and
goodness of an Almighty Creator, with irresistible evidence. Nor, though
a wonderful outcry has been raised about the opposition between the
records of the rocks and the records of the Bible, regarding the
antiquity of the earth, has any one yet succeeded in proving such an
opposition, for the plain reason that neither the Bible nor geology says
how old it is. They both say it is very old. The Bible says, "In the
beginning God created the heavens and the earth;" and by the use which
it makes of the word _beginning_, leaves us to infer that it was long
before the existence of the human race.[360] If the geologist could
prove that the earth was six thousand millions of years older than Adam,
it would contradict no statement of the Bible. The Bible reader,
therefore, has no reason to question any well ascertained fact of
geology. But when Infidels come to us with their geological _theories_
about the mode in which God made the earth, or in which the earth made
itself, and how long it took to do it, and tell us that they have got
scientific demonstration from the rocks that the Bible account is false,
and that our old traditions can not stand before the irresistible
evidence of science, we are surely bound to look at the foundation of
facts, and the logical superstructure, which sustain such startling
conclusions.

Now it is remarkable that every Infidel argument against the statements
of the Bible, or rather against what they suppose to be the statements
of the Bible, is based, not on the _facts_, but upon the _theories_, of
geology. I do not know one which is based solely on facts and inductions
from facts. Every one of them has a wooden leg, and goes hobbling upon
an _if_.

Take for example the argument most commonly used--that which asserts the
vast antiquity of the earth--a thing in itself every way likely, and not
at all contrary to Scripture, if it could be scientifically proved. But
how does our Infidel geologist set about his work of proving that the
earth is any given age, say six thousand millions of years? A scientific
demonstration must rest upon _facts_--well ascertained facts. It admits
of _no suppositions_. Now what are the facts given to solve the problem
of the earth's age? The geologist finds a great many layers of rocks,
one above the other, evidently formed below the water, some of them out
of the fragments of former rocks, containing bones, shells, and casts of
fishes, and tracks of the feet of