"Those rocks which stand forth in the order of their formation," says Dr. Chalmers, "and are each imprinted with their own peculiar fossil remains, have been termed the archives of nature, where she hath recorded the changes that have taken place in the history of the globe. They are made to serve the purpose of scrolls or inscriptions, on which we might read of those great steps and successions by which the earth has been brought into its present state; and should these archives of nature be but truly deciphered, we are not afraid of their being openly confronted with the archives of revelation. It is unmanly to blink the approach of light, from whatever quarter of observation it may fall upon us; and those are not the best friends of Christianity, who feel either dislike or alarm when the torch of science, or the torch of history, is held up to the Bible. For ourselves, we are not afraid when the eye of an intrepid, if it be only a sound philosophy, scrutinizes, however jealously, all its pages. We have no dread of any apprehended conflict between the doctrines of Scripture and the discoveries of science, persuaded, as we are, that whatever story the geologists of our day shall find engraven on the volume of nature, it will only accredit that story which is graven on the volume of revelation."--_Chalmers's Works_, vol. ii. p. 227. "For our own part," says Rev. Henry Melville, "we have no fears that any discoveries of science will really militate against the disclosures of Scripture. We remember how, in darker days, ecclesiastics set themselves against philosophers who were investigating the motions of the heavenly bodies, apprehensive that the new theories were at variance with the Bible, and therefore resolved to denounce them as heresies, and stop their spread by persecution. But truth triumphed; bigotry and ignorance could not long prevail to the hiding from the world the harmonious walkings of stars and planets; and ever since, the philosophy which laid open the wonders of the universe hath proved herself the handmaid of revelation, which divulged secrets far beyond her gaze. And thus, we are persuaded, shall it always be; science may scale new heights and explore new depths, but she shall bring back nothing from her daring and successful excursions which will not, when rightly understood, yield a fresh tribute of testimony to the Bible. Infidelity may watch her progress with eagerness, exulting in the thought that she is furnishing facts with which the Christian system may be strongly assailed; but the champions of revelation may confidently attend her in every march, assured that she will find nothing which contradicts, if it do not actually confirm, the word which they know to be divine."--_Sermons, 2d Am. edit._ vol. ii. p. 298.