sistent believer in Christianity cannot bring this into doubt; but we have far too slight an impression of it. Professed faith in God's PROVIDENCE is commonly a formal and vapid word-currency, standing for some kind of inspection and general government; but by no means letting itself down to the smallest particulars of creatures and events, and producing no holiness in the heart and the life. Atoms and moments are thought to be too inconsiderable for the attention of the Infinite Majesty; and not infrequently men scornfully sneer at the doctrine of a providence really universal, that is, which omits nothing from its view and action. Let a thing existent, or an event occurring, be such that a finite intellect might judge it totally and for all purposes insignificant; such judgment would be not only presumptuous but erroneous, yea, sinfully false. May devout reason pursue the thought! I use it only to awaken the sentiment that, in the physical and mental conformation, and in all the predicates of parental, educational, and every other actuation, there has been a special influence from the Deity. Conjecture, inquiry, experiment, induction, confirmation, application of ascertained truths, all the causes or occasions that have produced science and art, in every degree and form of TRUTH, have come from GOD, by his acting upon the susceptibilities of the individual, in a manner distinguishing and specific. Thales, Hippocrates, Plato and Aristotle, Archimedes and Hipparchus, Kepler, Bacon and Galileo, Newton, Leibnitz and Bradley, and the bright galaxy of our own times studded with names for admiration,—all have been the subjects of that communication from ON HIGH of which the Book of Inspiration remarkably speaks. For example: "In thy hand is power and might, and in thy hand it is to make great.-Jehovah spake to Moses,-See, I have called by name Bezaleel, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship, to devise cunning [i. e. knowing, such as indicates profound insight] works. Unto Solomon-God said,-Behold-I have given thee a wise and understanding heart.-God gave to Solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much, and largeness of heart, even as the sand which is on the sea-shore;-for he was wiser than all men;-and he spake of trees, from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon, even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall; he spake also of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes.— Doth the ploughman plough all day? Doth he open and break the clods? -Doth he not cast abroad,-and cast in-[the different seeds] ?-For his God doth instruct him." * * 1 Chron. xxix. 12; Exod. xxxi. 3; 1 Kings iv. 29-33; Is. xxviii. 26. The imperative lessons from these facts are,-that scientific men are under the strongest obligations to cultivate their rich domain with the most reverential spirit towards Him who has given it to them:-that as, in a natural sense, they are thus privileged to "draw nigh unto God," and as it were "enter into his secret chambers," they, above all men, ought not to satisfy themselves without the exalted, pure, happy, influence of the Almighty Spirit, which will transform them into His likeness "in knowledge, righteousness, and the holiness of the truth;" that CHRIST may be "made by God unto them, wisdom and righteousness, and sanctification and redemption." O, may this supreme blessedness be granted to all those whom God's distinguished mercy has raised so high! SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES. [A.] Referred to at pages 9 and 265. DISSERTATION ON THE LAWS OF ORGANISED NATURES, INVOLVING THE NECESSITY OF DEATH; AND ON GEOLOGICAL STUDIES IN GENERAL. IN the "Congregational Magazine" for November, 1837, the inquiry was proposed, under the signature of T. K.-"Could there be death, by violent and painful means, before the entrance of sin had deranged the order of a holy world, or had given occasion for bringing into action the instruments of violent death?" To this, the following answer was returned: and, as it has been made an object of controversial attack by Mr. Mellor Brown, and as it may contribute some further illustration to several of the topics treated in these lectures, I have thought it not unsuitable to be here introduced, omitting a few sentences. The question of your correspondent T. K., merits the most serious attention. It forms one, and probably the heaviest, of the two great difficulties which Christians feel in relation to the discoveries and doctrines of modern Geology; the first is the alleged necessity of admitting that God had put forth his creating energy from an era impossible to be even conjectured, but stretching back through immeasurable periods, from the adaptation of the earth, to be the abode of a new race of creatures, with MAN at their head. I have said, alleged necessity; because that qualifying term is proper at the outset of an inquiry: but, though I cannot now undertake this part of the discussion, I am bound to profess that there is no doubt in my own mind. I must even go so far as to express my conviction, that it is perfectly impossible for any intelligent person to understand the facts of the case, and sit down with any modification of the sentiment which supposes our globe to have been created a few thousand years ago. But it is much to be lamented, that many well-meaning persons have imagined themselves qualified to decide this question, while really unacquainted with the essential parts of the argument; having probably derived what they suppose to be a competent measure of knowledge, from a perusal of some one or two books, lofty, and even haughty in assertion, but ignorant, to a degree almost incredible, of the very grounds on which the inquiry must proceed so as to have any reasonable prospect of success. Indeed, Geology, as a science deduced by the severest logic from phenomena which, when once fairly |