It is, indeed, an instructive fact, that a science which has been thought so full of danger to Christianity should thus early be found vindicating some of the most peculiar and long-contested doctrines of revelation. And yet it ought not to surprise us, for geology is as really the work of God as revelation. And though, when ill understood and perverted, she may have seemed recreant to her celestial origin, yet the more fully her proportions are developed, and her features brought into daylight, the more clearly do we recognize her alliance to every thing pure and noble in the universe. "And surely," says a late writer, "it must be gratifying thus to see a science, formerly classed, and not perhaps unjustly, amongst the most pernicious to faith, once more become her handmaid; to see her now, after so many years of wandering from theory to theory, or rather from vision to vision, return once more to the home where she was born, and to the altar at which she made her first simple offerings; no longer, as she first went forth, a wilful, dreamy, empty-handed child, but with a matronly dignity, and a priest-like step, and a bosom full of well-earned gifts, to pile upon its sacred hearth. For it was religion which gave geology birth, and to the sanctuary she hath once more returned."--_Wiseman's Lectures on Science and Revealed Religion_, p. 192, Am. ed. LECTURE XI. THE FUTURE CONDITION AND DESTINY OF THE EARTH. Man has a stronger desire to penetrate the future than the past. And yet the details of most future events are wisely concealed from him. There are two, and only two, sources of evidence from which he can obtain some glimpses of what will be hereafter. The one is revelation, the other analogy. So far as God has thought proper to reveal the future, our information is precise and certain. But it does not embrace a multitude of events about which we have strong curiosity. By analogy is meant a prediction of the future from the past. On the principle that nature is constant, we infer what will be from what has been. If, however, new laws are hereafter to come into operation, or if present agencies will then operate very differently from what they now do, it is obvious that analogy can be only an imperfect guide. Still, in respect to many important events, its conclusions are infallible. Judging, for instance, from the past, we are absolutely certain that no living thing will escape the great law of dissolution, which, thus far, apart from the few exceptions made known to us by revelation, has been universal. The future changes in the condition of the earth, as they are taught us by revelation and analogy, or, rather, by geology, will form the subject of my present lecture. And my first object will be, to ascertain, if possible, precisely what the Bible teaches us concerning these changes.