verse and froward dispositions, what an infinite variety of objects to be attended to, and accommodated one unto another! He who can reconcile, and control, and regulate; he who, through all apparent disorders, can maintain the harmony of the world; he who, through all apparent evils, can promote its real interests, and raise out of what appears to our narrow minds a mighty chaos, that confounds us and oppresses us, the fair fabric of universal happiness; how wonderful must he be in counsel, how abundant must he be in means! Where but in God is wisdom to be found! Where but in the world's great Governor is the place of understanding!

CAPPE.

REFLECTIONS

ON THE

MAGNIFICENCE OF THE UNIVERSE.

THE characters of grandeur and magnificence are so legibly inscribed upon the general face of nature that the most untaught eye cannot fail to read them, nor can the most uncultivated imagination contemplate them without admiration. The surface of the earth, considered merely as a vast picture drawn by the hand of Nature, exhibits scenes adapted to excite emotions of sublimity. Plains whose extent exceeds the limits of human vision; mountains whose sides are embrowned with craggy rocks, and whose majestic summits hide themselves in the clouds; seas whose spread

ing waters unite far distant countries and oceans, which begirt the vast globe itself, are objects at all times striking to imagination. If from the earth we lift up our eyes on high, new scenes of magnificence demand our attentive admiration: the glorious sun, the eye and soul of this material world, possessing his seat amidst the vast expanse, and spreading light and heat through the world; and, in their turn, the numberless lamps of night illuminating the firmament with their native fires.

Let the great powers of nature be brought into action, and still more sublime and awful appearances arise to our view. Let woods and

forests wave before the stormy winds; let Ocean "heave from his extended bed," and roll his threatening billows to the sky; let volcanos pour forth pillars of smoke and melted torrents from their fiery caverns; let lightnings dart their livid fires through the sky, whilst thunders roar among the bursting clouds; what imagination shall remain unimpressed with emotion of admiration mingled with terror?

A lively scene of grandeur and sublimity is naturally produced by scenes like these even in uninformed and uncultivated minds. But to the man whom philosophy has taught to penetrate beyond the surface of things, and to discover the principles and laws of nature, the works of God appear still more grand and sublime. Every individual body in nature is considered by the man thus enlightened as preserved in its form by the uniform action of one power or principle by which its parts are held together. By another universal

power he observes all the bodies upon this earth tending towards its centre; and, comparing the laws by which this attracting power is found to operate with the well known motions of the heavenly bodies, he finds that this single principle is sufficient to account for these motions; and consequently infers from analogy that this power, uniformly exerted, forms the grand chain which unites the several parts of the universe in one system. Hence he derives an inexpressibly sublime conception of that great Being who is the seat of this principle and the source of its operation. The man who is thus enlightened by the study of nature sees this earth, as a globe of vast magnitude, moving perpetually round the sun with a degree of rapidity much greater than has ever been produced by human force or art: at the same time he sees other globes, some less and others much larger than the earth, revolving with inconceivable rapidity round the sun, as their common centre, at distances so great that, though they may be expressed in numbers, they far exceed the utmost stretch of the human imagination.

This set of planets which he knows to have, with our earth, a common relation to the sun, he very reasonably concludes to be a system of worlds, all peopled with suitable inhabitants, and all deriving supplies of light and heat from the same source. Extending his views beyond this system, and finding from observation that the fixed stars are in themselves luminous bodies, and that their distance from the earth is so much greater than that of the planets or sun as to be

absolutely immeasurable, he concludes, upon the most probable grounds, that those sparkling gems which deck the robe of night are not placed in the heavens merely for the convenience of this earth, but are, like our glorious luminary, suns to their respective systems of worlds. And, finally, when, by the assistance of art, he is enabled to discover innumerable stars hitherto unobserved, he judges that he has better ground than mere conjecture for thinking that suns and worlds are extending through the immense regions of space infinitely beyond all human calculation or conception. How sublime the idea! how much are we indebted to that kind of philosophy which has put us in possession of it! especially since it has instructed us, on the clearest principle of reason, that of assigning to every effect an adequate cause, that this immense, this glorious universe is the habitation of one great Being who framed, who pervades, who animates, who governs the world! How reasonable is it that this universe, which is the mansion of the Divinity, should be the temple in which all created beings should, in one triumphant chorus, unite to say "Great and marvellous are thy works, O Lord God Almighty! Hallelujah! for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth!"

ENFIELD.

ON THE SUPERIOR EXCELLENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION.

THE religion of the Gospel is the only one which has ever yet appeared among mankind, which is adequate to all the instinctive desires and expectations of the human mind. I am not now to speak of the excellence of this religion, or of its accommodation to all the wants and all the wretchedness of a being like man. I am to speak of it only as compared with the conclusions of human wisdom, as they appear either in the ancient or in the modern world. Both of them are before us; and from both I am persuaded the thoughtful mind must draw the same conclusion.

If we look to the ancient world,-to that period when science and philosophy had attained, through progressive ages, to their highest point of improvement, we see them terminating uniformly in doubt and indecision; we see various schools with various principles, some leading to piety, others to atheism; the great mass of the people left (and left willingly) to the dominion of superstition, and the wise concluding all their inquiries, either in the belief that these subjects were beyond the reach of human thought, or in the ardent prayer that the Deity would at last reveal himself to the inquiries of his creatures. If we look to the world as it at present exhibits itself in every country unvisited by the Gospel, we see it covered with varieties of imposture and superstition; the great principles of religion buried under the mass of barbarous rites or unpro