"But if the crust of the earth originally consisted of the various elements of which granite and other rocks are composed, if (as is generally conceded, granite is the lowest in the scale of all the rocks with which man is acquainted,) the granite was fused into its present condition by the intense heat generated by the chemical action of these elements upon each other, and if the overlying strata were consolidated by the vast pressure of a universal ocean, as is generally conceded to have covered the earth at a certain geologic period, and if these rocks were baked by their own chemical heat or by the continuous heat of the underlying granite, while the cooler temperature of the water above prevented the upper strata from becoming {46} so solid--then, under such circumstances, a very few centuries might suffice." (_See Lyell's Principles of Geology, chapters_ 12 _and_ 32.) Until these indispensable preliminaries are settled, geology can make no calculations of the length of time occupied by the formation of the strata. Again, all geological computations of time are made upon the supposition that only the same agents were then at work which we now see, that they wrought with the same degree of force and produced the same results though working under widely different conditions. For example, suppose it now takes a year to deposit mud enough at the bottom of the sea, to make an inch of rocks, and _if mud was deposited no faster_ in those remote ages, then the rocks would be as old as there are inches in the eight or nine miles depth to which the strata extends. But how can we prove that mud was deposited at the same rate then as now? And so the whole fabric of geological chronology vanishes into a mere unproved notion, based upon an _if_. It is truly astonishing that any sober-minded person should allow himself to be shaken in his religious convictions by the alleged results of a science so unformed and imperfect, as geologists themselves acknowledge their favorite science to be. Thus Hugh Miller admits, "There are no calculations more doubtful than those of the geologist;" and again, "It furnishes us with no certain clue by which to unravel the unapproachable mysteries of {47} creation." (_See Footprints of the Creator, page_ 313.) These mysteries belong to the wondrous Creator, and to Him only. Men attempt to theorize upon them, and to reduce them to law; but all nature rises up against them in their presumptuous rebellion. A stray splinter of cone-bearing wood, a fish's skull, the skeleton of a reptile, the tooth or jaw of a quadruped, all or any of these things-- weak and insignificant as they may seem--when found imbedded in the strata of the rocks, become evidence too strong for man and all his theories. These puny fragments in the grasp of truth become weapons as irresistible as the dry bone in the hand of Sampson of old; and our slaughtered theories lie piled up heaps upon heaps before them.