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there are worlds teeming with life, and numberless as are the glories of the firmament. The one has suggested to me, that beyond and above all that is visible to man, there may be fields of creation which sweep immeasurably along, and carry the impress of the Almighty's hand to the remotest scenes of the universe; the other suggests to me, that within and beneath all that minuteness which the aided eye of man has been able to explore, there may be a region of invisibles; and that could we draw aside the mysterious curtain which shrouds it from our senses, we might there see a theatre of as many wonders as astronomy has unfolded, a universe within the compass of a point so small as to elude all the powers of the microscope, but where the wonder-working God finds room for the exercise of all his attributes, where he can raise another mechanism of worlds, and fill and animate them all with the evidences of his glory.

By the telescope we have discovered that no magnitude, however vast, is beyond the grasp of the Divinity; but, by the microscope, we have also discovered that no minuteness, however shrunk from the notice of the human eye, is beneath the condescension of his regard. Every addition to the powers of the one instrument extends the limits of his visible dominions; but, by every addition to the powers of the other instrument, we see each part of them more crowded than before with the wonders of his unwearying hand. The one is constantly widening the circle of his territory; the other is as constantly filling up its separate portions with all that is rich and various and exquisite. In a word, by the one I am told that the Almighty is now at work in regions more distant than geometry has ever measured, and among worlds more manifold than numbers have ever reached; but, by the other, I am also told, that, with a mind to comprehend the whole in the vast compass of its generality, he has also a mind to concentrate a close and a separate attention on each and on all of its particulars; and that the same God who sends forth an upholding influence among the orbs and the movements of astronomy, can fill the recesses of every single atom with the intimacy of his presence, and travel, in all the greatness of his unimpaired attributes, upon every one spot and corner of the universe he has formed.

They, therefore, who think that God will not put forth such a power, and such a goodness, and such a condescension in behalf of this world as are ascribed to him in the New

Testament, because he has so many other worlds to attend to, think of him as a man; they confine their view to the informations of the telescope, and forget altogether the informations of the other instrument. They only find room in their minds for his one attribute of a large and general superintendence, and keep out of their remembrance the equally impressive proofs we have for his other attribute of a minute and multiplied attention to all that diversity of operations where it is he that worketh all in all. And when I think that, as one of the instruments of philosophy has heightened our every impression of the first of these attributes, so another instrument has no less heightened our impression of the second of them, then I can no longer resist the conclusion that it would be a transgression of sound argument, as well as a daring impiety, to draw a limit round the doings of this unsearchable God; and should a professed revelation from heaven tell me of an act of condescension in behalf of some separate world, so wonderful that angels desire to look into it, and the Eternal Son had to move from his seat of glory to carry it into accomplishment, all I ask is the evidence of such a revelation; for, let it tell me as much as it may of God letting himself down for the benefit of one single province of his dominions, this is no more than what I see lying scattered in numberless examples before me-running through the whole line of my recollections, and meeting me in every walk of observation to which I can betake myself; and, now that the microscope has unveiled the wonders of another region, I see strewed around me, with a profusion which baffles my every attempt to comprehend it, the evidence that there is no one portion of the universe of God too minute for His notice, nor too humble for the visitations of His care..-CHALMERS.

PROBABILITY THAT THE PLANETS ARE INHABITED.

The world in which we live is a round ball of a determined magnitude, and occupies its own place in the firmament; but when we explore the unlimited tracts of that space which is everywhere around us, we meet with other balls of equal or superior magnitude, and from which our earth would either be invisible, or appear as small as any of those twinkling stars which are seen on the canopy of heaven. Why,

then, suppose that this little spot-little, at least, in the immensity which surrounds it-should be the exclusive abode of life and of intelligence? What reason to think that those mightier globes which roll in other parts of creation, and which we have discovered to be worlds in magnitude, are not also worlds in use and in dignity? Why should we think that the great Architect of nature, supreme in wisdom as he is in power, would call these stately mansions into existence, and leave them unoccupied? When we cast our

eye over the broad sea, and look at the country on the other side, we see nothing but the blue land stretching obscurely over the distant horizon. We are too far away to perceive the richness of its scenery, or to hear the sound of its population. Why not extend this principle to the still more distant parts of the universe? What though from this remote point of observation we can see nothing but the naked roundness of yon planetary orbs-are we therefore to say, that they are so many vast and unpeopled solitudes; that desolation reigns in every part of the universe but ours; that the whole energy of the Divine attributes is expended on one insignificant corner of these mighty works; and that to this earth alone belongs the bloom of vegetation, or the blessedness of life, or the dignity of rational and immortal existence?

