times when
land vegetation was sufficiently established, and appear gradually all
along the line from the Silurian onwards. The modern types, however, are
Tertiary.

The succession, we observe, may be illustrated by the resemblance of a
number of arrows shot rapidly one after the other in so many parallel
courses: all would soon be moving nearly together.

Plant-life, the subject of the first Divine designing, has, as far as we
can reasonably say, the start. According to known laws it appears in
elementary and undeveloped forms, and gradually progresses. One group
(Cryptogams) reaches a magnificent development and begins to die away in
point of grandeur, though still abundantly exemplified. Phanerogamic
plants in their lowest groups of gymnosperm exogens then begin to appear
in the Devonian conifers, gradually followed by _cycads_. And it is not
till Cainozoic times that we have the endogenous grasses and palms and
angiospermous exogens.

But the command regarding animal life had followed the other after a
short interval, so that we soon see this developing _pari passu_ with
the other groups--first the lower marine forms and gradually advancing
to the Pisces, Amphibia, Reptilia, and then to Aves, as a special
division in the second great design group. Lastly the mammals appear and
man.[1] But throughout all, we see the rise, culmination, and decay of
many transitory and apparently preparatory groups--such as, for example,
the Labyrinthodons and Urodelas--preceding the modern types of Amphibia;
ancient fish-forms preceding modern ones, and either dying out or
leaving but a few and distant representatives; or again, the whole
tribes of ancient Saurians, of which something has already been said.
All these wonderful under-currents and cross-currents, rises and falls,
appearances and disappearances, nevertheless all work together till the
whole earth is peopled with the forms, designed in the beginning by the
Heavenly Creator.

[Footnote 1: Nor should we be surprised to find (should it be so
discovered) that some animals appeared after man. (_Cf_. "Nineteenth
Century" for Dec. 1885, p. 856.)]

No account of Creation can be other than wonderful and mysterious; nor
can the mystery of the Divine act be explained in language other than
that of analogy.

We can speak without mystery of a human architect conceiving a design in
his mind; and when he utters it, it is by putting the plans and details
upon paper, and handing