ts early Eocene ages were comparatively small in bulk and
low in standing; in its concluding ages, too, immediately ere the
appearance of man, or just as he had appeared, they exhibited, both in
size and number, a reduced and less imposing aspect. It was chiefly in
its middle and latter, or Miocene, Pliocene, and Pleistocene ages, that
the myriads of its huger giants,--its dinotheria, mastodons, and
mammoths,--cumbered the soil. I, of course, restrict my remarks to the
three periods of organic life, and have not inquired whether aught
analogous to these mornings and evenings of increase and diminution need
be sought after in any of the others.

Such are a few of the geological facts which lead me to believe that the
_days_ of the Mosaic account were great periods, not natural days; and
be it remembered, that between the scheme of lengthened periods and the
scheme of a merely local chaos, which existed no one knows how, and of a
merely local creation, which had its scene no one knows where,
geological science leaves us now no choice whatever. It has been urged,
however, that this scheme of periods is irreconcileable with that Divine
"reason" for the institution of the Sabbath which he who appointed the
day of old has, in his goodness, vouchsafed to man. I have failed to see
any force in the objection. God the Creator, who wrought during six
periods, rested during the seventh period; and as we have no evidence
whatever that he recommenced his work of creation,--as, on the contrary,
man seems to be the last formed of creatures,--God may be resting still.
The presumption is strong that his Sabbath is an extended period, not a
natural day, and that the work of Redemption is his Sabbath day's work.
And so I cannot see that it in the least interferes with the integrity
of the reason rendered to read it as follows:--Work during six periods,
and rest on the seventh; for in six periods the Lord created the heavens
and the earth, and on the seventh period _He_ rested. The Divine periods
may have been very great,--the human periods very small; just as a vast
continent or the huge earth itself is very great, and a map or
geographical globe very small. But if in the map or globe the
proportions be faithfully maintained, and the scale, though a minute
one, be true in all its parts and applications, we pronounce the map or
globe, notwithstanding the smallness of its size, a faithful copy. Were
man's Sabbaths to be kept as enjoined, and