instructive and able works of our times, that the various tribes of zoophytes subsist upon the minute species of animalcula, so abundant in the sea as well as in all the other waters of the earth, and which have been called infusoria, from the well known circumstance that scarcely any vegetable substance can be infused in pure water, without, in a short time, exhibiting, under the microscope, myriads of such wonders of the creative power and wisdom. Zoophytes ap

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pear to feed principally on infusoria, (or sea "animalcula,) and they required ONLY the ex"istence of that class to prepare the sea for their 66 creation. Their remains form the oldest fossil "animals met with in the strata of the earth."*

The latter part of this passage, from the pen of a learned Professor, shews that its author directly pointed towards the above mentioned notion, grounded on French philosophy, although the case is not expressly stated in words; but, as in all similar doctrines of an unsound philosophy, this passage contains the antidote as well as the poison, for it fixes upon a class of animated beings as food for this first link of the animated chain, of all the wonders of creative wisdom, that which is, perhaps, best calculated to excite our most profound admiration.

* Edinburgh Encyclopedia, vol. 18, p. 843.

That all created beings present to our admiring view a great chain of various parts, each link connected with its fellow by easy shades of similarity of structure, is a fact admitted by the most cursory student in this wonderful book. But what link of this chain is to be looked upon as less wonderful, or incomprehensible, in its origin, than another? And if, which it would be difficult to do, we can discover one more imperfect than another, for the performance of the great ends to which it is decreed, are we to fix upon this apparent imperfection as the first attempt and failure of the Almighty hand? The wonders displayed by the microscope ought for ever to obliterate from our minds any such impious and unworthy notions. That instrument exhibits to us the great fact, that if perfection of design, combined with what we consider difficulty in formation, is to be looked for in the creation, it is amongst the minutest of the insect tribe that we shall find displayed the most wonderful wisdom of the Creator. All that the most profound genius is capable of inventing, presents but a feeble image of the structure and actions of these minute creatures; and yet the tribe of zoophytes, as the most imperfect of created animals, "ONLY required the existence "of the class infusoria to prepare the sea for "their creation!" Such ideas of imperfection

in the works of the Almighty, are quite unworthy of our enlightened times; and the streams of knowledge flow to little purpose, if the head springs are tainted with such impurities.

Our notions of the power of the Creator never can be more elevated than in contemplating the more minute portions of the animated chain, the wonders of which make it appear as if He wished to veil his most perfect works from human eyes, and to lavish them on beings the most obscure, and, in appearance, the most vile; for, according to our finite and imperfect ideas, there would be less difficulty (if we may so speak of the works of the Almighty,) in forming the large members of the whale, or of the elephant, than the delicate fibres and minute vessels of the gnat or of the spider. But as we descend in the scale of magnitude, we seem to ascend in that of perfection and incomprehensible difficulty; for by the aid of the microscope, we discover new wonders at every step of our investigations, and find that our unassisted vision can perceive but one half of the living beings which adorn the earth. The mind is lost in wonder, and is incapable of conceiving what the tongue can so easily express, that there are, in almost all fluids, animals as perfect as ourselves in bodily struc

ture and action, so minute, that it would require millions of them to form the compass of one single grain of sea sand!* grain of sea sand!* But when we thus arrive at the verge of power in our instruments, we have still no reason to conclude that we have reached the utmost limit of animated creation. Future instruments may possibly exhibit wonders as great as those we are now considering; and we thus find, as astronomers have done in the opposite extremity, that we can discover no bounds to creative power and wisdom.

It may also be remarked, that the balance of animal and vegetable productions is so admirably arranged, that the removal of any one link would serve to throw the whole chain into confusion. We come, then, in conclusion, to the same point from whence we at first set out, viz. that zoophytes could not exist without the animals on which they feed; and as the same may be concluded, with regard to any other indivi

* The author has lately had an opportunity of demonstrating, in the most unequivocal manner, that it would require from one to three millions of some active animalcula to form the bulk of a grain of sand. This distinct measurement is made by means of a vegetable graduated fibre, accidentally discovered in a greenish scum on a gravel walk.

dual species, that all must have been the spontaneous creation of an Almighty Power, at one and the same period, and not a gradual production, by the mere laws of nature. We shall have a future opportunity of showing why zoophytes could not but be the earliest fossil productions found in the secondary strata of the earth.

The supposed chemical process, however, which we were before considering, must have required a much longer period than the Inspired Writings have given us, to bring it to perfection. The days of the Mosaical history, (which history never could be entirely excluded from the minds of men,) with their evenings and their mornings, were, therefore, forced into the indefinite periods necessary for the operation.

Geologists, without any knowledge of the original text, and learned men, without any knowledge of Geology, have, therefore, unintentionally formed a species of coalition, the effects of which strike deep into the very root of our confidence in Scripture, and sap the foundation on which our belief in the Omnipotence and Omniscience of an Almighty Creator ought to be founded.

With whatever pleasure and interest, then, we may follow the more plausible theories of secondary formations on the surface of the