whicli they afford. Tlie framework of the most sublime
Science Extant is bonie upon their bi-awny Shoulders—
the Astronomic Quarters, immutable as Themselves; and
the incomprclieiisible, but certain, inevitable, manifest
Trinity is embodied at their Apex, and Throned the
Supreme Lord of All. These are Axioms in Nature
and Morals which, once learned, it seems impossible to
forget; but tbe Noahites, though taught by the terrible
Flood, yielded to the same Antagonist Demons, which
drowned their fathers in its ruthless waters. However,
it rcmaiued for Moses, Saiichoniatho, Berosus, Manetho,
and a few otlier authors—of whose Consenting Scripta
we know only the unsubstantial but witnessing Echo, to
vindicate Truth from the Ignorance and Falsehood which
oppressed her. Erudite in all Heathenism, the former
was enabled by tbe Divine Providence to separate from
the Chaff the Living Bread by which he sustained the
beleaguered Isinelites until the Second Adam, re-conquering
the long lost Eden, gave of the Tree of Life
unto all that will ; And the latter were ordained for
Heaven in the midst of those Idolatrous Peoples which
scorned and madly set it at nought. And now, in these
latter Days, Satan, knowing that his Time is at hand,
circumventeth with Weapons drawn from his old Armoury,
but tipped with a more deadly poison, and concealed
within the folds of a more flowing Robe. Shinaar!
with the Cherubic Sword, array Thee in the High
Testimonies, and smite, smite Dagon upon the Threshold
of God.
In like manner, negligent of the Voice of all History,
Sacred and Profane; not deigning a glance upon the
Archaic Record, the Footsteps of the Most High —
implanted on the broad World, are meted with the
tiny Pole of Time, and pronounced infinite, reachless,
measureless; And the huge Cycles alleged by the
Hindoostance, and Chinese, and negatively implied in
The Genesis, shrivel into an indefinite Nothing before
the weird talisman by which they are presently determined.
Time himselfis swallowed up by the Enchanter’s
Wand, and Matter, metamorphosed into the eternal,
behold! the resurrection of the atheistical Lucretius.
Thus soaring Icarus falls into the deep sea, where all
is sombre blank, and wanders over the mountains of
Darkness, stumbling at every mote, sinking into eveiy
p it; pitiable in liis desolate but unconscious captivity.
But the Eartli, though of a perishable fabric, and
fading fast away, yet retains the primal texture and
coloring with which it came from The Master’s Hand.
Finitude and End are inscribed upon her Forehead, the
Palms, and the Soles of her feet: And throughout all
her Limits are scattered Medals, which could come only
from the Mint of Mind and the Treasury of the Governing
God. Of the beginning, behold, Matter destitute of
every Letter foreign to its absolute self, void, dead forged
from the labouring Anvil, when Time was called to be.
And in the Transition Rocks, the semblance of his firstborn
day, mute, solitary, and unadorned; Chaos supporting
his infant head with Arm fast withering away:
Vacuity and Gloom are round about; the Symbols of
dull Earth, insensate, lifeless, droop over the vacated
and erst but empty Throne of Chaos, dreamy, latent,
dawning. Here Nature, and History, and Revelation
are at one; Chimborazo, and Andes, and The Alps,
Libanus, Brathys, and his Antipodes, and ten thousand'
fragments torn from their thunder-rifted Crowns, and
hurled over the whole Globe by the exulting Deluge
which blotted it out; and all Story of the Antique Time
by Hermaic Chronicler, and Chaldean, or Priest-King,
read in the sight of approving Heaven before the Congregation
of Zion; I say, these all agree with, and
justify one another, and serve to confound these Images
of the Vain, and break them utterly in pieces.
Nathless, tbe Spirit of the Age, though confessedly
baffled, yea, driven from a favourite Fastness, has many
subterfuges in reserve; unable longer to gainsay these
accumulative facts; in his own esteem a second Archimedes,
himself tlie Lever by which the Foundations of
the World shall be moved, like a wretch in hot fever, he
rusheth naked upon Death, in conflict with Spectres of
his restless crazy brain. Questioning tlie recorded order
of Creation, he classifies the Rocks which contain Organic
Remains, and boldly avers, that animal and vegetable
life were from the first cotemporaneous, contrary to
the Letter of that Sacred Text, by which alone we can
arrive at the rationale of Creation. He ransacks whole
Continents, and triumphantly points to unnumbered
Skeletons disinterred from Strata with a Granitic Base:
forgetful that, long after the separation of dry land, an
Ocean remained, whose Profound no light could possibly
penetrate, by which alone vegetables exist, to which would
descend with precipitates the reliquite of every thing
g over its area: and oblivious oi the fact, that the
Coal Measures of Virginia do actually repose upon
Granite, and other inorganic Matter of the same Age.
