achievements of earth shall appear as do now to man the feats of childhood. We have looked in vain. We can only hope that, in this respect, the written life is not a perfectly accurate transcript of the actual life.

ART. IV. THE ATHEISMS OF GEOLOGY.

1. The Testimony of the Rocks; or, Geology in its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed. By Hugh Miller. Edinburgh: Shepherd & Elliot. 1857.

2. Atheisms of Geology: Sir C. Lyell, Hugh Miller, &c., confronted with the Rocks. By J. A. S. London: Piper, Stephenson, & Co. 1857.

3. Voices from the Rocks; or, Proofs of the Existence of Man during the Paleozoic, or most Ancient Period of the Earth: a Reply to the late Hugh Miller's "Testimony of the Rocks." Judd & Glass. 1857.

London:

WE much doubt whether the attempt so frequently made to reconcile the Mosaic narrative of the Creation and the discoveries or deductions of Geology have been to the glory of God, and the honour of His word. The authors who, with great confidence in their several modes of concordance, have claimed for their theories the authority of Revelation,_ have greatly over-estimated the value of their speculations. Every Christian mind is fully convinced that whenever a want of harmony is perceived between the declarations of the Bible and the deductions of science, man has been a false interpreter of one or both. The schemes of the Mosaical geologists have, therefore, whether received or rejected, no influence upon the faith of believers in Revelation, for they have already accepted the conclusion of the Apostle-"Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that those things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.' To the sceptic these pseudo-geological hypotheses are absolutely valueless. If he desire to bring his faith into harmony with his reason, and doubting be a state of painful suspense, he will seek for more convincing proofs of the authenticity of the Divine revelation than this subject is adapted to supply; and if his incredulity be a fictitious condition of mind, assumed as a justification of the habitual neglect of religious duties, or breaches of the moral law, a comparison of Sinai and Calvary will better suit his case than a reconciliation of the mineral and Mosaical geologies.

not a man of one idea. In the year 1806, he was employed as brakesman at the mouth of a pit. Four men had just descended for some special work, and he had ordered a fifth to accompany them, and set them to work. They had scarcely reached the bottom ere an explosion took place, and wood, stones, and trusses of hay were blown out of the mine, and into the air like balloons. Ten men were killed, and a loss of about £20,000 incurred. From that time Stephenson studied the subject of fire-damp by the aid of books and of his own experience, his inquiries being quickened by the dreadful accidents too often spreading gloom over the neighbourhood in which he dwelt; and at length he succeeded in planning a safety-lamp; and one made according to his instructions was taken to his house on the 21st of October, 1815, where he himself arrived at nightfall. Moodie, the under-viewer, was there by appointment. Mr. Wood, who was expected, had not arrived, and a messenger was despatched a mile in the darkness, to seek him. It was nearly eleven o'clock when the three went down into the mine to try, for the first time, the daring experiment, whether a safety-lamp might be harmlessly carried, where an unprotected candle would produce a deadly explosion. Reaching one of the foulest galleries, they boarded up a part of it to confine the gas, thereby rendering it as foul as possible. After waiting about an hour, Moodie, whose practical acquaintance with fire-damp was greatest, was sent without a light to examine the spot; who, returning, reported that if a candle were introduced an explosion must inevitably follow, and warned Stephenson not to risk life and the pit, by proceeding; but, confident in his lamp, he lighted the wick, and advanced. His companions declined to throw away their lives, and retired to a place of safety; the glimmering lamp and its dauntless contriver soon disappeared in the windings of the mine. Alone he reached the spot in which the most fearful elements of destruction had been imprisoned, entered within the partition, and held out his lighted lamp where the noxious current was the strongest. The flame at first increased, then flickered and went out. He had produced a lamp which would light the miner while it was safe to work, and by its extinction warn him of his danger, when safety was at end. To this day it is doubted whether the "Geordy Lamp," the prior invention, be not preferable to the "Davy."

Resuming now the history of Stephenson's greatest achievement, it will be remembered that all the locomotives, excepting his, had been abandoned; and though his was kept at work daily, it was not at such a saving of expense as could lead to its general adoption. His next step was to diminish expense

by improving the road; then followed the contrivance of springs, which further facilitated the working of the huge machine. Amidst all difficulty and ridicule, the master-mind clung with undoubting faith to the certainty of eventual success.

In 1819, the owners of the Hetton Colliery, in the county of Durham, resolved to have their waggon-way, about eight miles in length, altered into a locomotive railroad, and Stephenson was appointed engineer. It was opened on the 18th of November, 1822, amidst crowds of spectators, five engines of his manufacture being at work upon it, which moved about four miles an hour, each engine drawing after it sixty-four tons weight. The experiment was perfectly decisive as to the value of the locomotive for the traction of heavy goods, where the traffic was great, and a nearly level road could be secured; but the way was by no means clear to its adoption for the transit of general merchandise, much less of passengers.

