The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1839-03-19 00:00:00

HARMONY OF SCRIPTURE AND GEOLOGY

A vessel at sea, pursuing its way across the ocean, is, to
its passengers and crew, a great and important fact. At a
distance a speck appears on the horizon ; the practised eye of
the sailor recognises it as another fact, but the passengers
are, some doubtful, and some indifferent. Gradually the
speck increases in volume ; masts, sails, and hull are visible ;
it is another vessel, and is bearing right down upon them.
" There is danger of a collision, is there not ?" eagerly asks
a passenger, and the man at the wheel drily replies that there
is. The danger becomes more evident and imminent, and
the most indifferent become interested. But, at a distance
near enough to be perfectly safe, the two vessels cross each
other's paths, and the most timid passenger now perceives
that the object of his alarm is not an enemy nor a rival, but
a friend, bound to the same port with himself, though sailing
on a different tack.

NeW truths in science, when they first appear on the men-
tal horizon, have thus often an ominous aspect to recognised
and established opinions. Like the comet, that in 1835
crossed the orbit of the earth within a short period of the
earth's arriving at the same point, there seems to be great
danger of a contact fatal to the one or the other, or perhaps
to both. Experienced minds smile at what they call the fool-
ishness or absurdity of the apprehension of danger ; strong
minds, or fool-hardy ones, often needlessly provoke the ge-
neral feeling by their contemptuous or reckless expression of
what seems at least paradoxical ; and timid but honest minds,
in their anxiety to make peace between apparently opposing
systems, frequently frame hypotheses which are torn to
pieces when stretched upon facts. Meantime the truths
themselves are making their own way, and at last, like two
lines forming an acute angle, they meet in a point.
The harmony of Scripture and Geology is still in a pro-
gressive state. The Bible stands upon its own evidence, like
a light-house upon a rock, which no storms can overthrow.
Geology has also a firm basis ; its elementary truths are as
incontestibly established as any great fact in natural science.
Whenever, therefore, there appears any discrepancy between
the Bible and Geology, we may rest assured that the discre-
pancy is not with the truths themselves, but in our interpre-
tations of them. The case of Galileo is often quoted as an
example, a memorable example, of the intolerance of igno-
rance. There can be no doubt that many minds most ho-
nestly dreaded the new truths in astronomy, and cordially ac-
quiesced in the judgment of the inquisitors, who pronounced,
" To affirm that the sun is in the centre, absolutely immova-
ble, and without locomotion, is an absurd proposition, false
in sound philosophy, and moreover heretical, because it is
expressly contrary to Holy Scripture. To say that the earth
is not placed in the middle of the world, norimmovable, is
also a proposition absurd and false in sound phylosophy ;
and, considered theologically, is at least erroneous with re-
spect to faith." We• can now afford to smile at this—but
would we have done so in the days of Galileo ?
The first great fact in geology (the word geology is derived
from two Greek words, signifying a discourse or description
of the structure of the earth) is now received as a truth by
all men of all parties. This truth is, that the earth was in
existence ages, perhaps myriads of ages, before the creation
of man. Turning to the first chapter of Genesis, we find
there nothing to contradict this. "In the beginning, God
created the heavens and the earth." It is a simple announce-
ment of a great fact. "It does not," says Dr. Pye Smith,
" tell us when the beginning was : it assures us that at a
point in duration past which we cannot ascertain, that, point
in infinite duration which to the wisdom of the great God
seemed best, he was pleased to unfold the majesty of his at-
tributes, and to give existence to a dependent world." "In
that remote period," says Professor Silliman (an American,
whose name, as a Christian and a man of science, is known
and honoured in Britain), " of which he who recorded the
fact probably knew not the date—ln the beginning God
created the heavens and the earth, and established the physi-
cal laws, the ordinances of heaven, by which the material
world was to be governed."
Admitting, then, that the first chapter of Genesis simply
affirms God to be the Creator, without reference to the time
of creation, how do we get at the fact of the existence of the
earth long prior to the existence of man ? The following is
one of Professor Silliman's illustrations in answer to this
question :—" When, in 1738, the workmen, in excavating a
well, struck upon the theatre of Herculaneum, which had
reposed, for seventeen centuries, beneath the lava of Vesu-
vius—when, subsequently (1750),• Pompeii was disencum-
bered of its volcanic ashes and cinders, and thus two cities
were brought to light ; had history been quite silent respect-
ing their destruction,* would not all observers say (and have
not all actually said)—here are the works of man, his tem-
ples, his forums, his amphitheatres, his tombs, his shops of
traffic and of arts, his houses, furniture, pictures, and per-
sonal ornaments, his streets with their pavements, and-Wheel
marks worn in the solid stone, his coins, his grinding-mills,
his very wine and food, his dungeons, with skeletons of the
prisoners chained in their awful solitudes, and here and there
a victim, who, although at liberty, was overtaken by the fiery
storm ?

