over the land-a large part of whom appear to have no sympathy for aiding the spiritual, social, or physical, wants of the poor. He also properly censures dissenting ministers, including Wesleyans, for not making greater efforts to promote their welfare. Hitherto, the wretched poor have had bat few friends who could and would give publicity to the cruelties inflicted upon them. These ought to be constantly kept before the attention of the public, and demands made for the redress of their grievances, until such measures are adopted for bettering their condition, as shall secure to the industrious well-conducted labouring population the means of obtaining proper habitations, food, and clothing.

We are satisfied that the publication and wide circulation of such works as the one now before us must have effect in redressing the wrongs of the poor. It is the duty of the government to provide means for bettering their condition; especially those in the agricultural districts of the Southern part of England, and of Ireland. In each of those portions of the empire there is a very superabundant population, and the means ought to be provided of emigrating to some of the British Colonies, where labourers are required, or employment, at proper wages, ought to be found for them at home. Both means might and ought to be employed. A fearful responsibility rests upon our government and our men of wealth as to the miseries endured by the poor of the land. It is the duty of Christian ministers, and of all Christians to endeavour to awaken public attention to this subject, and by moral means to compel the redress of the wrongs of the down-trodden poor. We heartily thank Mr. Ferguson for his labours in their service. We hope that he will largely avail himself of the aid of the press in this holy cause. To encourage him and to serve the cause of the distressed poor of our land, let the friends of humanity aid in giving extensive circulation to this very seasonable and admirable publication.

MATTHEW HENRY'S COMMENTARY. (Unabridged.) Nelson's Large Type Comprehensive Edition. Folio. Part XV.

VALUABLE Supplementary notes are given with this edition. The type is large, and it is very well printed.

An

LOVE, the Paramount principle of the Christian Religion. Alphabetical Poem. By CHARLES GREEN. 24mo. 39pp. H. WOODBRIDGE, Winchester.

ALTHOUGH the structure of the verses is such as evidences, that their author does not possess much literary knowledge, there is an artlessness and glow of piety in them, which will give pleasure to an unfastidious and pious reader.

THE WATER CURE JOURNAL, and Hygienic Magazine. Edited by DR. W. M LEOD, Ben Rhydding, Otley. August 1848. J. GADSBY.

AN instructive and useful publication.

THE PEACE ADVOCATE AND CORRESPONDENT. August, 1848.

We wish this publication and the peaceful principles it advocates great

success.

The raining down of fire and brimstone accords perfectly well with the idea of a volcano; since those very substances, being raised into the air by the force of the volcano, would fall in a shower upon the surrounding region. Whether it was miraculously produced, or the natural operation of it employed by God to punish the wicked, it is not of much consequence to determine; since the sacred writers, whose example we should copy, seem to regard every natural event as almost equally the work of God.

43. Geology and revelation agree in representing the continents of our globe as having formerly been submerged beneath the ocean.

At least two-thirds of existing continents are covered with rocks that contain abundant remains of marine animals; and the whole of their surfaces are overspread with such a coating of bowlders, pebbles, and sand, as proves the occurrence of deluges in former times, too mighty for anything but the ocean to produce. Indeed, to doubt that our existing continents, in early times formed the bottom of the ocean, is scepticism too gross for any geologist at this day to indulge; especially when he sees that the rocks are tilted up just as they would be if a volcanic force had lifted them above the waters. Ì hardly need say that all this corresponds precisely with the Mosaic account. Until the third day it seems that the surface of the globe was one shoreless ocean; for the command that the dry land should appear, implies that previously it was covered; and from the second verse in Genesis we learn that it was covered by the deep. It was upon the waters that the Spirit of God moved. 4. Revelation and geology agree in teaching us that the work of creation was progressive, after the first production of the matter of the universe.

Every step which the geologist takes in his examination of the crust of our globe presents to his view fresh evidence that the formation of nearly all the rocks has been progressive. Every where on the earth's surface, he sees in operation agency of rains, rivers, and deluges, to wear down the higher parts and to fill up the lower, where he finds accumulated sand and gravel with a mixture of animal and vegetable remains :-and where water, containing lime or iron in solution, percolates through these deposits of detritus, they become hardened into stone. The mass thus hardened cannot be distinguished from the sandstones and conglomerates that cover large areas of the earth, and form mountains some thousands of feet in height. The observer cannot resist the impression, that all these rocks, whose characters are more mechanical than

*Henderson's Iceland, American Edition, 1831, p. 80.

