God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life; and I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed.' In exact accomplishment of this prediction, geology says, that in the olden formations, there were no serpents without legs; that they only appear after the earth was fixed and settled in its present position, that the rudiments of the limbs are still retained, to tell of their origin and of their remarkable transformation; that upon their belly they go, and their ribs are the organs of locomotion, and that certain species of them eat mud and sand; while all men know the enmity that still subsists between the woman's seed and the whole serpentine race; the strongest proof of which is, that wherever a country is well peopled, all serpents are destroyed, and disappear. How wonderfully does the book of nature thus confirm the Word of God!

Again, in the book of Job, probably the oldest in the world, there are descriptions given of two animals, which do not appear to be in all respects applicable to any which are now found in the world, and it is extremely interesting to see the earth open

ing her long-lost records, and supplying us with the information which we required; thus giving us also one of the most satisfactory proofs of the antiquity of the book of Job, which contains them, that could be desired. When this book was written, both of these animals, the behemoth and the leviathan, must not only have existed, but have been well known. Now we know for certain, that animals which closely approach to the description given of them have existed in the world, and some of them in its recent formations. In p. 108, we are told of the 'pliæsaur, in which there is a very close approach made to the crocodilian order, but upon a scale of enormous magnitude, the animal having apparently been as large as existing whales.' In p. 113, the dinosauria were terrestrial crocodile-like animals, with some features of organization recalling the lacertilea, and also such a massive and stately form of the extremities as to remind us of the large land pachyderms. The animal last named, from twenty-five to thirty feet long, with an enormous muzzle, furnished with strong teeth, must have been by far the most formidable land creature of its age.' All this reminds us of what is said of leviathan.

hook in his nose? or bore his

.

Canst thou put a jaw through with a

thorn ?' 'Wilt thou play with him as with a bird? wilt thou bind him for thy maidens ?' 'Canst thou fill his skin with barbed irons? or his head with

fish spears?' 'Who can open the doors of his face? his teeth are terrible round about.' 'The sword of him that layeth at him cannot hold—the spear, the dart, nor the habergeon.' Upon earth there is not his like.'

pride.'

'He is the king over all the children of

In the tertiary formation, it is said of the dinotherium (p. 131), 'that it exhibits an affinity to the cetacea in the form of its head, and to the tapir in the character of its teeth. It is most distinguished by its huge size, being not less than eighteen feet long; it had a mole-like form of the shoulder blade, conferring the power of digging for food, and a couple of tusks turning down from the lower jaw, by which it could have attached itself, like the walrus, to a shore or bank, while its body floated in the water.' In p. 133, mention is made of the mammoth, an animal resembling, in some respects, the elephant, with long curved tusks, extending forwards and upwards from the upper jaw. The numerous remains of the animal, in the most superficial strata, and the discovery, in 1801, of a speci

men, with its flesh and hide entire, in a mass of ice in Siberia, show that it must have lived down to comparatively modern times.' It is not improbable that this, or some similar animal, was that which, in the book of Job (ch. xl.) is described as the behemoth.

The only other pretended fact asserted in the history of the Vestiges, which appears, as far as I remember, either to confirm or invalidate the declarations of Scripture, is an opinion expressed by Mr. Lyell, that the river St. Lawrence had been pouring its waters over the Falls of Niagara for the last 25,000 years. Now, however trustworthy are the communications of our respectable geologists when they speak of their discoveries, yet as they have never communicated information at all satisfactory, which could enable us to judge universally, or even generally, of the time required for the various changes which the rocks exhibit, we can yet place very little confidence in their opinions on the subject. It is likely, that if in place of 25,000 he had said 5000, he would have made a much closer approximation to the truth.

Your readers will, I trust, now be able to judge, in some degree, for themselves, whether the dis

coveries of astronomy or geology tend most to weaken or strengthen our faith in the Divine Oracles. To me it appears wonderful, how God is making even the enemies of the revealed Word so strongly to confirm its statements, and causing the earth's deepest recesses and rocks, mountains and plains, as well as beings generated in the depths of the ocean, and long its inhabitants, now, in the end of the world, to open their mouths, and declare, in accents which can neither be misunderstood nor disregarded, that though heaven and earth pass away, one word of His cannot fail. It shall hereafter be our business to exhibit the aërial castle which the author has attempted to build upon the strong and solid foundation which he has laboured to construct; and shall thus see into what absurdities even the most talented men will fall, when, in place of seeking direction from God, they lean to their own understanding.

W. C.