bless ye the Lord; praise him and magnify Him for ever." On that one hymn I take my stand. That is my charter as a student of Natural Science. As long as that is sung in an English Church, I have a right to investigate Nature boldly without stint or stay, and to call on all who have the will, to investigate her boldly likewise, and with Socrates of old, to folow the Logos whithersoever it leads.

The Logos. I must pause on that word. It meant at first, no doubt, simply speech, argument, reason. In the mind of Socrates, it had a deeper meaning, at which he only dimly guessed; which was seen more clearly by Philo and the Alexandrian Jews; which was revealed in all its fulness to the beloved Apostle St. John, till he gathered speech to tell men of a Logos, a Word, who was in the beginning with God, and was God; by whom all things were made, and without Him was not anything made that was made; and how

in Him was life, and the life was the light of

men; and that He was none other than Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yes, that is the truth.

And to that truth no man can add, and from it no man can take away. And as long as we believe that—as long as we believe that in His light alone can we see light-as long as we believe that the life around us, whether physical or spiritual, is given by Him without whom nothing is made-so long we shall not fear to meet Light, so long we shall not fear to investigate Life; for we shall know, however strange or novel, beautiful or awful, the discoveries we may make may be, we are only following the Word whithersoever He may lead us; and that He can never lead us amiss.

I

THE SOIL OF THE FIELD.

My dear readers, let me, before touching

MY

on the special subject of this paper, say

a few words on that of the whole series.

It is geology: that is, the science which explains to us the rind of the earth; of what it is made; how it has been made. It tells us nothing of the mass of the earth. That is, properly speaking, an astronomical question. If I may be allowed to liken this earth to a fruit, then astronomy will tell us when it knows-how the fruit grew, and what is inside the fruit. Geology can only tell us at most how its rind, its outer covering, grew, and of what it is composed; a very small part,

doubtless, of all that is to be known about this

planet.

But, as it happens, the mere rind of this earth-fruit, which has, countless ages since, dropped, as it were, from the Bosom of God, the Eternal Fount of Life-the mere rind of this earth-fruit, I say, is so beautiful and so complex, that it is well worth our awful and reverent study. It has been well said, indeed, that the history of it, which we call geology, would be a magnificent epic poem, were there only any human interest in it; did it deal with creatures more like ourselves than stones, and bones, and the dead relics of plants and beasts. Whether there be no human interest in geology; whether man did not exist on the earth during ages which have seen enormous geological changes, is becoming more and more an open question.

But meanwhile all must agree that there is matter enough for interest-nay, room enough for the free use of the imagination, in a science which tells of the growth and decay of whole mountain-ranges, continents, oceans, whole tribes and worlds of plants and animals.

And yet it is not so much for the vastness and grandeur of those scenes of the distant past, to which the science of geology introduces us, that I value it as a study, and wish earnestly to awaken you to its beauty and importance. It is because it is the science from which you will learn most easily a sound scientific habit of thought. I say most easily; and for these reasons. The most important facts of geology do not require, to discover them, any knowledge of mathematics or of chemical analysis; they may be studied in every bank, every grot, every quarry, every