would have acknowledged him- by the establishment of a Protesself defeated in the controversy, tant Church. In 1562, he chaland the irritation of their friends lenged Mr. Knox to debate with might have become ungovernable. him in the village of Maybole. An article in the abbot's letter The debate lasted three days, and requires to be noticed. He says, Mr. Knox wrote and published an "In my opinion this country may account of it. be easily helped, which to write But he met with repeated morto your lordship would be over tifications. In May, 1561, a part prolix, and therefore I refer it to of his abbey was thrown down, in our meeting. Nevertheless, there consequence of an order from the are some things which should be privy council. His rents were presently done, and that in a very ill paid, and in some instances tosecret manner, as your lordship tally withdrawn. Con, the Jesuit, shall perceive on the other side says that be was imprisoned: but of the leaf." It may be observed, archbishop Spottiswood says, that that the secret counsel which the" because of his age and quality, abbot wrote " on the other side he being of the house of Cassilis, of the leaf," was not transcribed, it was thought fit that he should or does not appear in the copy of be overseen. He died August the manuscript, as it is given by 22, 1564. Bishop Keith.

Væ mihi quod Papæ dederam nomenque,

fidemque;

Væ mihi quod Christi strenuus Hostis

eram.

Væ vobis Papistæ omnes, nisi tempore

vitæ

One of the poems of Mr. PaThe abbot retired to Maybole, trick Adamson, who was afterwhere, April 7th, he wrote a ward a Protestant archbishop of copy of what he called his " Col-St. Andrews, contains a kind of loquim with John Willock :" and epitaph, which he wrote on ocit, along with a letter, to the casion of the death of Abbot KenQueen Regent; also another co-nedy, and is as follows: py, which he sent, with a letter, sent to the archbishop of Glasgow. This archbishop, viz. James Beaton, a son of James Beaton of Balfarg, in the county of Fife, carried with him to France, immediately after the Reformation, all the charters and writs which belonged to the see of Glasgow, That is, "Wo is to me, beamong which was Quintin Kenne- cause I give name and faith to the dy's manuscript. At his death, Pope; wo is to me, because I which happened in that country, was a strenuous enemy of Christ. April 24, 1603, when he was in Wo will be to all ye Papists, unthe sixty-eighth year of his age, all less in the time of your life you his papers were deposited, partly fly from the Pope, and embrace in the Scots College at Paris, and Christ." partly in the Carthusian monastery of that city.

Vos, Christum amplexi, Pontificem fugitis.

Mr. Adamson, however, must be thought to have assumed too Abbot Kennedy remained in much, when he represented some Scotland, where his vehement of the above words as proceeding zeal in behalf of Popery, was from the mouth of the departed rather increased than diminished abbot. It appears from those

340

parts of the writings, which have that" if any man shall take away been extracted by Bishop Keith from the words of that book, God and Dr. Mackenzie, that he was a shall take away his part out of sincere believer on the sacrifice the book of life," we shall enof Christ; and in these extracts deavour to show, according to nothing is said by him conducive pure philosophical principles, in to the doctrine of human merit. what manner this extraordinary He was an eloquent and sharp re-change may have been, and proprover of the negligence, and bably has been, effected. other faults of some of his clerical brethren; and also of the vices of some of the noblemen and gentlemen who were living in his time.

The reader will be pleased to consider, that the earth was originally formed in such a manner as to afford a comfortable residence for an innocent race of Such was Adam, in the

The Popish party, both at men. home and abroad, held him in very beginning. Such a race of men high esteem; and Douglas, in his were not to be afflicted by any book of the Peerage of Scotland,] disease. For sickness is the reinforms us, that "Quintin Kenne- ward of sin. Nor were they to dy, abbot of Crossraguel, a man be vexed by changes of temperaof singular piety, and of great ture, such as we now endure, austerity of manners, was, after being frozen and melted in turns. his death, canonized for a saint." Neither do we presume that they

It may be sufficient to add con could have been exposed to temcerning him, that in point of ar- pests and to occasional destrucgument, he appears to have been tive falls of rain, or to the danthe most acute; and with regard ger of famine from the want of to morals, perhaps one of the rain. It follows, that the posimost unexceptionable of all the tion of the globe and the form of literary men who opposed them-its surface must have been maselves by their writings to the terially different from what they Reformers in Scotland.

