I need not dwell longer on the antiquity of the globe:—Geology and Scripture present no conflicting testimonies on this subject. Our _interpretation_ of Scripture has, undoubtedly, been modified; but the living Word itself abideth, in all its grandeur and purity, for ever. And “the time is not far distant when the high antiquity of the globe will be regarded as no more opposed to the Bible than the earth’s revolution round the sun and on its axis. Soon shall the horizon, where geology and revelation meet, be cleared of every cloud, and present only an unbroken and magnificent circle of truth.”[125] The reader shall not be detained so long on the second point of inquiry, which is II. “Was death introduced into the world before the fall of man? and if it was, how are the statements of Scripture, on this question, to be explained?” To this I have replied by anticipation, that, in my opinion, death, upon a most extensive scale, prevailed upon the earth, and in the waters that are under the earth, countless ages before the creation of man. Into the proof of this position allow me to go very briefly, although I am well aware that I run the risk of incurring the charge of heterodoxy, when I state my full conviction, that _death_, as well as the _world_, was _pre-Adamite_. The general impression is the contrary; but general impressions are not always right:—“general impression” is a very unsubstantial ghost to deal with, very like that cant phrase we spoke of at the beginning of this lecture,—“the intelligence of the age.” “General impression” has it, that death was _not_ pre-Adamite; that there was _no_ death before the fall; and that, to _say_ the contrary, is, at least, to tread on very dangerous ground. In vain does Geology—“now happily a true science, founded on facts, and reduced to the dominion of definite laws”—lay bare the Silurian rocks, and discover even _there_ extinct forms of life in exquisitely beautiful preservation. In vain does Geology, after showing us the fossil trilobite and coral, unfold the volume of the Old Red Sandstone, and show us _there_ the fossil remains of fish—so perfect that we might imagine them casts rather than fossils. In vain does Geology open its vast Oolitic system, and show us _there_ other forms of extinct life in fossil insects, tortoises, mighty saurians, and huge iguanodons. In vain does Geology lay bare the Chalk, with its marine deposits; and the Tertiary formation, with its enormous theroid mammalia, far surpassing in size the largest animals we are acquainted with. In vain are all these fossil remains exhibited imbedded in the earth; and in vain do we search, amidst all these, for one fossil remain of man, or one fossil vestige of man’s works. The easy, the cheap, the unreflective answer is, “Oh! these things were created there, or else Noah’s flood left them there.”