all natural phenomena is wholly excluded from modern geology. That the deluge should not have formed an indispensable part of their system that it should not have forced geologists to find a place for it in any theory which they might propound-is not creditable to their faith as Christians. But account for it how we may, the deluge has not only been strangely passed by in all cases; but in some cases must have been wilfully resisted, and the facts which testify to it have been blinked, and left unexplained and sunk, rather than honestly admit the only explanation of which they seem capable. The case of the mammoths, of Siberia is one of those to which we allude, where animals, confessedly of extinct species, have been found perfectly preserved in the ice, so that the flesh was in a condition fit to be eaten, not only by dogs and bears, but even by men. This fact proves that the deluge which thus destroyed these mammoths was sudden, and was the last, and that races now extinct lived up to that time. But the remains of similar animals, being found very widely diffused, in Germany, in America, North and South, though not in the same preservation as in the frozen regions, prove, notwithstanding that the deposits of Germany, America, &c. are of the same time, and that all being destroyed by the same final catastrophe, that deluge was universal. But there can be no universal deluge by natural causes, as we have already argued; therefore it was by the hand of God: there has been no subsequent catastrophe, or the ice in which these animals were preserved would have been melted; and, the species being extinct, infers that there was no subsequent creation.

On the other hand, it is asserted by Buffon and other writers on natural history, that the camel has never been found wild, but that the whole species, without exception, is in a state of captivity to man. Hence it has been inferred that Noah and his sons retained possession of the camels which had been preserved in the ark, as being the most serviceable of all animals in those regions; and their value is borne witness to by the wealth of all men being estimated in patriarchal times according to the number of camels they possessed. This living species may, therefore, be a witness to the preservation of some animals during an universal deluge, as the frozen mammoths bear witness to the destruction of all other creatures, save those which were contained in the ark. And an inference of the same kind may be drawn from the fact, that wheat is never found in a wild state, nor can it be determined on any trustworthy evidence from what country it originally came. Yet each country of the ancient world has its own mythology re

garding the introduction of the cerealia, agreeing so far as to assure us that there is some foundation for it in historic fact, and that wheat has been introduced in all cases-is not indigenous in any.

The deluge of Noah stands alone in Scripture separated and distinguished, by the clearest words that could be employed, from every natural phenomenon, and from everything else that God hath wrought since the foundation of the world; and it is thus particularized not only in the Old Testament, but also in the New. God declared before hand that he would destroy the world for its wickedness-nay, declared it one hundred and twenty years before he brought it to pass. During all this time, and while the ark was building, in manifest token of Noah's belief of the coming catastrophe, this preacher of righteousness was warning mankind, and entreating them to flee from the wrath to come; yet they repented not. And after the deluge, lest Noah and his posterity might suppose that this interference with the laws of nature had unsettled all things, and that regularity in the course of the times or the seasons was not to be expected for the future, God himself allayed their fears: he set the bow in the cloud as a token that he would not again destroy the earth by a flood; and he promised that while the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease. The guarantee shows that there had been such a departure from the laws of nature, that there might be reasonable apprehensions in the minds of men, lest such disorder should return. And in like manner St. Peter declares that, as by the word of God, the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water, by which word the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: so the heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto the day of judgment, and perdition of ungodly men. (2 Pet. iii. 5-7).

And let it not be thought that declarations like these are mere accommodations to the vulgar notions of unscientific men-like the Israelites, who had been long in the bondage of Egypt, or Galilean fishermen, and men as unlearned and unphilosophie as themselves: let it not be fallaciously supposed that declarations such as these are unworthy of attention in these enlightened times. They are eternal veritics. This revelation concerning God, the Creator and Sustainer of all things, is inseparable from Christianity; and all who are truly Christians cannot but receive these declarations as

equally true with the acknowledged fundamentals of our faith. They are as true as Christ is true, and as the inspired penmen of the New Testament are true; for they are over and over again appealed to by our Lord as matters of fact for our instruction, and they are continually referred to by St. Paul and St. Peter, and the other apostles-men filled with the Holy Ghost.

Thus, science and theology concur in obliging us to insist on an universal deluge, as one of the elements necessary to account for the present appearances of things, in consistency with rendering due honour to God as the sole Creator. And we require a place to be found for the deluge of Noah in any system of geology to which our assent may be required: and we reject every system in which such an universal delugesupernatural, sudden, and final-has not been taken into account. Whether the deluge will wholly account for all the appearances, and whether other agencies may not also be taken into the account, are other questions, depending altogether on other considerations, upon which we would not at present enter, even if we thought that this was the time. But we do not think the time is come nor is it our province: still less is it our duty, in pointing out the deficiencies of popular systems, to present one to supply their place, though it should be free from such objections, and should incorporate the deluge, and all the other acts of God. We may well decline the task, under the plea that we have not competent information where we find so many, with far more information than we possess, to have failed. And we may also hint our suspicions, if not allowed to express our convictions, that no one has yet attained to a competent degree of information, to construct at the present time such a system as will embrace all the facts, explain all the appearances, and stand the test of time, in a science so modern as geology, embracing so wide a sphere as the whole earth. Our object has been to direct attention to some points which have been mistaken, and to others which have been overlooked or disregarded; but all of which are essential to the right handling and full elucidation of so important a subject as that of Scriptural Geology.

