carboniferous, the oolitic, and chalk formations present respectively an entire change of genera. Agassiz, who enumerates seventeen hundred species of fossil fishes, and about eight thousand living species, states, that with the solitary exception of a species found in the nodules of claystone, on the coast of Greenland, and which is probably a modern concretion, he has found no animal in all the transition, secondary, and tertiary strata, which is specifically identical with any fish now living." Indeed, not a single species of fossil fishes has yet been found that is common to any two great geological formations." * Let the mind dwell on these overwhelming facts. Let it attempt to conceive of the intelligence which could plan and originate those infinite diversities of form and structure, from the gigantic Dinotherium, or the crocodilean Megalosaurus to the fossil infusoria, forty one thousand millions of which are contained in a single cubic inch,—and then say whether that intelligence, and the power which has given effect to it, can be less than infinite. Had the extinct species and types been followed by no successors, or had the productions of the later economies been inferior in number and perfection to those which preceded them, the absolute infinity of the productive energy might have been at least doubtful. But the extinction of successive worlds of organized existence, the consignment to their sepulchres of at least six distinct creations, with their vast varieties of species, becomes in reality a demonstration, not of the impotence of the Creator, but of his unwearied and omnipotent energy; not of exhausted resources, but of infinite affluence. System after system is dismissed, having answered its end, to give place in succession to nobler ones, exhibiting higher forms of life, blooming with a more finished beauty, and the stage of a more complex and dignified action. As, in earlier geological eras, the plants were flowerless, whilst the flowering kinds are those which now predominate, so the grand system of terrestial creation has flowered into the richly coloured scene of human existence, of intelligent, moral, and accountable action. The doctrine of the Divine all-sufficiency, which these facts establish, is to the individual believer in the highest degree encouraging. What great and precious promise is there which such a God cannot fulfil? What blessing, however rich, which he is not able to bestow? His all-sufficiency will surely be not less willingly exerted in relation to those who are in the most special sense his children,-in the guardianship and development of his image, than in relation to physical elements and ends. His people have access to "all the fulness of God" in a peculiar and exclusive sense. "My God shall supply all your need out of his riches in glory, by Christ Jesus." "My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness." "These all wait upon thee, and thou givest them their meat in due season," was a subject of adoring admiration to the psalmist David. The same bounteous hand has fed the world of creatures dependent upon it, to the present moment. Experience, therefore, would warrant the expectation of an unfailing sustenance for the world's vast populations for the future. But the disclosures of geology beautifully show in how complete a manner the provision is made, not only for neverfailing supplies of food, but to meet all the material wants, and to *Pre-adamite earth, p. 331. man. develop the intellectual and social, as well as the physical nature of The discovery of the gold of Australia is the signal for the birth of a nation, and influences the condition of the civilized world; and yet, for six thousand years of the world's history, this splendid store of treasure was undiscovered. It was locked up by the hand of Providence until it was needed. Nor need we doubt that whatever may be the number of generations yet to come, the wealth of the globe will be found abundantly adequate to their rich supply, even in the highest stage of civilization at which they may arrive. The resources of the earth appear, indeed, to multiply with the advance of man's knowledge and cultivation, showing that the all-sufficiency of God has anticipated the requirements of the most advanced stage of human intelligence. And in view of that moral history of the world which is evolving, embracing principles, interests, and objects of infinite importance,amidst the conflicting elements, the contending passions, and the often gloomy and threatening aspect of affairs,-what a satisfaction, what a repose for the mind whose sympathies are with the true, the right, and the good, to know that above the clouds which his eye cannot pierce, above the strife, the issue of which to him seems quivering in doubtful balance, there is an all-seeing eye, and an almighty arm, a power which calmly permits men to act out their moral character, and yet sublimely controls and overrules the whole to bright and beneficent results. "The Lord reigneth, let the earth rejoice, and let the multitudes of the isles be glad thereof." Our divine Achilles is not standing sullenly aloof while the great conflict is going on. He is with his sacramental host," inspiring courage, kindling hope, infusing strength, and giving many assuring pledges of the glorious final victory. He who, notwithstanding the tremendous violence of the physical elements, used them effectively for his own purposes, is equally able to sway moral agents, however mighty. And as the avalanche, the earthquake, or the volcanic eruption is but an incidental evil, whilst the earth, as a habitation for teeming millions, is the contemplated and realized result; so from the seeming confusion, and the raging conflict of principles, passions, and powers in the moral world, there shall issue a state of humanity, in which all that is true, righteous, and pure, shall be triumphant. "New heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." 