To say nothing of the intrinsic value of the acknowledged
Truth, that the Crinoidca and other Marine Corallines,
of which some of the earliest fossiliferous
Rocks are mainly composed, lived like their yet surviving
congeners in the deepest Caverns of the Sea, in places to
which vegetation was of course unknown. And the Coal
itself, which the Modern Julian seeks, hoping there to
find, beside its vegetable component parts, relics of the
Creature that had life,—from whence he toils to extort
, explodes the moment the rash Experimentalist
applies his Crucible, and sorely mangles him withal.
no causes now in action, none of the Forces of actual
Nature are anything like sufficient for the accumulation
of that vast vegetable Fcecuia, before which, the aggregative
“ timher-rafts” of Orinoko, and all the other
mighty American Rivers, multiplied twice a thousand,
shrink into bagatelle. And mark ye now, 0 reader, the
Times of the Creation were long Periods, of which the
first commenced with “ light,” and the third, or Floral,
ended with the same; the “ Light” being distinct from
that of the Sun, the corollary and consequence should be,
and are found in the Elder Coal fields, verily formed of
boundless Genera and Species erased from the Book of
Life. Certain pious and really orthodox Writers, misled
by the frequent apparition of animal remains in Strata
Immediately subsequent to Granite, forgetful, too, of the
perfect Measure of the Word of Jehovah, have curiously
taken the visual organs of Trilobites, and of other extinct
Crustaceans, in the forlorn chance of finding a constitution
there, differing from the one which holds the same
Family in the present generation. Their researclies vindicate
The Text, but in a contrary way their short-sighted
and erring Faith would have it; had these fossil eyes
itained a rudiment opposed to the light of the Sun, as
V exercised, the Key-stone of Scripture were loosened
ts place. It is unequivocally written, and the Sacred
Chronicles require no emendator, that the Thing with
Life began to be, not before the visible Sun, bat a long
while after he first shone forth upon and rejoiced our
rising Planet. It is impossible to explain certainly this
primal Light, but, judging from the gigantic proportions
and crowded Population of the co-existent vegetable
World, it scarcely admits of a doubt, that it was invested
with a degree of Caloric, which no Creature, native, or
even as fossil, known to the Adamic System, could
possibly endure. And, with respect to the fact, of the
occurrence of oi^anic exuvi® in certain Coal basins; it
argues only the Comparative Continuance of the Old
Regime, after the evolvement of Animal life in types and
conditions, which, to this day, imperiously require the
most intense temperature of the Tropics. Thus again is
the Inspired Volume championed by the very Judges to
whom Philosophy appeals. The Slimy Marshes of the
embryo Earth, rich and overflowing with leafy life,
sweltered in genial heat, and “ Light” continuous througli-
. out a long nightless Epoch, differing from our own.
No creeping thing harboured the illimitable plain; no
sound save the low whisperings of the tideless Deep,
and of the Brooding Winds, raffled the lone, the awful
Expanse: Above, around, and about the inchoate Paradise,
fell the Pall of Soulless, Mortal, Mechanical Matter,
irradiate, glowing insensibly, and rounded in glossy dream.
The Thread of the Divine ai^ument, by which only we
can safely traverse the Cretan Labyrinth of the Natural
World, is henceforth liable to but little interruption, for
but few cavil at the Letter of the remaining Mosaical
History, seeing tliat it recognizes the Laws by which we
now stand: and the Areliives of Earth growing more
and more legible, leave the Sceptic no subterfuge but
Vanity from the two-edged sword upborne by Revelation.
That beasts followed fishes, and that Man is one
of the last and most recent creations of ail things, is of
necessity admitted, the fossil contents of the ascending
Strata indisputably substantiating the facts. But, Knowledge,
rashly declining the Chart of Heaven, at the commencement
of his Travel over the boundless Wastes and
Regions of Time, still wanders he knoweth not whither,
mistaking one Land for another, and choosing tbe baby-
toys of his own workshop, before the priceless Jewels
which lie everywhere at his feet. His Carnality hun-
gereth alway, and the flesh of his lean famishing body
is in his, as it was in Sinbad’s desperate eye, more precious
than all the living diamonds within his reach.
