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further averred, that in the stomach of these fish have been found human bodies in complete armour. To such a monster the flowing robes of Jonah would be but as the tissue-paper that envelopes a sixpenny doll.

From the learned authors of the Universal History, permit me, dear Sir, to furnish an additional proof that a shark, not a whale, swallowed the prophet.

"The word here used, Matt. xii. 40, signifies no more a whale than any other large fish that has fins: and there is one commonly known in the Mediterranean by the name of carcharias, or lamia, of the bigness of a whale, but with such a large throat and belly, as to be able to swallow the largest man whole. There was one of this kind caught within these thirty years, or more, on the coasts of Portugal, in whose throat, when stretched out, a man could stand upright."*

There is a moral in all this. "They that go down to the sea in ships, and transact affairs in the mighty waters, these see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep." Often have I feelingly repeated those words on the wide waves of the ocean, when, in stormy weather, I have seen the great sea-monsters awfully sporting around me, and seeming to await the wreck of our sea-tossed barque. And many times, with a thousand huge billows around me, in open day and in dead of night, have I sung, with our Wesleyan brethren

"Jesus, lover of my soul !

Let me to thy bosom fly;
While the billows near me roll,
While the tempest still is high.
Hide me, O thou Saviour, hide,
Till the storm of life is past;
Safe into the haven guide,
Oh! receive my soul at last."

One night, on the 20th December, a most fearful night, I was in a gale off the coast of Greece, near the rock which Homer styles vaus 'Odnoσéws, the ship of Ulysses. The sails were in tatters, the mate crying with long and loud wailing and schoolboy tears, the reckoning lost, the night dark as Cymmerian gloom, the wind and snow, and hail and sleet, almost depriving us of self-possession and of hope, for we were on a lee shore; oh! at such an hour to sing "Jesus, lover of my soul," with a firm faith!! I saw fear depicted on the Grecian face; not the first time, I think, certainly not the last. Below there was a poor female. I scrambled down to point her to the Saviour. "Seek the pardon of your sins through the blood of the Lamb," I said, "for I believe we shall not survive many minutes." She was terror-struck. The mariners were praying to useless saints, and making foolish vows. I shed not a tear; but I raised my prayers, not to St. Nicholas, but to the God who

* Universal History, Vol. x. p. 554, Note B. 8vo. edit. apud Parkhurst, in κήτος.

rules the seas. After some time spent with the woman, I re-ascended, and clinging to some part of the brig, waited in silence for the vessel to break on some of the unseen rocks. In about ten minutes I again found my way to the berth of the poor woman, and again did I desire her to repose, as a lost sinner, on the mercy of God in Christ. The result is to be known" at that day." Modesty becomes us when speaking of the effect of missionary labour. From this most appalling danger it pleased God to deliver us; but I recollect, most keenly recollect, giving thanks to God, that my family were four hundred miles out of this tempest, and that "I alone should perish." Three times since then I have been nearly lost with all my family; but "out of all the Lord hath delivered me." Blessed

be his name!

Let missionaries learn from Jonah, never to flee to Joppa when God sends them to Nineveh. Oh! may your constant language, my dear brethren, be that of Paul, of whose holy and zealous labours I have often thought while I have trodden in his footsteps through "The land of the bond, the warrior, and the sage;"

language you must habitually adopt; "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" I remain, yours truly,

Γάμμα.

THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS.
(From the Christian Keepsake for 1838.)

FREE, yet in chains, the mountains stand,
The valleys link'd run through the land;
In fellowship the forests thrive,

And streams from streams their strength derive.
The cattle graze in flocks and herds,
In choirs and concerts sing the birds,
Insects by millions ply the wing,

And flowers in peaceful armies spring.

All nature is society,

All nature's voices harmony,
All colours blend to form pure light;
Why then should Christians not unite?

