ployments, by the sudden alarm of portentous danger, rapidly rushing on them from the blackening and howling sky. The sun was seen no more-midnight darkness usurped the day,-lightnings dreadfully illuminated,— thunder rolled with unceasing fury,—all that was natural ceased; and, in its stead, whirlwind and desolation.Earth rending,-cities falling,-the roar of tumultuous waters, shrieks and groans of human despair,-overwhelming ruin,-universal silence—and the awful quiet of executed and subsiding retribution."

In the history of these first ages, a most instructive lesson is taught us with regard to the nature and consequences of mere human talent, destitute of divine illumination. Wedded to earth, the infidel branch of the human family sought an earthly reward, and obtained it. They "found out many inventions;" they increased in wealth, and surrounded themselves with conveniences and luxuries. In the eager course of selfishness, the boundaries of knowledge were extended,-desire was enlarged, the faculties sharpened, and the taste refined. But in this worldly progress what became of morality, and where was the place of religion? Alas! they had fled. The pursuits of the world are essentially grovelling;-they debase, harden, and contract the heart. Sensuality brutifies it; passion inflames it; evil communications corrupt it. Avarice is grasping, pride is arrogant-ambition bloody. Even science itself, when pursued in a worldly spirit, is full of snares; in its self-sufficiency it usurps the sceptre of heaven, and banishes God from the throne of the uni

verse.

The awful catastrophe of the Deluge presents the Almighty before our minds in the tremendous light of an avenging and unrelenting judge; and, in contemplating it, we seem to lose sight of the lovely attributes by which the Universal Parent is endeared to the hearts of His children. But, when we divest the event of those adventitious qualities which the excited imagination throws around it, and view it in the pure light of truth,

we perceive that, after all, except as regards time and manner, there was nothing more dreadful than what happens in the ordinary course of Providence. Every thing that lives is destined by the condition of its nature to die,—some in infancy,—some in the opening blossom of youth,-some in the full vigour of matured faculties,and some in hoary age. And what greater calamity than this invaded the animal creation when the flood swept them away? They died, indeed, together, and the mode of their dissolution was violent and unusual. But was there not, even in these very circumstances, much to alleviate the calamity? What varieties of protracted suffering were avoided! How many pangs of heart-rending sympathy were spared! There were no torturing diseases, no restless nights,-no tedious watchings,—no orphan children—no sorrowing parents-no widowed wives, -no bereaved husbands. To perish by flood! It is one of the easiest of deaths. To die together? It is a consummation which affection desires.

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But beyond death! This is the awful thought.-Mysterious and appalling dispensation! Scene of horror and despair! Yet, in this respect, the Deluge was not different in its consequences from a common deathbed. The crisis was sudden, indeed, but if the world was taken by surprise, it was not for want of ample warning. During the eventful period in which the ark was building—a period of a hundred and twenty years-Noah was preacher of righteousness," and "the long suffering of God waited." This intimates to us the opportunity which even to the very last was afforded for penitence, and shows to what extent the conscience was seared, and how irretrievable was the moral and religious character of the world. And what a warning does it afford to us! The world will never indeed be again overwhelmed by a flood ;-but every individual of the human family, generation after generation, will go down to the dust from which he was taken, and his soul will be required of him

"

* 1 Peter, iii. 20, and 2 Peter, ii. 5.

for final judgement. We know not when this event will occur to any individual; but we are daily warned that the time is at hand; and ought we not to have "our loins girded about and our lamps burning.”

Nor must it be forgotten that the period is approaching when the world shall be destroyed, not indeed by water, but by fire; and that the latter catastrophe will come as suddenly and as little expected as the former. "As it was in the days of Noe, so shall it also be in the days of the Son of Man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all."" How happy will those be who shall have taken shelter from such calamities under the everlasting wings, and to whom, in whatever form the King of terrors advances, he shall prove a messenger of immortal happiness.

VI.

THIRTEENTH WEEK-MONDAY.

GEOLOGY.-CUVIER'S CALCULATION RESPECTING THE DE

LUGE.

It is so desirable to remove sceptical doubts, as to the actual occurrence of the deluge, that we cannot leave the subject without stating a few further geological facts, which show the coincidence of actual observation with the declarations of Scripture. As an example of the manner in which the enquiries respecting the date at which the present surface of the earth was formed, have been conducted by Cuvier, and other geologists who adopt his views, it may be interesting to quote the following passage from that distinguished philosopher's "Theory of the Earth:"-" M. de Raney, a learned member of the Institute, inspector-general of bridges and roads, has

Luke xvii. 26, 27.

communicated to me some observations, which are of the greatest importance, as explaining those changes that have taken place along the shores of the Adriatic. Having been directed by government to investigate the remedies that might be applied to the devastations occasioned by the floods of the Po, he ascertained that this river, since the period that it was shut up by dykes, has so greatly raised the level of its bottom, that the surface of its waters is now higher than the roofs of the houses in Ferrara. At the same time its alluvial depositions have advanced so rapidly into the sea, that, by comparing old charts with the present state, the shore is found to have gained more than six thousand fathoms since 1604, giving an average of a hundred and sixty or a hundred and eighty, and, in some places, two hundred feet, yearly. The Adige and the Po are at the present day higher than the whole tract of land that lies between them, and it is only by opening new channels for them in the low grounds which they have formerly deposited, that the disasters which they now threaten may be averted.

“The same causes have produced the same effects along the branches of the Rhine and the Meuse; and thus the richest districts of Holland have continually the frightful view of their rivers held up by embankments, at a height of from twenty to thirty feet above the level of the land."

We have here a curious example of the kind and amount of detrition by which, in the course of years, the dry land is worn down and extends itself into the sea, and facts of a similar kind are every where familiar to the geological enquirer.

Mr Fairholme, in his "Geology of Scripture," giveės a striking account of the manner in which a fresh water lake has been encroached on by the land in the course of a century, which illustrates the same kind of natural action as that above mentioned, on which Cuvier founds his calculations, although, in the instance Mr Fairholme

gives, that action was assisted by the interference of art. Speaking of the Kander, a mountain torrent of no great size in the Canton of Berne, he says, that in consequence of the mischief done by the overflowing of that river, to a great extent of valuable meadow land, in its course to join the Arr, ten miles below the Thoun, which was its natural course, a spirited plan was, about the beginning of last century, proposed and adopted for cutting a subterraneous passage for the river through a ridge, at a place where it approached the lake. The descent was rapid, and the torrent in a few years enlarged its course, till at length the whole superstructure gave way and fell in. The effects of this soon became apparent in the lake. An immense quantity of gravel and stones was carried in by the current, and lodged in its bed; and by this means a new formation took place at the mouth of the river, which, in 1829, being little more than a century, had" produced a secondary bed of mixed materials, of fully three hundred acres, and at least one hundred feet in depth."

"

This remarkable formation took place under peculiar circumstances; but all rivers are actively employed in effecting similar changes to an extent of which those who have not attended to the subject are little aware. Major Rennell and Major Colebrooke calculate that the waters of the Ganges contain, in the season of flood, one part in four of mud, on which Mr Lyell remarks, “We are somewhat staggered by the results to which we must arrive, if we compare the proportion of mud as given by Rennell, with his computation of the quantity of water discharged, which latter is probably very correct. If it be true that the Ganges, in the flood season, contains one part in four of mud, we shall then be obliged to suppose that there passes down every four days a quantity of mud equal in volume to the water which is discharged in the course of twenty-four hours. If the mud be assumed to be equal to one half the specific gravity of

P. 124.