Amongst the many works which have been issued for the purpose of explaining away the discrepancies between Geology and Genesis, is one by Dommick McCausland, entitled 'Sermons in Stones,' and the following is a portion of the mode of harmonising pursued by the author. While admitting that the transactions mentioned in the first chapter of Grenesis could not be brought within the compass of six days, it is urged by Mr. McCausland that the scene of the creation was presented to Moses 'In a series of visions, each separate one occupying an evening and a morning, that is to say, an intermediate night, _the season of visions or dreams_. So that, in commencing our task of making revelation reasonable, we are to imagine that Moses dreamed the whole of the history of the creation. But even this hypothesis is open to objection. What 'scene' could 'present to the vision of Moses' (if we admit Moses to be the dreamer) an earth without form and void, especially with darkness upon the face of it? It is true that, if you suppose the writer dreamed the whole story of the creation, it will account for much that is otherwise most improbable; for we all know what strange images are conjured before us in our dreaming moments, sometimes they are compounds, sometimes reversals, of our waking experience. McCausland proceeds, 'It is well known that the transactions of years are often compressed, in a dream, into the space of a few minutes; on the same principle, the operations of the divine author of creation, which _may_ have occupied a long series of years, may have been presented to Moses as the events of a single day.' What may have been or may not have been, is hardly sufficient to base an argument upon. It is most extraordinary that, in discussions upon this subject, the reverend advocates arrogate to themselves the right of conjecturing 'What God meant to do,' 'What God's intentions were,' 'What might have happened before this occurred or that was prevented,' 'That this is literal,' 'That that is allegorical,' etc., etc.; and yet, while they are conjecturing and supposing outside the text to an unlimited extent, it becomes rank blasphemy to advance an opinion to the plain English meaning of the text itself. I am afraid that Moses {14} is not the only dreamer; for a few pages further I find this remarkable sentence, 'We know from Geology, in confirmation of Scripture, that there was a beginning, when the universe was formed out of nothing'!! In which strata or in what rock was this knowledge found? Are we to be told in the present day that in the universe we find evidence which convinces us that there was a period when the substance of that universe did not exist--when there was nothing? Why, the very form of words conveys an absurd and contradictory meaning. It is impossible for man, in his boldest flights of imagination or doubting, to annihilate existence; he may, in his fancy, vary its modes, but he cannot, even in his wildest