I. There is one important deduction to be established from these investigations which meets us at the threshold of the inquiry, namely, that geology clearly and distinctly shows there is a BEGINNING to the course of creation as respects the crust of the earth and its organic forms of life. The stratified rocks all manifest succession in their order of deposition, and, therefore, also succession in time. Some are prior to and older in formation than others; and all of every class and quality, demonstrate principles of arrangement in conformity with law and design. We never, for example, get back to a period, however deep we go into the interior, in which we find the matter of the earth assuming, as it were, different modes of existence, or arranging itself according to affinities of which we have no experience. Over every material substance, the rocks of the oldest as of the newest formation, the same physical forces are seen to be operative. The granites, with all the molten amorphous masses of every age, are composed of ingredients brought together and aggregated in proportional quantities, and according to definite principles of attraction. But throughout the whole series and succession of deposits, we never come to a point at which matter has been formless, or free from the operation of law, endlessly quiescent, or when no controlling designing hand was rendering it plastic and obedient to its will.—As with the arrangements of matter, therefore, so likewise with its origin. We revert in both cases to a necessarily prior cause. And geology, vast and inconceivably great as may be its cycles, proclaims over all its past antecedents and depths of accumulation, that TIME, not eternity, is indelibly recorded. This truth is rendered still more apparent and intelligible, when we consider the various families of plants and animals of which the earth has been the theater. These organic structures at once speak to the mind of creative interference. No principle that we know of inherent in nature could, of itself, originate these forms. The first thing of life indicates an intelligent Creator. But epoch after epoch passes away, and along with them their living tribes generally perish. Succeeding races, of different characters and habits, are called into existence. The earth is again peopled—again to be swept of all its garniture—the land and ocean to change places—creatures of another mold, suited to both, again to be brought into existence. These phenomena all speak, not only of a beginning, of successive periods of time, but also of direct superintendence over the course of events from age to age.