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It is in the discussion of fundamental principles that we have been engaged, according to the observance or neglect of which we apprehend that the science will be placed on a true or a false basis, and all the details will become either valuable or comparatively worthless. We have not, at this stage, entered upon the painful and invidious task of criticizing in detail even the works which we have placed at the commence

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ment of this article, and which we placed there, rather as samples of the better and worse classes of the writings we had in mind, than with any intention of reviewing them.* Dr. Burton's lectures afford a favourable example of the better class of writings on geology; and it would be painful to us, where there is so much that is excellent, to point out the objectionable passages, since it is manifest that the mistakes have arisen solely from reposing too much confidence in those whom almost all look up to as masters and guides in the science of geology. Dr. Burton's piety and orthodoxy are unquestionable; and there is no doubt that his lectures were intended to promote, and do on the whole conduce to, these high and holy ends. Nor are we disposed to question the piety or orthodoxy of men like Drs. Buckland, Pye Smith, and Wiseman; or the many eminent laymen who advocate the geological systems of the day. These theories are held by them without their being conscious of infidelity, and propagated without producing unbelief amongst others, only because they are held inconsistently, and are not carried out to their legitimate conclusion. But such theories are certainly irreconcileable with sound principles of physics untenable by any who consistently maintain God to be the Creator of all things

and, therefore, are secretly and unconsciously subversive of the Christian faith. Such theories will, therefore, no doubt break down ere long, and the good men we allude to will be among the first to repudiate them. Its sol

The other work, to which no name is attached, we only insert because it has gone through three editions in the course of a season; and is, therefore, a proof of the avidity with which men receive bald scepticism in the present day. A more infidel or a more stupid publication has rarely appeared, save that, in point of mere style of writing and manner of stating things, it is in good taste, and shows that the writer belongs to a polished class of society. But it has no claim to attention on the score of reason or argument, and no child that has learnt its catechism would have its faith much endangered by such a work: it is purely and professedly infidel in argument, however modified in phrase; it is inconsistent with even the heathen ideas of a God; and it would only find its parallel in the freaks of imagination which are ascribed to such men as Anaximander and Lucretius that Nature herself is omnipo

And we may, with the greater propriety, decline it now, from having entered with some fulness into the particulars of the geological question on two former occasions. (No. XXIV., XXV., October, 1842; Jan., 1843),

tent that the fortuitous concurrence of atoms generated all things and that matter is eternal.

Such kind of works we, on principle, would decline to meddle with, since the very contact is defiling, and ideas of infidelity and doubt are infused which may weaken the faith and trouble the mind in hours of weakness and melancholy. And such a course of abstaining from the contact with evil we would recommend to our readers, though curiosity may prompt' on the other side. We live in an inquisitive age in an advancing age; but it is also a superficial and a prolific age: and since, from the multiplicity of publications, some selection must be made by every one, it is worth while to shorten the labour of selection by lopping off at once from our list all those which are of an immoral or an infidel tendency.

ART. II. The Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist : a Sermon Preached before a Country Congregation. By A MEMBER OF ORIEL COLLEGE, Oxford, B. A. London: Hatchard and Son. 1844.

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AT any other time than the present, we should have looked upon the publication of a sermon on the presence of Christ in the holy Eucharist as an unnecessary revival of a controversy that has always been agitated with acrimony, and has never resulted in any practical good; and this, notwithstanding it were written by some one or other of our oldest and most celebrated divines: much more should we have condemned it, had it emanated from the untried pen of the mere tyro in theology. On the present occasion, however, such are the circumstances of the times that we are constrained to admit of an exception. The chief difficulty of the Church, during the last ten years, has arisen from the peculiar movements of certain parties at Oxford. In Oriel College was that compact made which has produced the results which, in common with the sincere wellwishers of the Church of England, we have so long had occasion to lament. By an influential member of that college is the party chiefly ruled, whose Romanizing efforts we deplore; and in Oriel, more perhaps than in any other college, have the embryo members of the clergy been exposed to this baneful: influence; so that we may well congratulate our readers that, even from this officina of Popery, there has come forth one who, standing in the university as a mere bachelor of arts, must have been exposed to this erratic teaching throughout his whole