Thus to the Father prayed the Son,
"One may they be as WE are ONE,
"That I in them and Thou in Me,
"They One with us may ever be."
Children of God, 'combine your bands,
Brethren in Christ,' join hearts and hands,
And pray-for so the Father willed—
That the Son's prayer may be fulfilled :-
Fulfill'd in you-fulfill'd in all,
That on the name of Jesus call,
And every covenant of love

Ye bind on earth, be bound above.

JAMES MONTGOMERY.

THE SCRIPTURE COSMOGONY, ILLUSTRATED AND CONFIRMED BY THE DISCOVERIES AND CONCLUSIONS OF GEOLOGY.

(Concluded from page 627.)

In the tertiary strata are found the remains of predacious animals, analogous, though not all precisely identical, with those now exist ing, such as hyænas, dogs, bears, panthers, wolves, &c.; as well as herbivorous mammalia, the elephant, mammoth, and mastodon; the megatherium, a gigantic species of sloth; the deinotherium, a huge tapir; and many other smaller animals, resembling oxen, horses, deer, swine, &c. &c. Besides these, the small rodentia and other quadrupeds first occur in this division; toads are sometimes found enclosed in its strata, and still found alive after so long a period.

The connection of this conventional division with the one preceding it, may be understood from the following extract. "The only terrestrial mammalia yet discovered in any secondary strata are the small marsupial animals allied to the opossum, which occur in the oolite formation at Stonesfield, near Oxford; and two other small species discovered by Cuvier in the tertiary formations of the basin of Paris, in the gypsum of Mont Martre. In a highly im portant physiological paper, in the Philosophical Transactions for 1834, Mr. Owen has pointed out the most irrefragable evidence of creative foresight afforded by the existent marsupialia in the peculiar modifications both of the maternal and foetal systems, designed with especial reference to each other's peculiar condition. With respect to the final cause of these peculiarities, he conjectures that they have relation to an inferior condition of the brain and nervous system in the marsupialia, and considers the more protracted period of viviparous utero-gestation in the higher orders of mammalia to be connected with the fuller development of the parts subservient to the sensorial functions; the more simple form and inferior condition of the brain in marsupialia being attended with a lower degree of intelligence, and less perfect condition of the voice. As this inferior condition of living marsupialia shows this order to hold an intermediate place between viviparous and oviparous animals, forming as it were a link between mammalia and reptiles, the analogies afforded by the occurrence of the more simple forms of other classes of animals in the earlier geological deposits would lead us to expect; also, that the first forms of mammalia would have been marsupial." -Buckland, Vol. i. p. 74.

With this exception, all the terrestrial mammalia hitherto discovered have been found in the tertiary strata, and this grand characteristic clearly marks the sixth day.

After all these, we are informed that "man" was created to have dominion over all; and accordingly, there are no human remains found mingled with any of those tribes of animals that have been already noticed, or found in situations which would indicate their contemporary existence. The only traces of mankind that can be called geological, and have already been met with, are the following,

"About the beginning of the present century, human bones were found in a compact calcareons rock in the island of Guadaloupe. The rock is composed of the debris of corallines and shells, and is obviously of very recent formation. The annual formation of a similar rock may be witnessed at present on the Cornish coast." "Human bones have been found also in the caverns of Pondre and Souvignargues, in the department of Gard, near the mouth of the Rhone. These caverns exist in limestone of the newest formation. They are filled with the soft mud to which Buckland has given the name of diluvium. It contains the bones of hyænas, rhinoceroses, stags, &c. precisely in the same state as in the cave of Kirkdale. The human bones are mingled with these sparingly, and are described as absolutely in the same state. Along with them occur also fragments of the rudest kind of pottery. The human bones, those of the extinct animals, and the pottery, as far as can be determined from their position and state, seem all of an age. If any instance occur of antediluvian human bones, this is one; but the best description of these caverns I have seen is imperfect. A more minute and careful investigation would be requisite before we can consider a fact of so much importance as established."-Thomson's Outlines of Geology, &c. Vol. ii. pp. 90, 91.

