It was taught for ages that the sun moved around the earth; that there had been but one creation of organized beings; that our earth was created but six thousand years ago, and that the stars were made to shed light upon it; that the earth was a plane, with sides and ends; that all the animals on earth were derived from Noah's ark, &c. But what a different revelation does science give us? We now know that the earth revolves around the sun, that the earth is a globe which turns on its own axis, that there has been a succession of destructions and creations of living beings, that the earth has existed countless ages, and that there are stars so distant as to require millions of years for their light to reach us; that instead of one, there are many centres of creation for existing animals and plants, &c. If so many false readings of the Bible have been admitted among theologians, who has authority or wisdom to say to science--"thus far shalt thou go, and no further?" The doctrine of _unity_ for the human family may be another great error, and certainly a denial of its truth does no more, nay, less violence to the language of the Bible, than do the examples above cited. It is a popular error, and one difficult to eradicate, that all the species of animals now dwelling on the earth are descendants of pairs and septuples preserved in Noah's ark, and certainly the language of Genesis on this point is too plain to admit of any quibble; it does teach that every living being perished by the flood, except those alone which were saved in the ark. Yet no living naturalist, in or out of the church, believes this statement to be correct. The centres of creation are so numerous, and the number of animals so great that it is impossible it should be so. On the other hand, the first chapter of Genesis gives an account entirely in accordance with the teachings of science. "And God said, let the earth bring forth _grass_, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit, after his kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth; and it was so." _Gen._ i. 11. "And God said, let the waters bring forth _abundantly_, the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven." v. 20. "And God created great _whales_, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth _abundantly_," &c. v. 21. "And God said, let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind, and it was so." v. 24. "God created _man_ in his own image; _male_ and _female_ created he _them_."