MR DENTON'S LECTURES. TO THE EDITOR.

Otago Witness, Issue 1581, 4 March 1882, Page 24

MR DENTON'S LECTURES. TO THE EDITOR.

Sir,— l have read your somewhat short reports upon these lectures, and do not agree at all with the conclusions arrived at by the worthy lecturer on the subjects dealt with. For instance, if a man will Btart and say he believes this and would like to believe that, and furnishes no good sound logic of his own, or gives no good authority for his conclusions, what are those who hear him to do but think and decide for themselves ? For instance, the worthy lecturer is reported to have said, 'If mankind had come from one pair, the further back we went the nearer we should approach tho primitive pair,' and don't we, by hia own showing ? Only four varieties of the same race existed 4000 years ago, but, Mr Editor, ia not the lecturer arguiDg on the supposition that Adam was a white man, as he sa> s the negro was known in Egypt 4000 years ago— 48 years after the deluge? And how does he know that Noah was a white man ? Does it not put one in mind that a 8 the white man says the devil is black the negro aaye he is white, and neither have any ground for their belief 1 Let the lecturer start by asking not how long it will take to change a white man black, but how many agea it would take to turn a black man white, and I should think thiß idea would be very acceptable to one who, like the lecturer, ia a thorough believer in evolution. By arguing on the other side it ilooka like retrogression and deterioration, but by looking at this aide it certainly, appears to be just what the evolutionist would take up— an advance from I an inferior to a higher class animal. , Yea, Mr Editor, these lectures put me in mind of a certain gentleman some years ago in London, who started to lecture and to endeavour to prove that the world waß a flat surface like a pancake, but what did | he care which was correct bo long as he obtained his ' enirance-money, and a novelty of this kind always draws a good number of hearers. Now, Mr Editor, if you can find apace for a few remarks on the subject brought before us in the lecture I, shall be glad, as the subject ia one of importance.' And first as to man's recent creation. The lecturer seems to think ' that because the first verse of the Bible is now better ' understood; and that the Mosaic cosmogony does not necessarily bind down those who believe in it that' the world iB no elder than six thousand years, this may also lead thoughtful men to accept the statement that man is likewise aa old aa the earth on which he ia found. The lecturer states that the remain's of man weie found under' a.tted of stalagmite, which it is estimated took 300,000 years to form. On whOße authority was this stated? Any geologist of note, or only on Mr Denton's, to bear outaprevioußlyformed idea ? What says geology to this statement bo directly' opposed to the statement of the Mosaic account'? She gives no uncertain 'sound on this matter that man, was among the very last of the animals created, arid how ia this proved but by the fact that his remains are found only in the highest part of alluvium. This is rarely more than one hundred feet in thicknesß, while the fossilfferous .strata lying beneath the alluvium are six miles thick. Hence man was not in existence during all the period in which these six miles of strata were in course of deposition, and he has existed only during the comparatively short period, nay, during only a small part of the alluvial period. His bones, having the same chemical composition as the bones of other animals, arenorhore liable to decay, and therefore had he lived and died in any of the periods preceding the alluvial, his bones must have been mixed with those of other animals belonging to those periods, but they are not thus found in a single well-authenticated instance, and therefore his existence has been limited to the alluvial period. Hence he must have been created arid placed upon the globe such is the testimony of geology— during the latter part of the alluvial period. This is attested to by such men ns Hugh Miller, Professor Sedgwick, Dr J. Pye Smith, Dr Chalmers, and a host of others. Hence then, geology can lay her fingeruponthe precise epoch of the revolutions of the globe in which the most completed, perfect, and exalted being that ever dwelt upon its surface first began to be. It was not the command of a mere zoophyte or cryptogamian plant in which we see but little superiority to unorganised matter ex cept in the possession of a low degree of vitality, but a being complicated enough to contain a million parts, endowed with the two great attributes of life, sensibility, and contractility in the highest degree, and above all possessing intellect and moral powers far more wonderful than organisation and animal life.

• As to the peri d when the creation of such a being by the most astonishing of all miracles took place, geologists all agree that it was very recent, nay, although geology can rarely give chronological dates, but only a succession of events, she is able to say that man cannot have occupied the globe more than six thousand years. A few lines as to miracles. The lecturer will not believe them. Let me take him back in thought when this globe, solid as it now appears, was> nothing but a ball of fire— and all geologists seem agreed that tho earth ia still possessed of great heat at its centre and is now gradually cooling down. Let me ask the lecturer to land in fancy on the surface of the earth just as' it is cool enough to stand upon, and look around and compare such a world with that now teeming with life, beauty, and glory, which we inhabit, and say must not the transition to its present condition have demanded the exercise of one of the rnosi marvellousmiracles that the world ever saw? One can conceive how the solid crust must have fo'med over the vast fiery ocean by simple radiations of heat, and then, too, by natural laws mU9t the vapoura have condensed into ocean and cloud, while volcanic forces have lifted up our continents above the floods. But what a scene of desolation and ruin would such a world present with no vegetation and with no voice of life to break the stillness of universal death ! Here is then the precise point where we need the miraculous interference of the Deity.— l am, &c, U. L.

Ashburfcon, February 23rd, 1882,

The new Presbyterian church at Waiwera, Clutha, was opened on Sunday last by the Rev. Dr Stuart. A soiree, which was highly .successful, was held on Monday evening, the Rev. J. TJ. Spence, minister of the parish, presiding. The Melbourne Argus has an article urging that the Victorian Government should invite the other Colonies to co-operate in introducing the herring into Australian waters. ,It spates that New Zealand and Tasmania are more nearly concerned even than Victoria, for the herring in more likely to be acclimatised in these Colonies than elsewhere