The mountain sentinel. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1844-1853, 1850-05-09

PROFESSOR AGASSIZ.
From the Christian Register.

At the recent scientific convention at
Charleston, South Carolina, Professor
Agassz developed, with some minuteness
of detail, the theory that the human race
is not descended, is generally supposed,
from one parent stock, but has dlffused
itself from several original centres of
creation, the progenitors from each portion
of the race having beer distinguished by
such peculiarities as adapted them to their
position as to soil and climate, and to the
part which the were destined TO play in
the economy of life. He at the same
time expressed his faith in the sacred re-
cords, and his profound reverence, not
only for their religious but their historical
contents, maintaining that even they con-
firm his theory, inasmuch as the story OF
Cain almost necessarily implies the ex-
istence of human beings not of his fathers S
family. We are sorry that this specula-
tion should have been denounced on os-
tensibly religious grounds. We are not,
indeed, prepared to embrace it; yet it
seems to US entirely tenable, and consist
ent even with the highest ground that may
be taken as to the credibility, nay, the
verbal inspiration of the Mosaic record.
1t is the primer, not Moses, that says
degmatically that Adam was the first
man. He may have been, for all that we
are told TO the contrary, only first man,
one of the world-fathers. Moses may
have designed simply to give, subsequent
ly to his cosmogony, the history of that
portion of the race from which his own
nation derived their origin. Nor is the
race any the less one, if not the descen-
dants of single human pair. 1t is not
as Adams, but as Gods children, that we
are brethren in Christ. A common Father
and common redemption make 'sthe
whole family in heaven and earth one.
Nor does any christian look this side of
God and Jesus for his motives, to univer-
sal philanthropy. The declaration, "The
field is the world" and the command,
"Preach the gospel to every creature,
are enough to consummate the essential
unity of the race, even If every continent
and island had its separate Adam.
If divine inspiration pervade, as we
believe it does, the Old Testament, no
less than the New, science can do no det-
riment to revelation, and revelation can
need no defence against true science
They can only lend each other mutual
confirmation. They may seem for a
while to utter contradictory responses;
but their respective languages can only
need mutual translation to coincide. Fear
of scientific research betrays lack of the
very faith which il pretends. The Scrip
lures, indeed, have not for their primary
design instruction in astronomy, geogra-
ply, history, or philosophy; and, as ad
dressed to the popular mind. they employ
language adequate TO the popular compre-
hension of the times when they were
written; but, if they are, as we regard
them, the authentic record of the divine
administration of human affairs, it is i'm
possible that in the last analysis they
should fail to harmonize with all scienti
fic truth, and whatever alleged truth con-
tradicts their teachings only needs space
for its Development 30 demonstrate its
own absurdity. Time and again have
the professed friends of revelation trem-
bled for the ark that they upbore. lest it
should be overthrown and scattered by
the rude hand of science; but as often has
science laid its finished testimony in the
ark, and enriched religion with more
comprehensive and enlarged views of the
truths of revelation.
Never can there have been greater con-
sternation than filled the hearts of good
men all over Christendom, on the pro-
mitigation Of the Copernican system, be-
cause the Bible seemed TO recognize the
revolution of the sun round the earth. But
the Christian, now that he has humbly
receded from the centre to the remote cir
cumference of the creation, finds himself
in universe immeasurably more vast
and grand than before, and reads in the
same scriptures an equally authentic, but
an infinitely more stupendous record Of
the divine power, wisdom and benefi-
cence. Geology, in its divine infancy,
was denounced as pretending to trace in
the strata of the earth a process and order
of creation subversive of the Mosaic cos
mogony. But its researches, while they
have confirmed the narrative in Genesis,
have, at the same time, whether by length
ening out Its days into ages. or by inter-
posing successive epochs of creative en-
ergy between the original formation of
matter and the work of the six davs, in
definitely enlarged and elevated our views
of the Creator, and our adoring contem.
platon of the primeval history of our
planet. Modern Investigations in chro.
nology, history, and archaeology, after
having been decried and viliied as hostile
TO faith, have, in their turn, brought their