"Thou hast established the earth, and it endureth, According to thy decrees they continue this day, For all are thy servants." --Psalm cxix., 90. "Who shaketh the earth out of its place, And its pillars tremble." --Job ix., 6. "Where wast thou when I founded the earth? Declare, if thou hast knowledge. Who hath fixed the proportion thereof, if thou knowest? Who stretched the line upon it? Upon what are its foundations settled? Or who laid its corner-stone, When the morning stars sang together, And all the sons of God shouted for joy? Who shut up the sea with doors In its bursting forth as from the womb? When I made the cloud its garment, And swathed it in thick darkness, I measured out for it my limit, And fixed its bars and doors; And said, Thus far shalt thou come, but no farther, And here shall thy proud waves be stayed." --Job xxxviii., 4. In these passages the foundation of the earth at first, as well as the shaking of its pillars by the earthquake, are connected with what we usually call natural law--the decree of the Almighty--the unchanging arrangements of an unchangeable Creator, whose "hands formed the dry land."[79] This is the ultimate cause not only of the elevation of the land, but of all other natural things and processes. The naturalist does not require to be informed that the details, in so far as they are referred to in the above passages, are perfectly in accordance with what we know of the nature and support of continental masses. Geological observation and mathematical calculation have in our day combined their powers to give clear views of the manner in which the fractured strata of the earth are wedged and arched together, and supported by internal igneous masses upheaved from beneath, and subsequently cooled and hardened. A general view of these facts which we have learned from scientific inquiry, the Hebrews gleaned with nearly as much precision from the short account of the elevation of the land in Genesis, and from the later comments of their inspired poets. From the same source our own great poet, Milton, learned these cosmical facts, before the rise of geology, and expressed them in unexceptionable terms: "The mountains huge appear Emergent, and their broad bare backs upheave Into the clouds, their tops ascend the sky. So high as heaved the tumid hills, so low Down sunk a hollow bottom, broad and deep, Capacious bed of waters." In further illustration of the opinions of the Scripture writers respecting the nature of the earth, and the disturbances to which it is liable, I quote the following passages. The first is from the magnificent description of Jehovah descending to succor his people amid the terrors of the earthquake, the volcano, and the thunder-storm, in Psalm xviii.: