, 1882-04-14
PUGET SOUND ARGUS,
Science aud Religion No. 3.

The Bible and science agree in saw
ing that miracles have been performed
III cannot accept your Bible" said one
man, because it asks me to believe its
miracles" He was surprised when ]
showed to him that the earth had pre-
served record OF miracles long before
the Bible was written. In the first Of
this series OF articles reference has
been made to the different strata and
the forms of life in them. This life has
often been swept off in different ways,
Geology also says, by glacial epochs
heat, convulsions, and perhaps in other
ways. This might have been done with
out miracle. Sometimes this has been
done over only part of the earth, and
sometimes over the whole earth. How
many times life has been swept from the
whole earth, geologists are not agreed,
the least number being five, and from
that up to twenty-seven. "Where is
your authority for this statement, for
doubt it," two different men have said
to me. but when l showed it to them
both from Hitchcocks and Dana's geol-
ogieS, land the latter is now recognized
as the best work in the United S'atn-l
they had nothing more to say. Dur
after all life had thus been swept away,
how did new life appear, not alone as
the previous animals were, but they
were different and far superior. One
age was the period of shell-fsh, then of
the great fishes, then the coal period,
when great trees and an immense vege-
tation and ferns as large as our trees
fourished; this was followed by reptiles
after great catastrophe, then after an
other came great four-footed animals,
larger than now exist, and last of all
man. How did these new, unknown
forms of creation come into existence.
And the answer, comes, only by mira
Gle. Miracles" exclaims Professor
Hitchcock, ''why all the great chapters
OF natures history began with them,
and If the Christian dispensation were
destitute of them, ii would be out of
harmony with the course of things in
the natural world" Even il the devel-
opment theory were true, it would not
account for the sudden appearance of SO
great an amount Of life.
Again, science and the Bible say that
the Ruler of the earth was good. The
book OF Revelation is full of it, and the
book OF nature points to the gold and
silver, coal and coal oil to show what
was being prepared for man, long before
he was created. Each too was formed
in its proper time and place Had the
gold been placed as deep down as the
coal oil, 1t would never have been found,
and il the coal oil had cropped out as
the gold it would have run away and
been lost Even the violent fractures
OF the earth produced mountains, with
out which water would have been stag
nant, and destroyed all life. And the
old glaciers and seas of ice which came
from the north, destroying animal life,
formed more soil, according to Professor
Agassiz, than all other agencies COM
blned. This soil was formed last, for il
1t and the rocks had only exchanged
places 1t would have been of little value.
Lastly, the Bible says che world will
be burned up, while Geology says great
catastrophes from fire have already come
upon the world, sometimes spreading
volcanic rocks, as basalt, over large por-
tions OF the surface, and sometimes
hardening beds of sand into Sandstone,
while 1t still contains within it all the
elements necessary to do this again.
According to the calculations of scien-
tific men the shell of earth and rock on
which we live extends less than one for
tieth OF the distance to the centre of
the earth, Comparatively, little dis.
placement and the whole world would
be burned. Both science and the Bible
agree In not saying when this will take
place.
UNIFIOArIoN OF THE pr-p,rprro>y ,>,,