chemical (e. g. the sandstones and the conglomerates), were produced in a similar manner. But it sometimes happens that such rocks in particular localities have been subject to the agency of powerful heat by means of former volcanoes; and there their mechanical aspect more or less disappears, and they are crystaline in their structure, so as exactly to resemble the oldest or lowest rocks. Hence the geologist very reasonably infers, that even the oldest strata were originally mere beds of clay, sand, and gravel, which have been changed by volcanic agency, repeatedly and powerfully exerted upon them. And when he sees the unstratified rocks (now almost universally admitted to be the products of igneous agency), intruded among the older stratified ones in almost every possible mode, he is confirmed in the inference which he had made. In short, there is not probably a single rock yet brought to light in the crust of the earth, of which the geologist cannot find its prototype now actually forming on the land or in the sea. And they all bear the marks of progressive formation. Men in their studies may reason about the rocks as if they were produced in their present state in a moment of time, by the original creative fiat of Jehovah; but they cannot examine them in their native beds, without seeing at once that the opinion is utterly untenable. Now it is an interesting coincidence with geology, that the Scriptures describe the work of creation as occupying six successive days. Whether we are to understand these as literal days of twenty-four hours, or whether geology demands a period longer than six natural days, are questions not necessary to be discussed in this place. The argument requires only that it should be admitted, as all must admit, that Moses represents the work of creation as progressive. He does not, indeed, represent any new matter as brought into existence after "the beginning," in which "God created the heavens and the earth." He describes the animals and plants as produced out of pre-existing matter. And geology teaches the

same.

5. Geology and revelation agree in the fact that man was the last of the animals created.

The geologist finds several thousand species of plants and animals entombed, and their forms preserved, in the rocks; and some of them very far down in the series. But no remains of man occur until we arrive at the highest strata. It is only in the loose sand and gravel that cover the surface, that human remains have been found at all; and to this day it is doubtful whether any of them can be referred to a period as far back as the last general deluge;-at least, it is only in one or two instances that the bones of antediluvians have been exhumated. Now, human bones are no more liable to decay than those of other animals; and they are as easily petrified. Why then, if man existed with the animals now entombed in the secondary and tertiary rocks, are they not found as they are with postdiluvian remains? The conclusion is irresistible, that he was not their contemporary. And probably before the last deluge, he scarcely existed out of Asia: and hence, among the antediluvian animals of America, England, and Germany, he has not been found. In the south of France only (unless perhaps in Belgium,) have human remains been discovered so connected with antediluvian quadrupeds as to render their existence at the same epoch probable. Man, therefore, must have been among the last of the animals that were created. And it is needless to say that this conclusion coincides precisely with the revealed record.

6. Geology and revelation agree in the fact that it is only a comparatively recent period since man was placed upon the earth.

We have room to refer to only two or three proofs which force this conclusion upon the geologist.

*The Guadaloupe specimens now in the English and French cabinets, are hardly exceptions to this statement, for although found in solid rock, it is a rock which is continually forming at the bottom of the Caribbean seas, and these specimens are doubtless of postdiluvian origin.

The last great catastrophe that affected our earth almost universally, appears, from the marks it has left on the surface, to have been a general deluge. Since that epoch, certain natural operations have been slowly and pretty uniformly in progress, so as to form an imperfect kind of chronometer. Among these is the accumulation of alluvium at the mouth of rivers, usually called deltas. In some parts of the eastern continents we are able to ascertain the progress of the work, from the situation of certain cities and monuments two thousand or three thousand years ago; and the conclusion is, that the beginning of the whole process cannot be dated further back than a few thousand years. And since human remains have scarcely been found in the diluvium of countries which geologists have yet examined, it cannot be that man had spread far on the earth's surface previous to the last deluge. Thus we are led to infer that the date of his creation could have reached back but a few thousand years.

The same conclusion is confirmed by the manner in which ponds and morasses are filled up by the growth of sphagneous mosses. This process is still going on; so that during the life of an individual, he can often perceive considerable progress towards the conversion of a morass into dry ground. But were not the present condition of the globe of rather recent date, all such processes must ere this have reached their limits.

Who has not observed, that where mountains rise into precipitous rocky peaks or ledges, with mural faces, in almost all cases, there is an accumulation around their basis of fragments detached by the agency of air, water, and frost? Where the rock is full of fissures, indeed, these fragments sometimes reach to the very top of the ledge; but, in general, the work of degradation is still in progress, and impresses the observer with the idea that its commencement cannot have been very remote.

