Part 27 (2/2)

[2] I am not aware that this reply to the objection was ever advanced, till the publication, by myself, last year, of a sermon on the Resurrections of Spring, in a small volume of sermons, ent.i.tled Religious Lectures on some peculiar Phenomena in the Four Seasons. I may be mistaken; but I cannot see why this reply does not completely meet the difficulty, and free an important doctrine from an incubus under which it has long lain half smothered.

[3] I hope it is not vanity to say that this subject, also, was first suggested in the sermon referred to in the preceding note. If correct, it opens an animating prospect to the afflicted Christian.

[4] The first edition of this work was republished in this country. In England it has reached the fifth edition, much enlarged.

[5] Two or three years since Professor Bronn described twenty-six thousand six hundred and seventy-eight species; and, upon an average, one thousand species are discovered every year. M. Alcide D'Orbigny, in 1850, stated the number of mollusks and radiated animals alone at seventeen thousand nine hundred and forty-seven species.

[6] The news has just reached us that this venerable man is no more. I was present last summer at Homerton, when he resigned the charge of that beloved inst.i.tution. From his addresses and his prayers, so redolent of the spirit of heaven, I might have known that he was pluming his wings for his upward flight. I am thankful that I was permitted to see the man, whom, of all others in Europe, I most desired to see. But Dr. Buckland I did not meet; for he was in an insane hospital, with no prospect of recovery. Alas! how sad to think of such Christian philosophers, so soon removed from the world, or from all concern in it! Could I dare to hope that I shall meet them and kindred spirits before the throne of our common Redeemer, how should I exclaim with Cicero, ”_O preclarum diem, quum in illud animorum concilium coelumque proficiscar, ut quum ex hac turba et colluvione discedam!_”

[7] This had always seemed to me a very strong case, as I had seen it described. But a recent visit to the spot (September, 1850) did not make so strong an impression upon me as I expected. In the first place, I found the head of Lake Lehman, where the Rhone enters, to be so narrow, that the detritus brought down by the river cannot spread itself out very far laterally. Secondly, I found, on ascending the Rhone, that it is every where a very rapid stream; and, on account of the origination of its branches from glaciers, it is always loaded with mud. So that the process of deposition must be going on continually. This cannot be the case in one in ten of other rivers, whose waters, for most of the year, are clear.

This case, then, is only a quite unusual exception, and cannot be regarded as a standard by which to judge of the rate of deposition at present, or in past times.

[8] For a much more minute and extended account of the different modes proposed to reconcile geology and revelation, and indeed of their entire connection, I would refer to several papers in the American Biblical Repository, especially to the number for October, 1835, p. 261. The progress of science has, indeed, rendered it desirable to change a few sentences in those articles; but all their essential principles I still maintain.

[9] See Stuart and Hodge on Rom. v. 12; also Chalmers's Lectures on Romans, Lecture 26; and Harris's Man Primeval, p. 178.

[10] Johnston's Physical Atlas, pp. 66, 76, (Philadelphia edition, 1850.)

[11] Rev. Joseph Tracy, Bibliotheca Sacra, Oct. 1850, p. 614.

[12] See the Frontispiece.

[13] The subject of this inference is treated with great ability and candor in the _Biblotheca Sacra_ for November, 1849, by my friend and colleague, Rev. Joseph Haven, Jr., professor of intellectual and moral philosophy in Amherst College.

[14] In this description I have attempted to give exactly the experience of myself and John Tappan, Esq., with our wives, who ascended Snowdon in June, 1850. A few days after, we ascended Cader Idris, another mountain of Wales, near Dolgelly, where the views were perhaps equally wild and sublime, with the addition of a vast number of trap columns, and a pseudo-crater, with its jagged and frowning sides.

[15] When I visited this spot, in September, 1850, I was so fortunate as to get sight of a party that had just commenced the descent from the summit of Mont Blanc. To the naked eye they were invisible, but the whole train could be distinctly seen through a telescope. This was the third party that had ascended that mountain in the summer of 1850. I doubt not that the dangers have been exaggerated, and that the excursion will become common.

There are other points of great interest around Chamouny, which I have not noticed, some of which I visited, but not all. I have mentioned only the most common.

[16] In September, 1850, I visited this well, and found the water running still, at the rate of six hundred and sixty gallons per minute at the surface, and half that amount at the top of a tube one hundred and twelve feet high, from whence it could be carried to any part of Paris; and, in fact, does supply some of the streets. I tasted the water, and found it pleasant, though warm, (84 deg. Fahrenheit.)

[17] I adopt this division from an able American review of the ”Vestiges.”

[18] For the details of this remarkable subject, see the ”Parthenogenesis”

of Professor Owen, p. 76, (London, 1849;) Steenstrup's ”Alternation of Generations,” published by the Ray Society in 1845, and Sedgwick's ”Discourse on the Studies of the University,” Supplement, p. 193, (London, 1850.)

[19] The subject of this lecture has been ably discussed, within a few years, in most of the leading periodicals in Europe and America, though I must say not always with the candor calculated to do the most good. The two most able volumes that have fallen into my hands, on the subject, are Professor Sedgwick's ”Discourse on the Studies of the University,” &c., (fifth ed., London, 1850,) and Hugh Miller's ”Footprints of the Creator,”

now republished in this country.

[20] This subject has been treated more fully, and I hope more satisfactorily, in a little work of mine, which has just reached its second edition, ent.i.tled Religious Lectures on Peculiar Phenomena in the Four Seasons, (Amherst, 1851.) See the first Lecture, on the Resurrections of Spring.

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