Archaic monuments, beyond the historic period of our own human Annals-can hardly be devoid of soul-stirring considerations, and of deeply instructive matters of research, to any one in the ordinary sphere of intelligent society.

It is for this class of readers, then, and not for the professedly scientific, that the ensuing pages are designed; and ample will be their reward, should they in any degree tend to bring about the publiclyexpressed wish of one of our most eminent British Naturalists-that the day may speedily arrive when the creed of the people and the creed of the philosopher may be one. It is thus we may hope that the grand end of all true philosophy may be achieved, in the higher exaltation of the Almighty's glory, by a more intelligent and adoring survey of the Wisdom, Immensity, and Benevolence of His Works.

The course of argument pursued in the following investigation has been, in the first Chapter, to show, from the necessities of the case, arising from the manifestly gradual unfolding of the phenomena of the Universe, and no less from the evident structure

and design of the Word of God,-what are the required principles of interpretation which ordinarily should be applied to the Scriptural Record of Natural Facts.

Seeing from these considerations that occasional modifications of our pre-existing opinions may, in the progressive disclosures of Nature, be demanded, there is then, in the second Chapter, popularly stated, some of those chief evidences of the Earth's Antiquity which, by their recent development, claim that our currently-entertained interpretations of the Mosaic Record of Creation should be brought more into accordance with the advancing revelations God has thus vouchsafed of His mighty Works.

It is then, in the third Chapter, attempted to be shown, by a critical examination of the text of the Mosaic Record, in what manner the fact of an Archaic Earth may thus, in sweet accord, be seen to harmonize with the literalities of the Inspired Revelation of the Creation;-and a train of concurrent testimony to this happy accordance is, in an Appendix to this Chapter, cited from miscellaneous writers both of ancient and modern date.

In the fourth, and concluding Chapter, are advanced some of those many Moral uses properly to be educed from the established fact of the Earth's Antiquity, and which impart to this subject not merely the interest of an awakened curiosity, but also the impressment of high practical truths.

THE

EARTH'S ANTIQUITY.

CHAPTER I.

PRINCIPLES OF INTERPRETATION APPLICABLE TO THE SCRIPTURAL RECORD OF NATURAL FACTS.

Among these rocks and stones methinks I see
More than the heedless impress that belongs
To lonely Nature's casual work; they bear
A semblance strange to power intelligent,
And of design not wholly worn away.
And I own

Some shadowy intimations haunt me here,
That in these shows a chronicle survives
Of purposes akin to those of man,

Measuring through all degrees, until the scale
Of Time and conscious Nature disappear,
Lost in unsearchable eternity.

WORDSWORTH.

NATURE is not less richly gifted in her more

retired adornments, than in those outward robes of beauty that meet the casual eye. Copious, indeed, are the stores treasured up in the apparently most unpromising portions of her mysterious frame. What marvels of creative wisdom! what large materials for elevating thought lie entombed under

5

E. A.

1

every footstep we mark upon the pregnant earth! We walk over the buried ruins of multitudinous worlds; the surface that bears us up is formed of the successive convolutions of innumerable creations -in long ancient time teeming with animal life, or glowing with vegetable beauty-while the records of their far-stretching history, shew forth in their deep-laid sepulchres their Maker's praise, for the most part unheeded and unknown. Confining its observation to the present epoch of the world's history, the heedless eye passes over the legible traces in the earth of long receding epochs of ancient worlds. Proud man will hardly believe, indeed, that this earth has had any thing to do with economies and existences with which he has not been connected; his self-consequence would fondly fancy that this globe has been the theatre, merely, of his exploits, and all the discovered evolutions of the earth he would date, only, from the period when human annals begin; hence thousands of objects lying along our path which ought, with awakening voice, to speak to man's intellect, and to his devotional feelings of a wisdom illimitable, and the exercise of a power, in the earth's eternal Architect, stretching far beyond the sphere of human cognizance, have their marvels unnoticed, and their lessons of exalting piety unapplied. Justly we regard with pity the mental feebleness in the untutored Indian, who, looking upon the evening