men, judge ye what I say" (1 Cor. x., 15), would any child you ever heard of trouble its little head about Terebratula biplicata, Thecodontosaurus, Pterodactylus crassirostris, Noeggerathia cuneifolia, Homalonotus Delphinocephalas, Gorgonia infundibuliformis? Would not the mere names be enough to bring on croup? And if we are to become as little children, is it not clear that creatures possessing names of this description are, by the merciful dispensation of Providence, stamped as utterly inappropriate to our present state?
There is one beautiful suggestion, it would be going too far to call it thought, of a man of God, which the truly pious may well ponder over. It is this. Perhaps God created the earth, just as it is, full of fossils, placing these apparent records of the past out of the sight of simple people, but ready to entrap the carnal geologist, as it is written: "He taketh the wise in their own craftiness" (1 Cor. iii., 19). Who can say that fossils are not among the means prophesied of by Paul when he says that "God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: that they all might be damned" (2 Thess. ii., 11)? At any rate, no one ever alleges that people will be damned for refusing to believe in fossils, while if Christianity be true, people may be damned for believing them, and it is surely wiser to be on the safe side. Fossils would be no consolation in hell, especially as they would probably all become metamorphic rocks.
It is most interesting and comforting to know that God gave man and woman "dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth" (Gen. i., 23). It is a little difficult, perhaps, for a man to exercise this dominion when his leg is seized by a shark, or his body is carried off by a tiger; but doubtless if he reminded the animals of Gen. i., 28, they would at once mend their ways, and restore his property.
Gen. ii., 21, 22, are verses that have been the source of wide-spread error—I mean of divine correction of so-called science. Adam clearly went through life short of one rib, and it has been generally supposed that his sons have inherited this peculiarity, and that man has normally an uneven number of ribs, twelve on one side and eleven on the other, thus affording a beautiful hereditary proof of
