To his alert and active intellect and powerful imagination a
word spoken out of the past was pregnant with meaning; and when he had
once convinced himself that he had found a single animal that had no
counterpart among living beings, it gave him the key to many mysteries.
It may be doubted whether men's eyes are ever opened to truths which,
though new to them, are old to God, till the time has come when they
can apprehend their meaning and turn them to good account. It certainly
seems, that, when such a revelation has once been made, light pours in
upon it from every side; and this is especially true of the case in
point. The existence of a past creation once suggested, confirmation
was found in a thousand facts overlooked before. The solid crust of the
earth gave up its dead, and from the snows of Siberia, from the soil of
Italy, from caves of Central Europe, from mines, from the rent sides of
mountains and from their highest peaks, from the coral beds of ancient
oceans, the varied animals that had possessed the earth ages before man
was created spoke to us of the past.
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