believe that
this will be regarded as justifiable language: it seems scarce worthy of
a man of science; and will, I fear, only be accepted as good in evidence
that the _odium theologicum_ is not restricted to what is termed the
orthodox side of the Church.

[36] The gentleman here referred to lectured no later than October,
1853, against the doctrines of the geologists; and modestly chose as the
scene of his labors the city of Hutton and Playfair. What he set himself
specially to "demonstrate" was, as he said, that the geologic "theories
as to antiquity of the earth, successive eras, &c., were not only
fallacious and unphilosophical, but rendered nugatory the authority of
the sacred Scriptures." Not only, however, did he exert himself in
demolishing the geologists as infidel, but he denounced also as unsound
the theology of good old Isaac Watts. The lines taught us in our
infancy,--

"Let dogs delight to bark and bite,
For God hath made them so,"

were, he remarked, decidedly heterodox. They ought to have run
instead,--

"Let dogs delight to bark and bite,
_Satan_ hath made them so"!!!

[37] "A Brief and Complete Refutation of the Anti-Scriptural Theory of
Geologists." By a Clergyman of the Church of England. London: Wertheim &
Macintosh. 1853.

[38] Newspaper Report of Meeting of the British Association held at York
in September, 1844.

[39] See "Primary and Present State of the Solar System, particularly of
our own Planet;" and "Exposure of the Principles of Modern Geology." By
P. M'Farlane, Author of the "Primary and Present State of the Solar
System." Edinburgh: Thomas Grant.

[40] One of the more brilliant writers of the present day,--a native of
the picturesque village in which this anti-geologist resides,--describes
in a recent work, with the enthusiasm of the poet, the noble mountains
which rise around it. I know not, however, whether my admiration of the
passage was not in some degree dashed by a few comic notions suggestive
of an "imaginary conversation," in the style of Landor, between this
popular author and his anti-geologic townsman, on the merits of hills in
general, and in especial on the claims of those which encircle Comrie
"as the mountains are round about Jerusalem." The two gentlemen would, I
suspect, experience considerable difficulty in laying down, in such a
discussion, their common principles.

[41] "Comparative Estimate of the Mineral and Mosaical Geologies." By
Granville