The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1882-03-25


winter moonlight it's slender trunk sill
very shaft, the very ghost Of a summer
tree. looked wan aud speetre-like; to-day,
10! miracle; its boughs are clothed i'll
palest green, and the many leaves SHIN
mer in the south wind which has called
them in to being. Iask ofmyself, whatisit
that gives these leaves the power which
has caused them to come forth from the
tiny, enfolding buds do not know
what term Col. Ingefsogl would apply to
that power, or how he would explain the
causes which iii ;" The beginning y pro-
duced "the grass, the herb yielding
seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit
after its kind :" but surely it is beyond
| mans mind to comprehend or to describe
it without the aid of revelation. Physi-
ology may talk learnedly about osmose
and capilarity; Of metastasis and intus-
| SUBSCRIPTION, and yet never account satis-
factorily for the existence Of a tiny twig
or leaf aud philosophy with the aid Of
all its modern appliances of science can
not call into being the life which Divine
Intelligence awakens at the return of
spring. l once heard Il sceptic say that
the existence OF every thing we see, ami
mate or inaniiaate, could be referred
back to "natural caases" Aud, Sir"
was the silcncing reply Of an old, white
haired Christian, "te;l me, please, what
produced these natural causes 2" Ayes.
there's the rub; if we deny the existence
Of Creator and of an eternity-the
nevcrbe BEGINNING, the r-ending-we
are caught in a maze Of contradictions
and errors. We may go back from Dar-
wins man to the monkey; beyond that
i'll q the dim twilight of the past,'' to the
mollusk, the zoophyte and the molecule,
but 1chdt force created the elementary
bodies existent in the space which was,
ere our globe was formed One of the
great arguments of scepticism is, that
geology disproves revelation aud some
discovery is always paraaed to ccntro-
vert the truth of the Bible. 1t is uni
tormly found, though, that the alleged
fact is either false conclusion, or the
first of IL series which, when taken to-
gether, prove the reverse of what the
new discovery wonld have done by itself.
One Of the great dogmas of tue sceptic
insists that man is the result Of progress
sivc development, instead of having been
created by the direct manifestation of
Almighty Power, and We are carried
back through successive gra1ations to
prove that some thousand generations
since we yawneti as an oyster, crept as a
reptile and climbed with the prehensile
power of the ape. Hugh Miller in his
"Old Red Sandstone deals d decisive
blow at such a tneo. J !g saying: s'G"o]-
ogy abounIs vss,!s creatures Of tLa
intermediate Class, there arc uan.s nf its
links more numerous ti;an its connecting
links, and hence iis interest as II :.elI oi
speculation to the assertn.s of the trans
mutation of races. But there is fatal
incompleteness in the evidence that de-
stroys its character as such. 1t supplies
in abundance those links of generic con-
nection which, as it were, marry together
dissimiar races, but it furnishes no gem
+ ~ A<I> -
Of one race derive their lineage from the
existences of another. Of all the vcrte-
bra, fishes rank lowest and in geological
history appear first They seem to have
been the master eNistences of two, may
hap of three, great systems, ere the age
of reptiles began. Now fish differ very
much among themselves: some rank
nearly as low as worms, some nearly as
high rs reptiles; therefore, ii iish could
hare risen into reptiles, and reptiles into
mammalia, we would necessarily expect
to find lower orders of tisl, passing into
higher, and taking precedence of :he
higher in their appearance III point OF
time. IT snch he not the case-,f fish
made their first appearance, not in their
least perfect, but in their most perfect
state, not i'll their nearest approximation
to the worm, but in their nearest approx
iiuation to the reptile-tliere is no room
for progression. Now it is a geological
fact that it is fish Of the higher orders that
appear first upon the stage, and that
they are found to occupy exactly the
same level during TIE vast period repre-
sented by five succeeding formations.
There is no progression. If fish rose into
reptiles it must have been Ivy sudden
Transformation there is no getting r,d
of miracle III the ease, no alternative be-
tween creation and nietamorphnsis. The
iufidel substitutes progression for Deity !;
geology robs him Of his god And since
Hugh Miller wrote the above, discover
les in geology have been made which
show how erroneous is the theory that
the older the strata the less perfect and
advanced are the fossil organizations !;
fpr mammalia have been fouad in very
ancient beds of the secondary rocks,
which were as perfect in all respects as
those which now ini.abit onr earth; thus
verifying his words that there WAS no
progressive change from fish to reptile
and so Oh up to perfect man.
Just see, will yon, what lecture the
innocent, young leaves of my pretty