Before leaving this part of the subject it will be as well to notice a difficulty which has by some been construed into an objection; though the difficulty is equal, whatever view of the subject be adopted. It arises out of the great superabundance of extinct animals and plants, increasing progressively as the deposits are of more ancient date, until there is scarcely found a proportion of two or three existing species among 1000 extinct. But when we recollect, that in all probability only a small part of the organic creation then in existence would be brought into circumstances adapted to entomb, and, as it were, embalm them for our inspection so many ages afterwards;-that of that comparatively small proportion only a still less proportion has as yet been brought to light and examined by the labours of scientific men ;-that every successive year witnesses the discovery of species as yet unknown to exist in the recesses of the earth; and that we are far from being acquainted with all the present organic creation, especially the marine species, which are the exclusive remains of the more ancient eras; we shall see that there is but little evidence afforded of the non-existence of any part of our present animal and vegetable creation, even at the earliest epochs. But the uniform decrease in their numerical proportion to those now extinct, as we advance farther back into the depths of antiquity, and this holding true throughout every variety of circumstances, affords a highly probable inference that their relative proportion, though not their actual number, did really increase in approaching to modern times. The real number, therefore, of the species in existence must have been continually on the decrease by the perpetually recurring instances of the extinction of particular species by the dif ferent natural accidents to which they were exposed. Of this we have one instance, at least, in modern times, though it is probable many more have escaped observation. The only remains of all the

dodos that ever existed upon the earth are a leg, the plaster casts of a head, (which, on account of its putrid state, was thrown away from the Museum at Oxford a few years ago,) and a picture in the British Museum, said to have been drawn from the life about two centuries ago. This view is confirmed by facts and reasonings analogous to those contained in the following extract. "The numerical preponderance of the pachydermata among the earliest fossil mammalia, beyond the proportion they bear among existing quadrupeds, is a remarkable fact much insisted on by Cuvier; because it supplies, from the relics of a former world, many intermediate forms which do not occur in the present distribution of that important order. As the living genera of pachydermata are more widely separated from one another than those of any other order of mammalia, it is important to fill these vacant intervals with the fossil genera of a former state of the earth; thus supplying links that appeared deficient in the grand continuous chain which connects all past and present forms of organic life as parts of one great system of creation."-Buckland, Vol. i. p. 88. Thus, although there being no positive evidence that new species have not been since created, it would be presumptuous and absurd to dogmatise upon the subject, yet from the light reciprocally thrown by scripture and geology upon each other, it seems not improbable that the different parts of the organic parts of nature were successively created in an entire and perfect whole, and that some species having died out, their places have not been supplied by any fresh acts of creative power during the seventh day's repose.

It appears, from a general view of the various orders of creatures successively brought into existence, that although there is no precise and uniform development of what are usually considered more complicated forms of existence, advancing higher in the scale of being as time rolls on; yet there may yet be observed a general progressive improvement, from the earliest creation of molluscous animals, through fishes, birds, reptiles, and quadrupeds, up to man. And a speculative imagination would not, perhaps, err very widely from the range of probability, in supposing that in this way the Almighty would impress his finite intelligent creatures with renewed and perpetually increasing evidences of his wisdom, power, and skill; while it affords no contemptible (though far from the highest) source of delight, to those who can indulge a well-grounded hope that they are the objects of his gracious favour, thus to have a kind of inferior exemplification of the increasing disclosures that he will make of his natural perfections, during a future state of existence. The fourth subject of remark is the ways in which revelation and geology have been, or attempted to be, reconciled.

When general attention was first drawn to the subject of organic remains, it was directed principally to the testaceous exuviæ found imbedded in elevated strata, and on the tops of mountains. These were eagerly laid hold of as evidences of the Mosaic deluge when "the waters covered the mountains ;" and so strong was their testimony supposed to be, in the then existing state of knowledge, that the amusing but superficial Voltaire could find no method of dis

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