" Because the soil had formed, and grass and trees had
grown, and successive generations of men had unconsciously
walked, toiled, or built their houses, over the entombed
cities ; and because they were covered with lava or cinders—
does any one hesitate to admit that they were once real cities;
that they stood upon what was then the upper surface ; that
their streets once rang with the noise of business, and their
halls and theatres with the voice of pleasure ; and that, in an
evil hour, they were overwhelmed by the eruptions of Vesu-
vius, and their name and place blotted out from the earth
and forgotten ? _ _ _

" Al this is legibly read by every observer, and all agree
in the conclusions to be drawn. When, moreover the tra-
veller of the present day sees the cracks in the walls of the
houses of and observes that some of them have
been thrown out of the perpendicular, and have been painted
and plastered, and shored up with props, he learns that the
fatal convulsion was not the first, and that the doomed towns
must have been before shaken on their foundations, by the
throes of the labouring earth.
" To establish all this, it is of no decisive importance that
scholars have gleaned, here and there, a fragment from an-
cient Roman classics, to show that such cities once existed ;
and that they were probably overthrown by the eruption of
79 of the Christian era, which gave occasion for the interest-
ing letter of the younger Pliny, describing the death of his
uncle, while observing the volcanic storm which proved fatal
to him. In such cases, the coincidences of historical and
other writings, and the gleanings of tradition, are, indeed,
valuable and gratifying, and are of great utility in fixing not
only the order but the time of the events : but the nature of
the catastrophe which buried the devoted cities, is perfectly
intelligible from the appearances themselves, and needs no
historical confirmation."

Apply this illustration to the question of the existence of
the earth before the creation of man. The materials of the.
crust of the earth, and the manner in which these materials
are disposed, indicate events which could not have happened
since man was created. The external surface of our planet
is " full of crystals and crystallized rocks ; it is replete with
the entombed remains of animals and vegetables, from entire
trees to lichens, foci, and• ferns—from coal-beds to mere im-
pressions of plants ; it is stored with animals, from the mi-
nutest shell-fish to gigantic reptiles ; it is chequered with
fragments, from fine sand to enormous blocks of stone ; it
exhibits, in the materials of its solid strata, every degree of
attrition, from the slightest abrasion of a sharp edge, or angle,
to the perfect rounding which produces globes and spheroidal
forms of exquisite finish ; it abounds with dislocations and
fractures; with injections and fillings up of fissures with fo-
reign rocky matter ; with elevations and depressions of strata,
in every position, from horizontal to vertical ; it is covered
with the wreck and ruins of its upper surface ; and, finally,
its ancient fires, sometimes for variable periods dormant and
relenting, have never been extinguished, but still struggle for
an exit through its two hundred volcanic mouths. The pre-
sent crust is only the result of the conflicting energies of phy-
sical forces, governed by fixed laws. Its changes began from
the dawn of its creation, and will not cease unless its mate-
rials and its physical laws should be annihilated."

