"NATURE will be reported: all things are engaged in writing its history. The planet, the pebble, goes attended by its shadow. The rolling rock leaves its scratches on the mountain, the river its channel in the soil, the animal its bones in the stratum, the fern and leaf their modest epitaph in the coal. The fallen drop makes its sculpture in the sand or stone; not a footstep in the snow, or along the ground, but prints in characters, more or less lasting, a map of its march; every act of man inscribes itself in the memories of his fellows, and in his own face. The air is full of sounds, the sky of tokens, the ground of memoranda and signatures; and every object is covered over with hints which speak to the intelligent."-HUGH MILLER.

TOME of my readers will recognize in the title as well as the matter of this little book, a lecture which I have given in various parts of London and the country during past years. Like its predecessor, "The Five-Barred Gate," it was written at the suggestion of a dear friend, that the story might be preserved when it became necessary that the lectures should be given up; and, with the desire to do the greatest amount of good in the shortest of space, I have endeavoured to make the book attractive for the general reader, amusing and instructive for the young, and useful and suggestive for the Lecture Committee of the Sunday School Union, to whom, in token of my admiration of the excellent manner in which they manage the important work they have undertaken, I have presented the re-written manuscripts of my lectures, and, when complete, the diagrams with which they have been illustrated. And should these volumes only prove to be as acceptable and as useful as I have good reason to know the former have proved to be during upwards of a quarter of a century, I shall have a twofold reason for thankfulness, that the delight I have so long experienced in testifying to the wonderful works of God has been used to His glory and the good of my fellow-men.

Interspersed with numerous anecdotes disconnected immediately with the subject, and sometimes suffering from repetition, this story of comparisons aims chiefly at illustrating, confirming, repeating, and establishing in the

reader's mind, some virtuous principle, never forgetting life's chief lesson, the preparation for a future state; and if sometimes the pen is dipped in bitter ink in reference to materialism-the fashionable speculation, alas! of too many scientific men of the day-it is from conviction that this pernicious doctrine is in direct opposition to the Word of God, insinuating its deadly venom into the minds of teachers otherwise trustworthy, under the primeval form of "Yea! hath God said?"

Since the book was written the great leader of the revived theory of the origin of species has gone to his account; but his disciples remain, some of whom have out-Darwin'd Darwin: the doctrine of one as to the origin of matter, both in the world we live on as well as the house we live in, body and soul, is, to my mind, such rank atheism, that I consider it a matter of duty to warn_my readers to what it may, and must, ultimately lead. "Darwinism," writes one, in a first-rate serial, "leaves no room for what is dearest to the Christian's heart. Natural selection denies the fall, leaves no room for Providence, prayer, or redemption; and were it true, the Bible would no longer be a God-given revelation. But Darwinism not only robs us of revelation, but removes the very foundation from under the whole structure of natural religion: Darwinism, in deriving man from the brute rather than a fallen spirit, at one blow robs morality of its sanction" (Scribner's Magazine).

No one will accuse the French newspapers of being overreligious, whatever may be said of my anti-Darwinism; but one of them, the Patrie, referring to his recent decease, concluded its article in these words:

"While rendering justice to the enormous knowledge of the illustrious naturalist, and to his prodigious power of work, it is impossible to acquit him of an abuse of his theories by rearing upon them the desolating system of natural philosophy, at which his disciples, under the authority of his great name, are still at work, with the view of dethroning religion and setting it up in its place." These words exactly re-echo my views, and I recommend them to my readers.

July, 1882.

J. C.