.

FROM the height of heaven we must now stoop to the depths of the earth, and turn from Astronomy, the eldest born of the sciences, to another which is almost the last and youngest of them all, Geology. Its recent birth, as a science, is however an entire contrast to the distant ages of time which it professes to discover. It leads our thoughts, from planets and systems that rove in the pure ether, and are flooded with sunbeams, to the deepest and darkest caverns of the earth, to the bottoms of the mountains, and the depths of ocean, that are never visited with the light of day. Here modern science has detected a new field of strange and wonderful discoveries. At present it cannot boast, like Astronomy, of bright sunshine and clear demonstration. Darkness is still resting on this mighty deep of primeval history. But, as the Spirit of God moved once on the face of the FEBRUARY, 1847.

H

waters, so here also there is a promise of dry land, and firm discoveries, shortly to appear; and which will soon be crowned with the delightful verdure of spiritual and holy meditations on the works and ways of God.

The general nature of those lessons, which Geology has unfolded, in its present stage, to its zealous and skilful votaries, must be known to most of our readers, and minute details would be foreign from our present purpose. The strata of our earth, when closely examined, bear clear marks of a regular, though broken and interrupted succession. By comparing extensive districts, and remote countries, a distinct series has been traced, which includes several main divisions, and numerous strata, capable of being identified, in each of these. From granite to gneiss, through coal and chalk formations, we ascend to those which are called tertiary and alluvial, with many marks, at every step in the series, which seem to imply a real sequence in order of time. Except in the first and earliest, fossil remains of vegetables, fishes, reptiles, and other animals, are found in these strata in great abundance. And in these also, a clear succession may be observed. In the earliest strata none of these remains are found. In the next to these are found only extinct species; most of them differing widely from those now in existence. As we advance upward in the series, there are found, first a small, and then a larger proportion, of existing genera; till at last, in the most recent strata, the actual existing species are more numerous in their remains than those which are now extinct; and human remains are nowhere discovered, unless in the most recent of all, or alluvial strata, which are still in the process of gradual formation.

The conclusions, which scientific geologists draw from

these facts, may be easily foreseen. They infer that our earth must be of very great antiquity; that it was formed, and had passed through a long series of changes, before it became the habitation of men; that various races of living creatures have been successively born upon it, and then disappeared; that its strata have been repeatedly disturbed and upheaved by great convulsions, which probably extinguished many species of animal, and even of vegetable life; that these changes required successive acts of reparation, resulting, as the more irreligious would suggest, from the reproductive and progressive force of nature; or, as wiser and more religious geologists would maintain, from direct and repeated acts of the Creator's power. Only after the last of these crises, and a period of myriads, perhaps millions, of years, do they suppose our planet to have been finally prepared for the habitation of mankind. We are not, they will tell us, the original inhabitants of the earth, but are only her latest tenants, and the youngest of her children.

Now, here we are thrown into the heart of a difficult and perplexing inquiry, which has latterly exercised the thoughts of many able men. What relation do the Bible and modern geology bear to each other? Shall we say, with some infidels, that the facts of geology disprove the narrative of Moses, or, with some zealous Christians, that the word of God condemns these fancied discoveries of science, and proves them to be vain and false conjectures, laborious dreams of conceited theorists, which contradict the revealed time and order of creation? If we receive both, what principle shall we adopt to reconcile the two statements? Shall we put a force on the apparent lessons of geology, that we may refer all its supposed revolutions to the deluge of Noah ?

Or shall we affirm broadly, that the Scriptures, as they were given to teach moral truth, can furnish no light whatever in matters of science, and that all their statements of this kind may be safely explained away, as "drapery and costume ?" Or finally, shall we believe, fully and firmly, that the works and the word of God must ever be in entire harmony; that each of them is liable to false glosses, which obscure their true meaning; that zeal for Scripture ought never to warp the deductions of science from their natural and honest course; and still less should our love of science embolden us to tamper with the word of God; that seeming difficulties arise only from our own ignorance; that science is prone to utter false conjectures, and may sometimes propound them as certain truths; that Christians often make rash and hasty glosses on the sacred text, and may then battle for their own errors, as if they were the vitals of the Christian faith; and, in short, that while Geology has still much that is conjectural and uncertain, its best confirmed discoveries are in complete harmony with the truest and most consistent exposition of the inspired record?

This last view will be unfolded, and perhaps established, in the following remarks. We may then inquire, more freely, what new light is cast on the words of the Apostle from geological science, and in what sense these treasures of knowledge, like those of Astronomy, are truly hidden in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Since, however, we have now to steer on a narrow sea, let us first examine the two opposite errors, the Scylla and Charybdis, which threaten to wreck our feeble bark of discovery at the outset of its voyage. We may thus attain more securely to those fortunate isles of holy thought and quiet meditation, where our spirits