round Adam. But if there had been millions, an infallible historian records the fact, and therefore it is true. Here is the difference between miracles recorded in the Bible, and the Romish miracles. They state that Francis of Assisi preached to animals, and that the cattle on a thousand hills came round him, and listened to him. Well, if that were recorded in the Word of God, I should believe it, because it would be stated by a confessedly infallible historian; but when it is recorded by a fallible historian, and the evidences of it as a miracle are utterly insufficient, then I cannot accept it at all. But here we have the fact stated by an inspired writer, who was infallible in writing; and therefore we know that, however difficult, it was possible to Omnipotence; that, however incredible, it is actual-for history-inspired historyrecords it.

It is very remarkable, too, that geological discoveries demonstrate very satisfactorily that man was last created. We notice, that of all the races of animals, and fishes of the sea, and fowls of the air, which were dynasties succeeding dynasties, which had been destroyed thousands of years before, man is, scripturally and geologically, the last. If man had existed before these, we should find the remains of man, his skull, his thigh and leg bones, mixed up with the remains of other animals, and sometimes man's remains below them; but we never do so. The remains of prior animals are found five or six miles below the surface; but the remains of man are only found in the upper alluvial deposits, which are not above one hundred feet in thickness; and geology has thus demonstrated that man's dynasty, or man's race, was the last created; in other words, science is the echo of the declaration of Moses, in the book of Genesis.

One other fact is worth noticing here, and it is, that man was created the crowning and the most noble of all the animated races. You are aware that certain writers of a very

sceptic stamp, and, among the rest, the author of the "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation," one of the most unscientific and mischievous books that have been written, hold that the earth, the stars, and the planets, were first each a fire-mist, which became more solid, until, in time, it developed itself into the earth on which we now tread, the stars and planets that we see; that man was formerly, probably, the lowest zoophyte,—probably a crab, or an oyster,at least the very lowest of created animal life; and that gradually he became developed into his present state of perfection. Now, there is nothing so triumphant as the conclusions of geology on this very subject. Geology demonstrates in the most convincing manner that there is no such thing as transmigration or transformation of species; that there is no such a thing as an animal of a lower grade developing itself into an animal of a higher grade. It shows that whole races have suddenly been destroyed, and that a creative fiat must have interposed and created another race; and it shows that each race was created in its highest perfection, and that the course of the past has been, not the development of a lower into a higher grade, but the degradation rather of each particular Such a disclosure as this is very valuable, and it has been most clearly made. It shows the absurdity of supposing such a similarity between, for instance, an uran-outang and man, as to warrant the supposition of a development of the one into the other. If any one could show an uran developing himself into a man, or catch him half-way done, or if during the last six thousand years one instance of such development could be demonstrated to have taken place, the development theory would have some foundation. But when you find that the uran of 1851 is just the same as he was eighteen hundred years before, that he has improved in no shape whatever; and when you see man in all his perfection progressing, advancing, developing long latent and mysterious

race.

powers, it must be evident that the gap between the loftiest physical organization and man, is gigantic and unquestionably inseparable. Man, therefore, is best described when it is said, not that God formed man out of the highest of his created beings, nor that He allowed the highest of them to develop itself into man; but that He formed him "out of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." That is the most philosophical, the most scientific, and, what is better, it is true.

How interesting, then, that this record, which infidels have tried to sneer at, is becoming illustrated by every successive discovery of science; and that it is beginning to be found out that those plain people who read God's word, and simply believe it, are the true philosophers; and that those people who are using long-sounding words, and talking about things they know not of, under the pretence of science, are the ignorant, and the fools, who say in their hearts, "There is no God." All lights are gathering round the Bible. Nature testifies more and more to Christianity. Scepticism is founded on ignorance.

IS GENESIS

FIGURATIVE - THE SERPENT-WOMAN FIRST SEDUCED ADAM NEXT EFFECTS OF FORBIDDEN FRUIT-GOSPEL OF EDENWOMAN'S CURSE-EVE, ITS MEANING FLAMING SWORD CHERUBIM.

Ir has been assumed by certain commentators on the Scripture, especially of what is called the German school, that the serpent here is purely figurative, and was not the literal reptile so called, and so universally known. Now, it seems to me that there is an unanswerable objection to any such hypothesis; for, if the serpent was figurative, Adam was figurative; Eve was figurative, and sin too must be figurative, the fall must be figurative, and the whole must be an allegory and a myth. But since this cannot be conceded, for reasons that need not now be recapitulated, it follows that the serpent here spoken of was the reptile known to us all, and strictly so called.

That this serpent was in the first instance an extremely beautiful object, and, as here described, the most "subtle," that is, the most suitable, from its superiority to other animals, to be made the vehicle of the designs and the assaults of Satan; - this is what those who take the literal view of the subject have almost universally concluded. deterioration has passed upon the serpent. moved upright with great dignity and majesty. We know there is vast difference in the comparative intelligence of animals, and Satan was sure to select the ablest. Who does not know that the dog is more intelligent than the cat, that

But a great Some think it

the horse is more intelligent than the ox? And it may have been that at the head of all the brute creation in intelligence, making the nearest approximation to the human race, yet at an impassable distance, was the serpent.

It has been urged as an objection to the strict historical nature of the narrative, that the serpent should have uttered articulate sounds. There is no evidence that the serpent ever had the faculty of speech, but there is evidence in Scripture that God has made animals the vehicle of voice, and so we may infer that Satan may have had the power, not omnipotent, but great and equal to do this. It is not an impossible thing. We read that the ass of Balaam spoke in human speech through the power of God. It may be that the serpent was for the time gifted with vocal power under the power of the archangel fallen, who had still an archangel's power, though associated with it a fiend's depravity and wickedness. But, whatever be the explanation of the fact, the fact is asserted in the inspired Record, and we know, upon other grounds, that what God relates here is true, and upon this ground alone, that God has said it. But it is perfectly legitimate for us, by analogies, and by bringing together probabilities, to vindicate, if such vindication be needed, not to Christians, but to others, not only the way, but the words of God to man.

That the serpent did not speak merely of himself, or by any intelligence with which he was originally endowed, is evident from the fact that his speech indicated reasoning, subtlety, logic, combined with wickedness, which can only be accounted for by the hypothesis that Satan- the archangel fallen took possession of the serpent, and made that animal, the most subtle in itself, the most fit for his purpose, the most likely to deceive Eve, because she had learned that the serpent was the most subtle, and the most gifted of the brutes of the field; this animal Satan seized and made the vehicle of