66 In the state after death the capacities and powers of the righteous will be greatly expanded and intensified. This world is a place of beginnings, of infantine feebleness, of needful limitation. Enlargement and maturity, "that which is perfect," has "to come." How fearful, if, for those wider capabilities, there should be no adequate supply for those loftier powers, no congenial employment! But, from the amazing riches of provision which geology shows to have been made for this preparatory stage of existence, we may infer the glorious riches hereafter to be disclosed, to meet the higher intelligence and spiritual capacity of the redeemed in heaven. The Saviour warns us to count the cost of a religious profession, that we resemble not the man who began to build, and was not able to finish. Now can we suppose this want of calculation or of means on the part of the divine architect? Has he lavished all his resources on the foundation? Is not rather the magnificence of the foundation a hint and pledge of the glory of the superstructure, the splendour of its pillars, and the celestial beauty of the capitals with which they shall be crowned? What the New Jerusalem, which John saw, is to an earthly city, the glory of the saved hereafter, shall be, as compared with their present state? "In thy presence is fulness of joy: at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore." And though to fulfil this assurance, a thousand or a million of new creations, each more resplendent and lovely than the last, should be required, they would doubtless be bidden into existence, and still leave the resources of Deity unexhausted and unimpaired. Oldbury. G. GRUNDY. MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES, ANECDOTES, &c. THE RUINS OF AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. WHILE Layard, Botta, De Saulcy, and other enterprising men, are exhuming the monuments of departed greatness in the Oriental world-of greatness that distinguished nations in the infancy of human historythe process of discovery is unfolding to us most interesting memorials of the genius and character of extinct nations in the Western World. What yet remains to be hereafter registered among the pages of discovery, to illustrate the character of man as he figured in the remote ages of antiquity, in both East and West, it is difficult to divine. But we believe that we have as yet only entered into this interesting field of investigation. Hereafter, wonders will burst upon our sight which will more fully illustrate and confirm the records of the sacred page, and leave infidelity to blush at its own monstrosity. We furnish this month for our readers a few extracts from an excellent work by T. A. Buckley. "Nowhere does the repetition of legend, and the existence of one fountain of superstition strike us so strangely, as when, having divested ourselves of all expectation of discovering any similarity between the religious feelings of the ancient inhabitants of the Old and the New World, we suddenly find ourselves overwhelmed by the resemblance of the traditions of the ancient tribes of the New Continent, concerning the Creation, to the Mosaic accounts of the Kosmical Genesis. "The etymologist has a new and unploughed field of primeval language opened up to him, and is staggered at the wonderful coincidences of language which crowd into his view. The symbolist here, too, has an addition made to his mysterious, and therefore doubly interesting, store in the picture-writing of the Mexicans, and in the strange mounds of the Mississippi shaped into the outline of the inhabitants of the woods. "The architect, likewise, cannot fail to look with deep attention and interest on the palaces of Yucatan, and see how, in the earliest ages, the mysteriously working mind of man had conceived such forms of symmetry, and reared these stately piles without the assistance of iron tools or of domestic draught-animals. 66 These works, indeed, remind us of the age when an irrevocable decree went forth, and when thousands of men, groaning under the lash till they felt its continually repeated strokes no longer, used their brute force to drag the unwieldy masses from the quarry to the building, to carry out, as if by magic, the conception of the one man in whose brain the plan had first drawn breath, where it had grown up, and whence, when matured, it sprang, Athênêlike, full armed and adorned, from the head where it had been first imagined. "Of no inferior interest to the palaces of Yucatan, are the brickbuilt pyramids of the same region, where the barbarous rites of the Aztecs, in strange contrast to the more agricultural rites of their predecessors the Toltecs, were celebrated even to the day when barbarous Spaniards entered the land, and caused the further brutalization of the forciblydisplaced race; who saw, in sorrow and in misery, that there was no help to be expected, that no kind hand would stay the desecration of their homes and temples; and, wrought up by their sorrows to a pitch of frantic revenge, sold their kingdom dearly to the Spanish Christians, to whom by Papal decrees the new found land belonged. Indeed, under the strait in which they found themselves, I wonder only at their patience and moderation. The end of the Mexican Empire resembles that of a stricken boar in the thickets of Germany, whose dying spring is fearful and often fatal. Indeed, the picturehistorians of the period seem but too anxious to forget the whole misery of the reign of Mocteçcuma II., and mark it merely as an unlucky year.* Their grief was too great to be shewn even in the records of the times to be handed down to their children. How fearfully did the armies of Cortez humanize the Mexicans, at the price of honour, religion, home, and independence. "The plan proposed in the following sketch is to give an account of some of these ancient buildings, and of their probable era. And first of the pyramid temples of Yucatan and Mexico, which I shall introduce to the reader by an extract from a late inquiring historiant: - teo 6 The Mexican temples callis, 'houses of God,' as they were called-were very numerous. There were several hundreds in each of the principal cities, many of them, doubt Mendoza Chronicle, Part I. Plate xiv. in Antiquities of Mexico, vol. i. Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, i. p. 72, less, very humble edifices. They were solid masses of earth, cased with brick or stone, and in their form somewhat resembled the pyramidal structures of ancient Egypt. The bases of many of them were more than a hundred feet square, and they towered to a still greater height. They were distributed into four or five stories, each of smaller dimensions than that below. The ascent was by a flight of steps at an angle of the pyramid on the outside. This led to a sort of terrace, or gallery, at the base of the second storey, which passed quite round the building to another flight of stairs, commencing also at the same angle as the preceding and directly over it, and leading to a similar terrace; so that one had to make the circuit of the temple several times before reaching the summit. In some instances the stairway led directly up the centre of the western face of the building. The top was a broad area, on which were erected one or two towers, forty or fifty feet high, the sanctuaries in which were placed the sacred images of the presiding deities. Before these towers stood the dreadful stone of sacrifice, and two lofty altars, on which fires were kept, as inextinguishable as those in the temple of Vesta. There were said to be six hundred of these altars, in smaller buildings within the enclosure of the great temple of Mexico, which, with those on the sacred edifices in other parts of the city, shed a brilliant illumination over its streets, through the darkest nights. "From the construction of their temples, all religious services were public. The long processions of priests winding round their massive sides as they rose higher and higher towards the summit, and the dismal rites of sacrifices performed there, were all visible from the remotest corners of the capital, impressing on the spectator's mind a superstitious veneration for the mysteries of his religion, and for the dread ministers by whom they were interpreted. "This impression was kept in full force by their numerous festivals. Every month was consecrated to some protecting deity; and every week, nay, almost every day, was set down in their calendar for some appropriate celebration; so that it is difficult to understand how the ordinary business of life could have been compatible with the exactions of religion. Many of their ceremonies were of a light and cheerful complexion, consisting of the national songs and dances, in which both sexes joined. Processions were made of women and children crowned with garlands and bearing offerings of fruit, the ripened maize, or the sweet incense of copal, and other odoriferous gums, while the altars of the deity were stained with no blood save that of animals. These were the peaceful rites derived from their Toltec predecessors,* on which the fierce Aztecs engrafted a superstition too loathsome to be exhibited in all its nakedness, and one over which I would gladly draw a veil altogether, but that it would leave the reader in ignorance of their most striking institution, and one that had the greatest influence in forming the national character. *Mr. Prescott's reference to the Toltec race gives me an opportunity of saying that there can be no doubt that the Mexican polity and social system were derived through Polynesia, from the peninsula of Malacca. The accounts of Toltec civilization are identical with those of the customs of the present Polynesians, and Pickering has clearly proved that the so-called aboriginals of Oregon, New Mexico, and Anahuac are of the Malay race.-See his Races of Man, pp. 112-114. To Dr. Lang (View of the Origin and Migrations of the Polynesian Nation; demonstrating their Ancient Discovery and Progressive Settlement of the Continent of America, London, 1834) we owe the first promulgation of this theory (which I may have occasion hereafter to examine), and I am sure, from further grounds, of which the Principal of Sydney College was unaware, that the colonization of America took place from the Pacific Ocean. I cannot speak in too high terms of Dr. Lang's work; which, unlike that of the would-be discoverer of a Tyrian origin for the Americans, is temperate, logical, and not so much drawn from the "volume of the brain," as from a careful and sensible collation of facts and customs; whereas, of Mr. Jones's assertions we can only say, that they are unproven, and brought forward, like too many of the reveries of the German scholars, who set up a theory, gathering reasons for it afterwards. "Human sacrifices were adopted by the Aztecs early in the fourteenth century, about two hundred years before the conquest. Rare at first, they became more frequent with the wider extent of their empire; till, at length, almost every festival was closed with this cruel abomination. These religious ceremonials were generally arranged in such a manner as to afford a type of the most prominent circumstances in the character or history of the deity who was the object of them. A single example will suffice. "One of their most important festivals was that in honour of the god Tezcatlipoca, whose rank was inferior only to that of the Supreme Being. He was called 'the soul of the world,' and supposed to have been its creator. He was depicted as a handsome man, endowed with perpetual youth. A year before the intended sacrifice, a captive distinguished for his personal beauty, and without a blemish on his body, was selected to represent this deity. Certain tutors took charge of him, and instructed him how to perform his new part with becoming and dignity. He was arrayed grace in a splendid dress, regaled with incense and with a profusion of sweetscented flowers, of which the ancient Mexicans were as fond as their descendants at the present day. When he went abroad he was attended by a train of the royal pages, and, as he halted in the streets to play some favourite melody, the crowd prostrated themselves before him, and did him homage as the representative of their good deity. this way he led an easy luxurious life, till within a month of his sacrifice. At length the fatal day of sacrifice arrived. The term of his short-lived glories was at an end. He was stripped of his gaudy apparel, and bade adieu to the fair partners of his revelries. One of the royal barges transported him across the lake to a temple, which rose on its margin about a league from the city. Hither the inhabitants of the capital flocked to witness the consummation of the ceremony. As the sad procession wound up the sides of the pyramid, the unhappy victim threw away his In |