tably confused in their notions of its nature. Hence they dread a formidable shock to Christianity in every physical discovery; and in the obscurity which surrounds them, imagine danger to the truth in every exposure of error. Insensible to the real strength of their position, they live in groundless alarm for its security; and accustomed to cherish faith in ignorance, they apprchend, in every advance of knowledge, the approach of the enemy of their salvation.

Too many nominal Christians entertain only the most miserable idea of the nature of the gospel they profess to believe; their only notion too often consists in a confused general impression of a certain sacredness in Scripture, which produces little effect beyond that of making them afraid to enter its precincts, and search its recesses for themselves, and yet more fearful lest its sanctity should be invaded by others.

And their dread of openly encountering any contradictions, and their anxious desire to shelter themselves under even the most frivolous explanations, if it does not betray a lurking distrust of the proper evidences of their faith, at least evinces the lowest and most unworthy conceptions of the spirit and meaning of the Bible, and an almost total absence of due distinction between the design and application of the several portions of which it is made up. That such misconception should prevail is indeed a lamentable, but not a surprising instance of the

liability of human nature to misapply the best gifts, whether of Providence or grace. And its influence has been unhappily cherished and confirmed by the prevalence of those theological systems which have dictated the practice of literalizing upon all the expressions of the sacred writers; so that the magnificent imagery of the finest passages of inspiration is reduced to the lowest standard of verbal dogmatism; and minds incapable of appreciating the Divine sublimity of those descriptions, think to add to the evidence of their truth by a forced and unnatural perversion of their meaning.

With others again, the sincere, but (as we must consider it,) misguided spirit of religious fanaticism, produces similar effects. Blinded to all but the internal light of his spiritual impressions, the enthusiast will always entertain a deeply-rooted and devoted hostility against any such distinctions as those here advocated. Maintaining the literal application of every sentence, every syllable of the Divine word, he rejects, as impious, the slightest departure from it. Human reason, along with all science which is its offspring, is at best carnal and unsanctified; and should any of its conclusions be advanced in contradiction to the letter of a scriptural text, this completely seals its condemnation as absolutely sinful, and equivalent to a rejection of revelation altogether.

In such cases we may most readily make every allowance due to sincerity, however mistaken. But

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there are other instances in which, unfortunately, little claim to such indulgence can be found. There are some who join most vehemently in the cry against science in general, and geology in particular, as dangerous to religion, upon no sincere grounds of religious conviction.

Their adoption of a certain form of faith is dictated by motives of expediency, and the mere value of its practical effects on society. Not themselves recognising its claims as founded in truth, they uphold the established creed, as well as all received errors popularly engrafted upon it, as a convenient and effectual instrument for securing the influence of practical restraints on the multitude. Hence they condemn all inquiries which may come into collision with any portion of the popular belief; and against the agitation of any question which may shake established prejudices, or suggest any distinctions in the application of Scripture, there is an immediate and indiscriminate cry raised that they unsettle men's minds, and are heretical doctrines of a most dangerous tendency, and such as will weaken and efface all sense of religious and moral obligation.

But even among the best men and most sincere believers, there exists too often a sort of dread of meeting such questions in a strictly honest frame of mind. Those who have the most conscientious regard for truth, in everything else seem to think it dispensed with in supporting the cause of religion.

And while they earnestly condemn those who in former ages could justify the "pious frauds" introduced in support of the received faith, are yet themselves influenced by the very same spirit only in a different form, in dreading the dissemination of knowledge if even imagined to be at variance with established religious tenets.

The one party seeking to support religion by the propagation of falsehood, the other by the suppression of truth, both agree in treating truth as if it were falsehood, and thus give its enemies the fairest ground to think it so.

Geological Interpretations of Scripture.

FROM what we have already seen of the invaluable evidence supplied by geology to the great truths of natural theology, and thence to the foundations of all religion, we shall be prepared to allow its high importance. We must, further, have perceived, in going through even the mere outline of that evidence, the positive inferences which it involves, and on which it is indeed founded, as to the gradual introduction of the present order of things, and the existing species of organized beings, out of previous forms of existence. And it is manifest that this is, apparently at least, in direct opposition to the literal and obvious sense of the representations given of the process of creation, at once, out of darkness and confusion, at a recent epoch, given in several passages of the

Hebrew Scriptures. And there are not wanting those who hold forth the discrepancy as a triumph to scepticism, and as giving the death-blow to the veracity of the Bible, and to the authority of the Christian religion*. On the other hand, we have considered the too general condition of even the professedly Christian world, as to its degree of religious information.

Such being the state of the case, and, from a variety of motives, so prevalent the apprehension that an examination of the structure of the earth would undermine Christianity, it is not surprising that, in the infant state of geological science, its advocates should have been extremely cautious in their mode of broaching the unwelcome truths: and should have propounded a variety of solutions of the difficulty more or less plausible. Whatever may have been the prudence of such a course, when the science had to struggle with the difficulties attending its earlier advance, whatever fears it might then have to entertain from the hostility, whether of orthodoxy or fanaticism; it has now arrived at such strength and maturity as to render all such expedients (under any circumstances but doubtful) wholly unnecessary. It is, therefore, a matter of sincere regret to every lover of truth, still to see some excellent writers keeping up this temporizing system, when on every ground it would be so much more worthy a course

* See Popular Geology subversive of Divine Revelation, &c., by the Rev. II. Cole. London, 1834.