branches of knowledge which have engrossed and interested it on earth, and
of doing this under circumstances far more favorable to their
investigation. And such an anticipation he may reasonably indulge, who
devotes himself on earth to any branch of knowledge not dependent on
arrangements and organizations peculiar to this world. He may be confident
that he is investigating those principles which will form a part of the
science of heaven. Should he ever reach that pure world, he knows that the
clogs which now weigh down his mind will drop off, and the clouds that
obscure his vision will clear away, and that a brighter sun will pour its
radiance upon his path. He is filling his mind with principles that are
immortal. He is engaged in pursuits to which glorified and angelic minds
are devoting their lofty powers. Other branches of knowledge, highly
esteemed among men, shall pass away with the destruction of this world.
The baseless hypotheses of science, falsely so called, whether moral,
intellectual, or physical, and the airy phantoms of a light and fictitious
literature, shall all pass into the limbo of forgetfulness. But the
principles of true science, constituting, as they do, the pillars of the
universe, shall bear up that universe forever. How many questions of deep
interest, respecting his favorite science, must the philosopher in this
world leave unanswered, how many points unsettled! But when he stands upon
the vantage-ground of another world, all these points shall be seen in the
bright transparencies of heaven. In this world, the votaries of science
may be compared with the aborigines who dwell around some one of the
principal sources of the River Amazon. They have been able, perhaps, to
trace one or two, or it may be a dozen, of its tributaries, from their
commencement in some mountain spring, and to follow them onwards as they
enlarge by uniting, so as to bear along the frail canoes, in which,
perhaps, they pass a few hundred miles towards the ocean. On the right and
on the left, a multitude of other tributaries swell the stream which
carries them onward, until it seems to them a mighty river. But they are
ignorant of the hundred other tributaries which drain the vast eastern
slope of the Andes, and sweep over the wide plains, till their united
waters have formed the majestic Amazon. Of that river in its full glory,
and especially of the immense ocean that lies beyond, the natives have no
conception; unless, perhaps, some individual, more daring than the rest,
has floated onward till his astonished eye could scarcely discern the
shore on either hand, and before him he saw the illimitable Atlantic,
whitened by the mariner's sail and the crested waves; and he may have gone
back to tell his unbelieving countrymen the marvellous story. Just so is
it with men of science. They are able to trace with clearness a few rills
of truth from the fountain head, and to follow them onward till they unite
in a great principle, which at first men fancy is the chief law of the
universe. But as they venture still farther onward, they find new
tributary truths coming in on either side, to form a principle or law
still more broad and comprehensive. Yet it is only a few gifted and
adventurous minds that are able, from some advanced mountain top, to catch
a glimpse of the entire stream of truth, formed by the harmonious union of
all principles, and flowing on majestically into the boundless ocean of
all knowledge, the Infinite Mind. But when the Christian philosopher
shall be permitted to resume the study of science in a future world, with
powers of investigation enlarged and clarified, and all obstacles removed,
he will be able to trace onward the various ramifications of truth, till
they unite into higher and higher principles, and become one in that
centre of centres, the Divine Mind. That is the Ocean from which all truth
originally sprang, and to which it ultimately returns. To trace out the
shores of that shoreless Sea, to measure its measureless extent, and to
fathom its unfathomable depths, will be the noble and the joyous work of
eternal ages. And yet eternal ages may pass by and see the work only
begun.
Footnotes:
[1] I ought surely to except the work of Professor Bachman, which I have
not read, but which was certainly written by an able naturalist.
[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, entitled 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 institution. 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, entitled Religious Lectures on Peculiar Phenomena in the
Four Seasons, (Amherst, 1851.) See the first Lecture, on the Resurrections
of Spring.
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Transcriber's Notes:
Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_.
The original text includes Greek characters. For this text version these
letters have been replaced with transliterations.
The original text includes Hebrew characters. For this text version these
letters have been replaced with the notation [Hebrew].