Here let us again advert to the Deluge theory, not because our own minds are not satisfied on the point, but because theology and science alike demand a true statement of the facts of the case. We believe, as we said in a previous chapter, in the plenary inspiration of nature, just as we believe that the Scriptures were given by inspiration of God; and we are quite sure that both books, if they are not misinterpreted, will declare the glory of God in one common speech, and elevate the mind of man, to whom they speak, up to a more adoring trust and a profounder reverence. With Dr. Hitchcock we say, “It seems to me that the child can easily understand the geological interpretation of the Bible and its reasons. Why, then, should it not be taught to children, that they may not be liable to distrust the whole Bible, when they come to the study of geology? I rejoice, however, that the fears and prejudices of the pious and the learned are so fast yielding to evidence; and I anticipate the period, when on this subject the child will learn _the same thing in the Sabbath school and in the literary institution_. Nay, I anticipate the time as not 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.”[107] But to return; this Deluge theory refers all existing fossils to “Noah’s flood,”—to that violent diluvial action, the graphic account of which is in the book of Genesis. Now, it is impossible to believe this if we look at a fossil: look, for instance, at this terebratula, and observe how perfectly uninjured it is, frail as is its shelly covering; or at this plagiostoma spinosa, and mark how susceptible it is of injury, and yet that its brittle spines are all unbroken; or at this inoceramus or catillus, and observe its delicate flutings, still in exquisite preservation, without fracture or distortion; or these specimens of echinites, the ananchytes ovata, or the spatanguscor-anguinum, and see the markings on the shell, the apertures of the mouth and stomach still perfect; who can see all this and not come to the conclusion, that these creatures, and thousands such as these, endured not only no violence in death, such as a deluge would suppose, but that at death they subsided quietly to the bottom of the sea, there to find a fitting sepulchre of soft cretaceous matter prepared for them, which in process of time was lifted up, to exhibit in a hard chalky bed their forms of pristine beauty?