But this is not all. We have something more than the mere magnitude of the planets to allege in favour of the idea that they are inhabited. We know that this earth turns round upon itself; and we observe that all those celestial bodies which are accessible to such an observation have the same movement. We know that the Earth performs a yearly revolution round the Sun; and we can detect in all the planets which compose our system a revolution of the same kind, and under the same circumstances. They have the same succession of day and night; they have the same vicissitude of the seasons; to them light and darkness succeed each other; and the gaiety of summer is followed by the dreariness of winter.

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In all these greater arrangements of Divine wisdom, we can see that God has done the same thing for the accommodation of the planets that he has done for the earth which we inhabit; and shall we say that the resemblance stops here because we are not in a situation to observe it? shall we say

that this scene of magnificence has been called into being merely for the amusement of a few astronomers? shall we measure the councils of heaven by the narrow impotence of the human faculties, or conceive that silence and solitude reign throughout the mighty empire of nature; that the greater part of nature is an empty parade; and that not a worshipper of the Divinity is to be found through the wide. extent of those vast and immeasurable regions?

It lends a delightful confirmation to the argument, when, from the growing perfection of our instruments, we can discover a new point of resemblance between our earth and the other bodies of the planetary system. It is now ascertained, not merely that all of them have their day and night, and that all of them have their vicissitudes of seasons, and that some of them have their moons to rule their night and alleviate the darkness of it. We can see of one, that its surface rises into inequalities, that it swells into mountains and stretches into valleys; of another, that it is surrounded by an atmosphere, which may support the respiration of animals; of a third, that clouds are formed and suspended over it, which may minister to all the bloom and luxuriance of vegetation; and of a fourth, that a white colour spreads over its northern regions, as its winter advances, and that on the approach of summer this whiteness is dissipatedgiving room to suppose that the element of water abounds in it, that it rises by evaporation into its atmosphere, that it freezes upon the application of cold, that it is precipitated in the form of snow, that it covers the ground with a fleecy mantle which melts away from the heat of a more vertical sun; and that other worlds bear a resemblance to our own in the same yearly round of beneficent and interesting changes.-CHALMERS.

PIETY EXCITED BY CONTEMPLATION OF THE HEAVENS.

It is truly a most Christian exercise to extract a sentiment of piety from the works and the appearances of Nature. It has the authority of the sacred writers upon its side, and even our Saviour himself gives it the weight and solemnity of his example :-" Behold the lilies of the field; they toil not, neither do they spin, yet your heavenly Father careth for them." He expatiates on the beauty of a single flower,

and draws from it the delightful argument of confidence in God. He gives us to see that taste may be combined with piety, and that the same heart may be occupied with all that is serious in the contemplations of religion, and be at the same time alive to the charms and the loveliness of nature.

The psalmist takes a still loftier flight, and leaves the world, and lifts his imagination to that mighty expanse that spreads above it and around it. He wings his way through space, and wanders in thought over its immeasurable regions. Instead of a dark unpeopled solitude, he sees it crowded with splendour, and filled with the energy of the Divine presence. Creation rises in its immensity before him, and the world, with all which it inherits, shrinks into littleness at a contemplation so vast and so overpowering. He wonders that he is not overlooked amid the grandeur and the variety which are on every side of him; and passing upwards from the majesty of nature to the majesty of nature's Architect, he exclaims, "What is man that thou art mindful of him, or the son of man that thou shouldest deign to visit him?"

It is not for us to say whether inspiration revealed to the psalmist the wonders of the modern astronomy. But even though the mind be a perfect stranger to the science of these enlightened times, the heavens present a great and an elevating spectacle, an immense concave, reposing upon the circular boundary of the world, and the innumerable lights which are suspended from on high, moving with solemn regularity along its surface. It seems to have been at night that the piety of the psalmist was awakened by this contemplation, when the moon and the stars were visible, and not when the Sun had risen in his strength, and thrown a splendour around him, which bore down and eclipsed all the lesser glories of the firmament; and there is much in the scenery of a nocturnal sky to lift the soul to pious contemplation. That moon and these stars-what are they? They are detached from the world, and they lift you above it. You feel withdrawn from the earth, and rise in lofty abstraction above this little theatre of human passions and human anxieties. The mind abandons itself to reverie, and is transferred in the ecstasy of its thoughts to distant and unexplored regions. It sees Nature in the simplicity of her great elements, and it sees the God of Nature invested with the high attributes of wisdom and majesty.-CHALMERS.

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