[To be continued.]

are at present. The pole of the equator may have coincided, or nearly coincided, with the pole of the ecliptic. In such case there would have been a uniform

THE WORLD BEFORE THE FLOOD. degree of temperature through the year in every degree of latiTHERE are not many facts re-tude. It is also to be presumed corded in history that the mind that the surface of the globe embraces with more difficulty was nearly level; that is to say, than the Mosaic account of the there were not any high moungreat age of the antediluvians, tains, by which clouds might have when compared with the present been collected, and storms prolife of man. Nine hundred years, moted. Nor was there any rain, when compared with seventy or the never-failing cause of stageighty, forms a prodigious con- nant ponds and much deadly sickA constant and regular trast. But the history is not to ness. be questioned. And, believing vegetation was supported by the as we do with the apostle John, dew of heaven. We shall con

sider those several allegations apart.

large plains the strata are usually parallel to the horizon. In hills and mountains they are uniformly inclined to the plane of the horizon.

That the surface of the globe has sustained great changes, is a fact that cannot be disputed. For we frequently find, on the tops of Whatever the case may have high mountains, shells and other been with respect to hills and marine exuviæ, that formerly must mountains, we conceive that the have been covered by the sea. absence of rain was necessary to The earth, in its original state, as the health and longevity of the we have reason to believe, did antediluvians. We know, by fanot contain any high mountains. tal experience, that marshes and Its surface was nearly level. stagnant ponds are the effects of True it is, that we are told by rain. And in all climates the Moses, that the ark rested upon most numerous and deadly disthe mountains of Ararat, which eases are the effects of stagnant are mountains of considerable waters. height. But we are not told that Whether the original surface of any such mountains existed before the globe did materially differ the flood. Moses wrote that his- from its present form, and by tory about eight hundred and what means that difference was ninety years after the flood, and effected, we are now to consider. he called places not by their ori- That there was an essential difginal names, but by the names ference, we take for granted, bethey had at the time in which he cause in such a globe as we inwrote. Thus, when he speaks of habit, with such diversities as the war that four kings waged present themselves every where, against five, in the days of Abra- men with the most vigorous conham, he tells us that those four stitution could not have lived kings "smote all the country of without pain and sickness. Upon the Amalekites;" meaning all the the supposition, that a material country that was so called at the difference has been effected in time in which he wrote. It must the earth's surface, we presume have had some other name in the that such difference was effected days of Abraham; for Amalek, at the time of the flood of Noah. whose name the country bore, Some writers have found much was not born at the period to trouble, in attempting to account which he refers. He was the for the manner in which the great-grandson of Esau, who was earth was covered by water. descended from Abraham. They could not find water enough All the present appearances of to answer that purpose. They the earth, where there are hills seem to have forgotten that the or mountains, seem to argue that whole transaction was miraculous. there was a time in which the It could not have rained forty whole surface of the globe was days and forty nights, nor four nearly level. All the strata that days and four nights, over the have been found, in different parts whole face of the earth, unless of the earth, seem to have be- the water had been created in longed, in their original state, to the heavens. We are told by a globe with a level surface. In Moses, that "all the fountains of

