Mine is a far different object, I desire to shew the unlettered Christian that he has not believed in a “cunningly devised fable,” but, that his Faith rests upon a sure basis, and that he may take his Bible in his hand and laugh to scorn the insidious attempts of the learned infidelity and skepticism of the world. {19} I believe much harm is done to Religion by the well intentioned but idle fears of Christians, upon the introduction of any new Science; their Faith and not their Fears should be called into exercise. I believe the Bible to be given by the Author of Nature, and that he never gave any information to his Creatures which could ever be adverse or inconsistent to any subsequent development that Nature could afford. I dare not admit the idea that the testimony of Scripture depends for its acceptance upon the sufferance of Modern Science. I take vastly higher ground, and believe that the Christian man may approach with confidence to the investigation of any phenomena in Nature, in the assurance that, so far as it is true, it will not be found inconsonant with what he rightly considers to be the Word of God. Much of the difficulty in the minds of well meaning Christians, in all ages, in relation to discoveries in Nature has doubtless arisen from the peculiar and poetical language in which the Scriptural Record is expressed. In the fact that it was just so expressed as to be understood by the particular people to whom it was originally given. That it does not profess to be a guide to man, in his researches through the arcanum of Nature; but, incidentally alludes to natural phenomena only so far as the people of that age were acquainted with such subjects, and in order only, to give a proper impression as to the greatness and goodness of God. Had these propositions been more generally observed, I venture to suggest, that Religion and Science would not have been found so often in circumstances of apparent collision. The best men have, in all ages, been too much disposed to put their Faith in abeyance, while their Fears have been allowed to proclaim a danger to Religion; and, alas! too often to persecute those who have made the most useful and important discoveries. It is well known that the Copernican System was declared by the Pope, on its introduction, in a bull, specially issued for the purpose, to be “false in fact and heretical in religion,” and its author was doomed to imprisonment for his discovery! and we find that while Plato, Cicero, Aristotle, Strabo, and other heathen authors allowed the rotundity of the earth, that Lactantius, _one of the Christian Fathers_, influenced by the well meaning, but ill employed fear I have described, contended for the old opinion. He asks, “Is any one so foolish, as to believe that there are men whose feet are higher than their heads; trees growing downwards; rain, snow, and hail, falling upwards?”