But why should the lower rocks be older and the upper rocks newer? You
told me just now that the high mountains in Wales were ages older than
Windsor Forest, upon which we stand: but yet how much lower we are here
than if we were on a Welsh mountain.
Ah, my dear child, of course that puzzles you, and I am afraid it must
puzzle you still till we have another talk; or rather it seems to me that
the best way to explain that puzzle to you would be for you and me to go
a journey into the far west, and look into the matter for ourselves; and
from here to the far west we will go, either in fancy or on a real
railroad and steamboat, before we have another talk about these things.
Now it is time to stop. Is there anything more you want to know? for you
look as if something was puzzling you still.
Were there any men in the world while all this was going on?
I think not. We have no proof that there were not: but also we have no
proof that there were; the cave-men, of whom I told you, lived many ages
after the coal was covered up. You seem to be sorry that there were no
men in the world then.
Because it seems a pity that there was no one to see those beautiful
coral-reefs and coal-forests.
No one to see them, my child? Who told you that? Who told you there are
not, and never have been any rational beings in this vast universe, save
certain weak, ignorant, short-sighted creatures shaped like you and me?
But even if it were so, and no created eye had ever beheld those ancient
wonders, and no created heart ever enjoyed them, is there not one
Uncreated who has seen them and enjoyed them from the beginning? Were
not these creatures enjoying themselves each after their kind? And was
there not a Father in Heaven who was enjoying their enjoyment, and
enjoying too their beauty, which He had formed according to the ideas of
His Eternal Mind? Recollect what you were told on Trinity Sunday--That
this world was not made for man alone: but that man, and this world, and
the whole Universe was made for God; for He created all things, and for
His pleasure they are, and were created.
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