While the Hetton road was being formed, a far more important project was also advancing to completion, namely, the Stockton and Darlington Railway for the use of the public. The history of the undertaking has the charm of a

Its originator was one of that rapidly diminishing class of men, whose attire and creed seem to separate them from the sordid and even material interests of the present world, and to belong rather to the monastery than the exchange; but who are found in practice to be, in mercantile energy, and sharpness, and success, second to none. Edward Pease discerned in 1817, the desirableness of a railroad from the neighbourhood of Darlington to Stockton, his main object being the delivery of coals along the line of the road. Not twenty shares were subscribed for in Stockton; but, influenced by Mr. Pease, the Quakers took up the project, and in 1818, a bill was before Parliament. The proposed line ran near one of the Duke of Cleveland's fox covers; and, for that reason, the noble duke opposed, and just succeeded in defeating the measure. In 1819, the sturdy projectors were ready with another bill for a line, so altered as to leave the foxes undisturbed; but the turnpike-road trustees raised an alarm of the total ruin of their trusts; whereupon Mr. Pease issued a notice, offering to buy up their securities, or any of them, at the original price; and so that clamour was hushed. In January, 1820, George III. died, and the proceedings were suspended. On the 19th of April, 1821, the bill passed. Stephenson still, to use his own words, "only the engine-wright at Killingworth," introduced himself to Mr. Pease, roundly told him that locomotives would entirely supersede all horse- power upon railroads, and strongly urged him to adopt them on his projected

the closet which Chrysostom is in the pulpit, with the difference between passion and premeditation. Taylor is a great painter, Chrysostom a great musician. Taylor is elaborate and smooth, Chrysostom impassioned and abrupt. The one, the perfection of fancy; the other, the perfection of effective address, running over the diapason of the human soul in its every changeful mood with a master's skill, with an under tone sustaining the whole of ample learning and strong common sense. But let us not be mistaken in the verdict we have just pronounced. Those will greatly misapprehend us who fancy they will find in Chrysostom's pages elaborate and flashing paragraphs of wordmusic designed for effect; lengthened harangues appealing to the imagination or the heart, aiming at the excitement of the passions of his hearers; sky-rockets that mount heavenward by the help of a little extraneous matter in their head kindled with the fuse of a false enthusiasm, to glare, and flash, and rattle, and surprise. This is quite unlike the natural and manly eloquence of the Greek ecclesiast, who, if he knew such arts, would scorn to practise them, refuse their help, and utterly contemn their effects. His aim is rather so to expound Holy Scripture, and the Christian duties enforced therein, with the assistance of all the appliances in his reach-his own boundless talent, conscientious industry, and painful earnestness-as to bring out the sense of God's holy word to the understanding of his hearers, and make it the law of their life. Too much stress is laid upon Chrysostom's fancy. For our own part, we find it hard to recognise such a faculty in his writings. We perceive a copious rhetorical fulness of figure and illustration in his works, such as a well-furnished and ingenious mind will spontaneously supply, but neither predominance nor cultivation of fancy. His sermons are not overlaid with ornament; indeed, it would be hard to say in what part of his works ornament could with propriety be said to be laid on. All that appears to us is a natural genesis of good and obvious thoughts expressed in that vein of mingled poetry and prose which has ever lain within the province of the effective rhetorician; the variety and redundance of these resources of his eloquence being in proportion to the unexampled richness of the stores from which he drew. Chrysostom was a student more than an artist; and his results the combined effect of industry and unequalled genius, not of artifice and design. Who does not read in his persistence in "dining alone,"-a sin against the traditional housekeeping of the patriarchate not to be forgiven,-the secret of much of his success? A solitary by his monkish profession, he was so still more by the exigencies of his pursuits and his unintermitted preaching. Sermons five or six times in the week,

addressed to a cultivated and exacting auditory, carefully written beforehand, and delivered without a manuscript, would have tasked the powers of the most extraordinary orator; and did so in the case of this distinguished Father. He was ever equal to his work, for he might have relaxed it if he felt so disposed; but he continued to prosecute it at a fearful expenditure of time, and pains, and health-of studious seclusion and continuous thought. The people, fed on his honied accents, became fastidious in their tastes, and would listen patiently to no other in Chrysostom's church but the patriarch himself, The distinction was flattering to the orator, but it entailed an enormous amount of labour, and is the simple key to much of the obloquy that befel him for his presumed distance of manner and reserve. His unsocial habits arose from no unsocial disposition-he neither despised nor renounced his species-but from the demands of the pulpit. A great preacher must be a diligent student, and Chrysostom was both.

To quote favourable opinions of this magnificent divine, would be to quote from almost every one that has ever written upon the subject. Suffice it to say, in the words of our own Savile, "Johanne Chrysostomo, nemo Græcorum patrum plura dedit, nemo meliora." No preacher of any communion will repent of making Chrysostom a frequent study; we refer chiefly to his expository and hortatory works. The times are favourable to such studies, for the Fathers of the Church have their merits recognised now-a-days as they have not been for two centuries past. The conviction is arising on all hands that they were not so puerile and besotted as it has been the fashion in unlearned or secular circles to represent them; but that the estimate formed of them in earlier days, and within the pale of the Greek and Latin churches, must have been based upon considerable merits. With our views and known convictions, we must allow that there is much chaff in their writings, arising from their superstitious training and ecclesiastical position; nevertheless, candour will own that the chaff bears no proportion to the wheat. They were learned men, they were conscientious men, they were earnest and influential men, and filled a very large space in the eyes of their contemporaries and immediate successors, and this could not be without indisputable intellectual and moral pre-eminence. Jerome, Augustine, and especially Chrysostom, we would urge upon the daily, the nightly perusal of the ministers of all communions, as voluminous and learned writers, zealous and distinguished divines, and one or two of these, powerful and popular preachers. The Puritans and the early Nonconformists, whose folios have been the nurture of our piety, and are still the admiration of the