I am aware that such facts do not very definitively fix the time of the beginning of the present order of things; because we cannot easily compare them with human chronology. But when we read in the Bible, that it is only a few thousand years since man was placed upon earth, we cannot but feel that these natural changes are in perfect coincidence with the inspired record; although alone they teach us only that their commencement was not very remote. Had deltas been pushed across wide oceans, or morasses been all filled up, or mountains been all levelled, we should at once perceive a discrepancy between revelation and nature. Now both of them proclaim the comparative recent beginning of the present order of things on the globe, in the face of the hoary chronologies of many nations.

7. Geology and revelation agree in representing the surface of our globe as swept over by a general deluge at a period not very remote.

Many distinguished geologists maintain that the Mosaic account is strongly confirmed by geology. Others merely say that the globe exhibits evidence of many deluges in early times, but that no one of them can be identified with the Noachian deluge. All will agree, however (except perhaps some violent infidels), that geology affords, in these marks of former deluges, a presumptive evidence in favour of the one described by Moses. We have no space here to draw out this evidence in detail; but in this place we maintain only, that in respect to a general deluge, geology strictly accords with revelation. And considering the nature of such an event, and its rare occurrence, this coincidence must be regarded as highly interesting.

8. Finally, Geology furnishes similar confirmatory evidence as to the manner in which revelation declares the earth will at last be destroyed.

Recent discoveries and reasonings have rendered it probable that the internal parts of the earth still contain an immense amount of heat, sufficient in the opinion of some to keep the interior in a melted state; and sufficient, whenever God shall permit it to break from its prison, "to melt the elements and burn up the earth, and the things therein." Geology also renders it pro

bable, that the consequence of such a catastrophe would be the formation of a new heavens and a new earth." But we have no time at present to give a more full development of these ideas suggested by modern geology.

Now, in respect to the coincidences between geology and revelation that have been pointed out, they are for the most part such as no human sagacity could have invented at the time the book of Genesis was written; for it is only by the light of the nineteenth century that they have been disclosed. We ought, therefore, to bear in mind, when we examine any apparent discrepancies between geology and revelation, that there exist between them many unexpected coincidences. In other words, we ought not to forget that even from geology alone, we derive presumptive evidence in favour of the sacred historian.

2

for

CAPTAIN Mitchell K. was bred to the sea. He commanded a merchant's ship that sailed from Philadelphia. About the year 1756 he married Miss D- whose father resided on Indian River, near the capes of Delaware. The year after his marriage Captain K- sailed for Europe, and left his wife calculating on his return before her confinement. In sailing out at Cape Henlopen, he passed within a few miles of his beloved wife, then at her father's (Colonel D. -), who resided near the Cape. It afterwards appeared that Captain K- was an eminent Christian, After the ship was safe out at sea he retired to his cabin, and committed to writing a prayer for his beloved wife and unborn infant, dictated in the utmost devotional frame of mind, and expressive of the most affectionate and anxious solicitude for the temporal and eternal happiness of his wife and unborn babe (a son which afterwards proved). This prayer contained nearly a whole sheet of paper in a fine hand, dated at sea at the mouth of Indian River, August 23, 1757, in which the writer, in a truly Christian and eloquent manner, supplicated the blessing of sanctifying grace for his wife and her unborn infant. It is supposed that the paper containing this remarkable prayer was never seen by any person upwards of fifty-six years. It was found deposited at the bottom of an old oaken chest, in which the books, manuscripts, sea charts, and mathematical instruments of Captain K- were returned to his wife, he having died in his passage to Europe. His wife, on opening the chest, discovered his instruments, papers, books, &c., which she understood nothing about, and is supposed (by her son) to have locked it up again without examining its contents. This was the information she gave her son, that she had opened the chest once, and, satisfied that it was her husband's, had it locked up for her son when he became a man; and that she had never let any person see its contents. She married the second husband, and lived and died a near neighbour to the writer of this sketch. Her son she named Mitchell, after his father. She gave him a good education. At the age of eighteen years he enlisted in the regiment of Delaware Blues, and marched for Boston in 1775. He remained in the American army until the close of the war; he was in the battles of Whiteplains, Germantown, and Monmouth, under Washington. He then went to the south, where he was dangerously wounded, and was taken prisoner on the spot, and within a few feet of the brave Baron de Kalb, who was murdered begging quarters, He was exchanged, and joined the army under General Green, fought at Eutawa Spring and at Compahee Ferry, where the brave Colonel Laurens fell. This closed the American war, and he returned to his mother's residence in his native state. He was now twenty-five years old, but alas! he had imbibed the disposition of the camp, and was a libertine in principle and practice. This pained her heart, but was beyond her power to correct. He had a good estate, his family creditable, and for his bravery in the field he had the warm affections of his acquaintance and co-patriots; but it was soon discovered that he was a dangerous associate among the youth