Hence the Chronology with which, negligent of tlie
Elements of Morals, he has been pleased to invest the
several Systems of Matter, is as incorrect as a geographical
degree, taken without Line or Quadrant. Arguing
a hundred kindred Issues from an absurd premise, like
Almauasar, he builds up a glittering theory, as easily demolished
as the poor visionary's basket of glass. Casting
the little plummet of a Child into the Bottomless Gulf of
Wisdom, and thinking that her Depths are sounded, he
hastens to inscribe a New Testament on triple brass, and
palm it upon a doting world. In despite of every deduction
legitimately obtained from the Books of Nature
and of God (which point to a largo unharvested store in
which sickle has been never thrust), Mau, it is still persisted,
was originally a Savage, and the Biblical Flood
Chimrerical as Itself. Thus the Hydra multiplies his
liead, and hopes to escape alive, though compassed with
the Artillery of Heaven.
Observe, further, the striking analogy which holds
Earth and Heaven, ages after the former perfected, was
devised a goodly inheritance unto Man: They ask,
“ Where was Eden, his habitation ?" I demand, “ Where
was the Monster that could mar it?” Go, O Geology,
unto the whole Secondary Series of Hieroglyph Monuments,
and bring thence one solitary Image of a Land-
born, red-blooded, twain-liearted Terrestrial: Betake
thee to the frowning (Eningen, and the Red-Sand-stone
of Wales, and Connecticut Valley, and to the Weald,
and the Stonesfield Slate; to all, all, from the Coal
Measures to the Chalk inclusive; examine them a ll:
In exact coincidence with the Inevitable Word, they
yield a myriad Molluscs, and impressions of a million
gelatinous Monads of Life, and perchance, the sea
serpent which devoured them withal. And from the
hrackisli Waters, slowly emerge cold-blooded Amphibia,
Batrachus, Saurus, Salamandra, and the insect food of
the Dragon-bivds which swam both above and below the
Billows that nourished and brought them forth : Sharp
fanged and murdering Creatures of the Deep abundant.
But the prodigious whole betray not one Symbol that
we require. Proceed, and search diligently the eloquent
Annals of the Older Members of the Great Tertiary
Family; there, a million of Land Animals are on the
Record, but no mention made of one Land destroyer,—
he came not before the Fall of Adam. “ Ecce dedi
vobis omnem herbam afferentem semen super terram.—
Viditque Deus Cuncta, qu« fecerat, et erant valde
bona.”
And Astronomy, watching at Heaven’s Gate, attests
that, until after this Jubilant Sabbath of the Globe, it
knew no Evil Day, reluctant Geology admitting the
same fact. That “ in the Beginning” the Earth sprung
forth round in all proportion, a fluid Sphere, and was
finally moulded and ripened when the dry Land uprose
from the fostering Waters: No obliquity of Axis exposed
to the alternate Tropic and Chill which now prevail,
no sudden Storm, or treacherous tide invaded her
peaceful Borders, no malignant Comet propagated Death;
but the refreshing Wing of the Spirit of Jehovah showered
upon her beautiful head the Oil of Gladness. “ the
Morning Stars singing together, and the Sons of God
shouting for joy.” And tbe Principle of Life, pure from
the Elysian Fount, throbbed through all her Frame,
quivering with love: Her Reeds were sturdy trees, her
Ferns umbrageous Forests, sheltering and subsisting ten
thousand Colossal Mammifers, a fauna that would eat up
the present lapsed and sterile World, and strip it utterly
bare. The Primal Ocean, held through all his swelling
breast witli the same Silver Chord, sparkled in the Sun,
rocking playfully to and fro, like a young Lion fat with
his mother’s milk. Nor do the Apocryphal Traditions of
Men survive in vain; the Vedas of Brama, the Sybilline
Lore of Roma, Javanese, and Indian, and Mexican Story
maintain correlative evidence of the great Scriptural
Truth, that Man, created perfect in the Image of his
Maker, ruled awhile his Temporal Dominions in the
fruition of all peace, righteousness, and joy.
Thus come we to that blessed Period, whicli the Earth
and all that inherited it then enjoyed; the Sabbatical
Rest, typical of tliat Future State, in which alone the
long banished and pining Spirit of Man shall find his
own dear Fatherland. Our eye.s are dimmed witli tears,
whilst contemplating the glorious patrimony about to