FIG. 34.—FOSSIL LEAVES.
FIG. 35.—SCULPTURE FROM NINEVEH.
It has often been asked, What does man gain by the study of the sciences? Besides the enlarged views which they give him of his Creator's goodness and power, they at this time are fast reaching towards the demonstration of many obscure passages of His Holy Word as revealed to us in the Scriptures. The study of truth can moreover never lead one into error, and a habit of drawing correct conclusions from the facts presented is useful to every one. Geology has confirmed one great truth in Scripture, and overthrown the greatest groundwork of Deism, for it had been asserted by many that man (and indeed all other creatures) had risen to his present state by slow developments, and no proof to the contrary had ever been given. But geology has shown that at a certain era man was created, that (as is stated in Scripture) he was the last of God's works, and that neither before that time had he existed in an undeveloped form, nor since has he altered one jot from his original configuration; and the same may be said of all other creatures, whatever may be pretended to the contrary, for from the sculptures brought from the ruins of Nineveh (at least 3000 years old), there appears the same external form (fig. 35), both of man and what animals are there depicted, and his and their habits were described by the very earliest writers to be then as now. But with respect to the form of the earth's surface it is otherwise, there being a slow but continuous change. Those parts of the land exposed to the tides and action of the waves, are washed away, and the rivers are constantly bringing down soil to deposit it at their mouths, forming those tracts of land known as "deltas;" every wind that blows takes away some dust from the higher and deposits it on the lower parts of the earth's surface, so that, to use the words of the Prophet Isaiah, "every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill shall be made low." But this alteration is so slow that it takes hundreds of years to make but a small difference, yet a difference there undoubtedly is, and a time must come when the alteration will be such as has been shown to have taken place in far-back times and recorded in the strata in evident language, for though the changes are slow the result is inevitable. It has been ascertained that the northern part of Sweden has been steadily rising and the southern part sinking to a corresponding degree for many centuries past, and that the west coast of Italy has been elevated for ages past, at the rate of not quite an inch yearly. Volcanic actions are raising some lands and depressing others (in the earthquakes of 1822 and 1835, the whole of Chili from the Andes to the sea, and probably the bed of the sea to an unknown extent, was elevated considerably), rain and the rivers carry away land into the sea, the beds of many seas are being filled up by coral polypes and protophytes, so that the beds of these seas must ultimately be the land whilst the lower parts of the land will become sea.
After these various changes upon the surface of the earth, from a climate hot beyond anything now existing, from a surface rocky and full of fissures and inequalities, studded with islands and continents, abounding in marshes and swamps—from a state of atmosphere in which the higher animals could not live—to the present division and separation of land and water, of oceans and seas, of islands and continents, well supplied with rivers to drain off the superfluous fluid and supply highways easy to traverse in boat or canoe, the world remains, a fitting habitation for the creatures God has placed upon it on every hand. Forests to shelter the wild animals from the rains and heat of the sun; waters for those who dwell or delight in them; metals, stone, earth, and wood for man to exercise his ingenuity upon, and other innumerable things contributing to his comfort or luxury—all freely given by the hand of his Heavenly Father for his well-being and delight, that he may lack no excuse to worship and adore Him, and this delightful earth, as Milton says:—
Brought forth the tender grass, whose verdure clad
Her universal face with pleasant green,
Then herbs of every leaf, that sudden flower'd
Opening their various colours, and made gay
Her bosom smelling sweet: and these scarce blown,