the great deep were broken up, formed by the unusual position of and the windows of heaven were broken fragments of the original opened." By fountains of the surface. We have taken for great deep he could not have in- granted that, before the flood, timated that fountains of water there were not any storms or broke out from the depth of the sudden changes of weather. It ocean, where water abounded. follows, as a certain consequence, He seems to have meant that that there could not have been great and deep fissures were what we now call mountains. made in sundry parts of the globe, The earth indeed was not perfrom which torrents of water is- fectly level. There were emisued. In this manner the surface nences and springs of water; and of the earth was broken into we are assured that there were small pieces. The torrents of rivers. Those rivers discharged water may have brought with themselves into an ocean. But them vast bodies of sand, by which the whole descent of a long river extensive deserts in Africa and does not require any great ineother parts of the world are quality in the surface. The river formed. "And the rain was upon Ganges runs above 1300 miles the earth forty days and forty after it leaves the mountains, but nights, and the waters prevailed the whole descent of that river, exceedingly upon the earth, and at four inches to a mile, is little all the high hills that were under more than 140 yards. the whole heavens were covered. We form a very improper idea Fifteen cubits upward did the of the original face of this globe, waters prevail, and the mountains if we suppose that rivers and were covered." After the hills oceans upon its surface were like were covered by water, the ad- to those which we see at present. dition of fifteen cubits seems to Two-thirds of the present globe have covered the mountains. is covered by water, and half of Such, at least, is the most obvious the remaining third is a sandy meaning of the words. In which desert, or mountains, not capable case the mountains could not of cultivation; and a considerahave been very high. And all ble part of the remaining sixth is flesh died that moved upon the a sterile soil. According to our earth. But he tells us afterward, hypothesis, the earth, in its orithat the waters prevailed upon the ginal form, must have furnished earth one hundred and fifty days. more than six times the quantity At the end of which days" the of food for man that it is capable fountains also of the deep and of yielding at present. There the windows of heaven were was, as we presume, at least stopped." On the supposition, double the quantity of dry land, that the waters had continued to and every foot of the soil was increase for one hundred and ten fertile. We have not forgotten, days after all the mountains were that immediately after the fall, covered, we can easily conceive the earth suffered a severe chasthat the mountains of Ararat tisement It brought forth thorns themselves may have been co- and thistles. Hence it followed, vered by water. Those new that man was compelled to labour mountains that may have been the more diligently in raising his

crop. In the sweat of his face a heavy dew, as in the ancient he was to eat bread. But the world. We are not to suppose earth did not refuse to yield him that the waters which arise from sustenance; and, as the whole the earth by evaporation are not surface was watered by dew, in- sufficient for all desirable purstead of rain, there never could poses, provided they returned to have been a scanty crop. the earth in the form of dew.

Rivers that are chiefly caused In fact they are more than sufby heavy falls of rain may be ficient. Our dews are light, but large. But rivers that are fed by the greater part of the waters natural springs must be small. that rise by evaporation are colSuch were the rivers in the an- lected into clouds in the upper cient world. The reader will be regions, and fall down in showers. pleased to observe, that I con- Many of those showers are so stantly take for granted that there heavy that more than half the was not any rain before the flood. water runs off in torrents without Plants were nourished by a regu- sinking into the earth. How lar supply of dew instead of rain. much more abundant would our If the reader will turn his atten- crops be, if those showers were tion to the empire of Peru, be- frequent and small. Although it tween the equator and the tropic follows, from our present depenof Capricorn, he will find a proof dence upon rain for the support that plants may be nourished in of life, that we are occasionally this manner. In that happy re-in danger of a famine, by having gion the inhabitants are never too much rain or too little, yet visited by rain; but the country this very dependence has a fais very fertile in all places where vourable operation on the human the soil is good, for the earth is mind. It causes man to feel his watered by dew. It is not al-greater dependence upon Provileged that Peru, in the present dence for his daily bread. age, is watered by dew on the We stated above, that in the same principles as the ancient original constitution of the earth, world must have been watered. formed as it was for the residence The fact is otherwise. The si- of a sinless race of men, there tuation of Peru is singular. It could not have been any sudden lies within the range of the trade-changes of weather, nor any great winds, and the winds in Peru mountains and storms, and conshould always be from the east- sequently there could not have ward; but the Andes, in that been any rain. This conclusion, region, are so high as to prevent as we believe, must follow from the passage of any wind. Hence premises that cannot well be deit follows, that the inhabitants, nied. But we have a better proof being cut off from the trade-wind, than can be drawn from mere have not any regular wind, nor philosophical reasonings, that beany other wind of considerable force. In that case the waters that rise by evaporation, in the course of the day, are not carried off, but fall during the night in the form of

VOL. II....No. 8.

fore the flood there had not been any rain upon the earth. We refer to the words of Moses. He says, in the second chapter of Genesis, "The Lord God had

23