creation might reasonably be expected, and we naturally look for such. _One_ narrative alone there is to satisfy the curiosity of inquirers on this interesting subject, and to cavil at _that_ is easier than to supply another, or give a satisfactory reason why none whatsoever should have been preserved. Once admit, that those things most important _are_ usually handed down in some way or other from generation to generation, and that it is therefore _probable_ some attempt _was_ made to continue the knowledge of God’s first intercourse with mankind to succeeding posterity, it then remains only to try the history which is presented to us by the rules that we employ in every subject of human testimony. Now, the wise and the learned declare that the more severely they investigate, the more thoroughly are they convinced that there is evidence for the Bible’s having been written by the various authors to whom the several books which compose the Sacred Volume have been attributed, beyond that which can be found to substantiate the genuineness of any other work which has ever been printed. The wise and the learned also protest that the farther they scrutinize into collateral testimony, the more completely are they satisfied that these authors recorded _truth_, and not falsehood; and that the farther the search is carried, the more certain is the result to corroborate the validity of Scripture. When such gigantic minds as those of Newton, Boyle, and Bacon, with the long list that might be added on their side, bear evidence to this declaration, shall we take the _ipse dixit_ of a Voltaire, a Bayle, or a Bolingbroke, who may choose to deny, without being able to _prove_ the negative, or set up any attested credentials to supply the place of that revelation which they are desirous to annul? Testimony, be it ever remembered, has no concern save with matters of _fact_. When human reason has taken cognizance of all the circumstances for or against the existence of any event which is said to have taken place, it has done its duty, and finished its work. With the _nature_ of such an event, it may have nothing at all to do. If a hundred spectators, who have no motive for collusion, declare to having seen a stone three feet in length, and two in breadth, descend from the clouds, and if one of these witnesses happening to be a chemist, should report to me its analysis, which I find to differ from that of any stone on the surface of the earth, I am very unphilosophical in contradicting the possibility of an occurrence verified by so many credible spectators, upon the simple ground of my own ignorance. Though _I_ may never have heard of an Aërolite, such things are, and, being a product of the atmosphere, it is not extraordinary that its composition should differ from that of stones produced on the earth. Thus all my reasoning to the non-existence of these meteoric phenomena grounded on analogy would be fallacious, like that of the king in some