Geologists, having thus carefully based their opinion on
facts, lay it down as an incontestible truth, that the structure
of the crust of our planet affords decisive evidence of a long
series of events, during which stupendous changes occurred.
" It is obvious," says Professor Silliman, " that ages must
have passed, while the various geological events which are
recorded in the structure of the earth were happening, and
particularly while the innumerable organic forms, after their
creation, were in the course of reproduction, life, death,
deposition, consolidation, and preservation. We will not
inquire whether Almighty power inserted animals and plants
in mineral masses, and was thus exerted in working a long
series of useless miracles, without design or end, and there-
fore incredible. The man who can believe, for example, that
the Iguandon, with his gigantic form, seventy feet in length,
ten in height, and fifteen in girth, was created in the midst of
consolidated sandstone, and placed down one thousand or
twelve hundred feet from the surface of the earth, in a rock
composed of ruins and fragments, and containing vegetables,
shells, fish, and rolled pebbles ; such a man can belive any-
thing, with or without evidence. If there are any such per-
sons, we must leave them to their own reflections, since they
cannot be influenced by reason and sound argument ; with
them we can sustain no discussion, for there is no common
ground on which we can meet."
Leaving for the present the nature of the changes which
have taken place, and their order, as conjectured by geologists,
let us assume that, previous to the creation of man, the crust
of the earth had undergone a revolution or derangement, and
then see if the second verse of the first chapter of Genesis
can be reconciled with such an assumption. The first verse
is understood, and has been already mentioned, to signify a
fact, without reference to time or period—" In the beginning"
—at some time or period—" God created the heavens and the
earth." The second verse,—" And the earth was without
form and void"—" takes up," says Dr. Pye Smith, " this
globe which we inhabit in the condition into which it had
been reduced from (it appears probable) a watery envelope-
ment, putting an end to the last of the strata, lying imme-
diately below the crust of the earth on which we dwell. It
may be objected, that the conjunction and' connects the
following sentence with the preceding—' and the earth was
without form and void.' But I reply that this conjunction
is used in the Hebrew language with a very remarkable com-
prehension of meaning ; even in tracing its application
through but two or three chapters at the beginning of Gene-
sis, I have found it rendered by such expressions as but,
moreover, now,'—and with the highest propriety. In point
of fact, it introduces a new sentiment, which has connection
with what went before, according to the nature and relation
of circumstances. There is nothing at all, therefore, to pre-
vent our supposition of the lapse of immeasurable time between
that beginning,' and the moment in which the sacred his-
torian takes up this globe, and presents it to us in the condi-
tion described by the words— without form and void.' These
words together occur only in two other passages of the Bible ;
and there they signify ruin and desolation. The former of
the two occurs in many other passages, and is used to signify
a vast desert, or a ruined city, and other subjects in which
desolation and destruction are the leading ideas. So that we
have here presented to us very plainly this globe in the con-
dition of ruin and desolation from an anterior state : and then
in the following portions of the chapter we see the earth made
fit for the new purpose to which God was pleased to appro-
priate it, by a series of operations, partly the result of the
attraction of gravitation and the chemicial affinities, and partly
the result of an immediate exertion of the divine power."
We have quoted the opinion of this eminent biblical scho-
lar, in order to show that the description of the creation in
the universe and of the formation of the earth, as given in
the two first verses of the first chapter of Genesis, does not
jar with modern geological discovery. We shall in a future
number consider the six days of creation, as connected with
geological views.—London Saturday Journal.

* In the histories of those times, it is only said, in general terms,
that cities and villages were overwhelmed.

CORN LAWS.—MEETING OF DELEGATES.—The dele-
gates re-assembled on Thursday, at three o'clock. J. B.
Smith, Esq., in the chair. There were present also, Mr.
O'Connell, M.P. ; Mr. Ewart, M.P. ; Mr. Baines, M.P. ;
Mr. Scholefield, M.P. ; and Mr. P. Ainsworth, M.P. The
chief gabblers were Quack Bowring, young Cobden of Man-
chester, the Irish beggarman, and one or two other demo-
cratic agitators. The chairman announced the intention of
the delegates to dine together on the following day, and the
meeting adjourned.

THE STUARTS.—On Tuesday se'nnight, two strangers
alighted at the Star Hotel, in company with Lord Lovet, from
the top of the Inverness mail. They were completely attired
in the Highland costume, and richly accoutred. They were
of handsome stature, and apparently athletic frame with thick
bushy mustachios and whiskers. Both are scions of the un-
fortunate royal race of Stuart—Charles Edward Stuart, and
Sobieski Stuart—grandsons of the last Pretender of that line
to the throne of these realms. After dining here, they pro-
ceeded to Edinburgh by the Defiance coach. They seem well
inured to our Scottish climate—for, notwithstanding the in-
clemency of the weather, the philabeg and hose were the only
shield from the " Norlan blast." The strangers attracted much
attention.—Perth paper.