absurd. If the properties of matter produce all its changes, it is vain to pray to God for deliverance from the pressure of calamity in the day of evil. When the heavens are brass, the showers fail, the herbage is withered, the barren fields elude the tiller's toil, and the hopes of the husbandman perish; no fasting, fervent prayer of perishing thousands, no deep humility, can move God to change nature's dreary aspect. When the howling of the midnight tempest brings fearful agitation to a mother's heart, as she thinks of her sailor boy exposed to its fury on the ocean, we cannot tell her to have faith in God, and pray trustingly for the safety of her child, for such prayers are impotent and vain.

Scripture, indeed, assures us that God has not left himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons. Whatsoever the Lord pleaseth, that did he in heaven and in earth, in the seas and all deep places. He causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth; he maketh lightnings for the rain; he bringeth the wind out of the treasuries." Fire and hail, snow and vapour, stormy wind fulfil his word. He commandeth and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves of the sea. He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. We might suppose that He who has promised to deliver all who in trouble call upon him, having such control over nature, might interpose his Almighty arm to save; but men considered wise tell us this is vain; that God rules not in the domain of nature.

From their theory it follows, that we might as well pray to the north wind, to the driving sleet, or the raging tempest, as to ask God for deliverance.

The views of Mr. Chace would seem to sanction those infidel, though beautiful lines of Pope:

"Shall burning Etna, if a sage requires,
Forget to thunder, and recall her fires?

On air or sea new motions be impress'd,

O blameless Bethel! to relieve thy breast!

When the loose mountain trembles from on high,

Shall gravitation cease if you go by?

Or some old temple, nodding to its fall,

For Chartres' head reserve the hanging wall?"

With reference to the objection founded on prayer, it may be said that God, foreseeing all things, had reference to prayer in the original direction given to the properties of matter, and ordered events accordingly. From this it would follow that prayer is a part of the universal scheme of things, and is as directly governed

by the law of necessity as matter. When the Almighty created matter, and gave it those laws which make its phenomena fixed and sure, he made provision for a certain number of effectual prayers, neither more nor less, and these prayers must be offered: the stability of the universe depends on it. Of course, all anxiety relative to prayer may cease. If we were selected in the beginning to utter a part of these prayers, we must present them; if not, we cannot pray acceptably.

We are thus led into the wildest system of predestination and fatalism. We consider the objection to the views we oppose founded on the doctrine of a special Providence, and the duty of prayer, as conclusive.

Before leaving the article of Mr. Chace, we wish simply to notice a singular statement near its close. He propounds the question relative to the origin of matter, and states that it lies wholly beyond the reach of our faculties-reason does not take hold of it— aside from revelation, we have no means of forming an opinion upon the question whether matter is eternal and self-existent, or whether it had a beginning, and derived its existence from a power without itself.

This conclusion follows naturally from his theory. But if this be true, of course the existence of God cannot be proved from the existence and phenomena of the material universe, and reason has no argument from nature against Atheism. It tells us of matter as having real existence, possessing inherent and underived qualities, and, by virtue of these, capable of producing all the phenomena of the material universe; but surely it points not to God, but strengthens rather the hands of infidels. Such are the conclusions to which we must be led when we deny the immediate agency of God in his works.

We think it is time that more definiteness relative to the causes of natural phenomena should be exhibited in the works on natural science put into the hands of the young. It would seem as though many of their authors did not "like to retain.God in their knowledge." Seldom do they make any attempt to lead the young mind "through nature up to nature's God." In many of these works the Deity is not named. The great First Cause, ever present and ever acting, is excluded, and we are told of nature, of inherent properties, of essential properties, and these are set forth as the causes of all events transpiring in the material world. This is the language of infidels. Meeting with these terms used as causes in their writings, the young mind is easily led to receive their speculations. Thus the teaching of philosophy in Christian

schools oft aids the progress of error and Atheism. This ought not longer to be tolerated. Many writers on this subject give us words and phrases that,' to common minds at least, convey no meaning. Sir John Herschel says,—

"The Divine Author of the universe cannot be supposed to have laid down particular laws, enumerating all individual contingencies, which his materials have understood and obey-this would be to attribute to him the imperfections of human legislation; but rather, by creating them endowed with certain fixed qualities and powers, he has impressed them in their origin with the spirit, not the letter, of his law, and made all their subsequent combinations and relations inevitable consequences of this first impression."

We shall not stop to consider this reasoning, in which we can perceive no force, at length; but we ask, in what sense can the materials of the universe, the insensible clod, the rock, the dull, inert mass of earth, be said to "understand and obey" the laws of God? What intelligible meaning can be given to the terms “qualities" and "powers" in the above quotation? How shall we understand the phrase, "the spirit of his law impressed on matter?" or the assertion, that "the combinations and relations of the materials of the universe, subsequent to creation, are the inevitable consequences of this first impression of the spirit of a law?"

This is a fair specimen of much that is written relative to the phenomena of nature. To us it is perfectly incomprehensible. No consistent meaning can be given to many of the terms used as causes. Use has made them so familiar that at first this may not be perceived. Moreover, there is no propriety in using the terms that express actions of intelligent beings, to explain the changes that take place in the inert earth.

We trust the time is not far distant when the young shall be taught universally that God not only created the universe, but that he upholds it by the immediate and constant exertion of his power. The awe that will result from a knowledge of the nearness of God, as derived from the exhibition of his power in nature, will have a powerful influence to lead the inquirer to that true wisdom, the beginning of which is the fear of the Lord.

ART. II.-THE PRESENT STATE OF ASTRONOMY.

Outlines of Astronomy. By SIR JOHN F. W. HERSCHEL. Philadelphia: Lea & Blan

chard.

ASTRONOMY, which is the oldest of sciences, is emphatically a science of accumulation. The date of its beginning it is impossible to fix. Its first birth is commonly attributed to the shepherds of Chaldea. But there cannot be a doubt that its existence commenced with that of man himself. The heavenly bodies were ever before his eyes, and he must have begun immediately to discern some of the more grossly perceptible laws of their movement. As a science of observation it has been one of successive approximations to truth, so slow and so often repeated, that the immense period during which the process has been conducted has been sufficient to eliminate almost every vestige of error; and, by removing at last the most minute imperfections, to render this a perfect science.

In the chapter upon astronomical instruments, in the work whose title is at the head of the present article, the kind of process alluded to above is incidentally set forth in a very minute and striking

manner:

"The steps by which we arrive at the laws of natural phenomena, and especially those which depend for their verification on numerical determinations, are necessarily successive. Gross results and palpable laws are arrived at by rude observation with coarse instruments, or without any instruments at all, and are expressed in language which is not to be considered as absolute, but is to be interpreted with a degree of latitude commensurate to the imperfection of the observations themselves. These results are corrected and refined by nicer scrutiny, and with more delicate means. The first rude expressions of the laws which imbody them are perceived to be inexact. The language used in their expression is corrected, its terms more rigidly defined, or fresh terms introduced, until the new state of language and terminology is brought to fit the improved state of knowledge of facts. In the progress of this scrutiny subordinate laws are brought into view which still further modify both the verbal statement and numerical results of those which first offered themselves to our notice; and when these are traced out and reduced to certainty, others, again, subordinate to them, make their appearance, and become subjects of further inquiry. Now, it invariably happens (and the reason is evident) that the first glimpse we catch of such subordinate laws-the first form in which they are dimly shadowed out to our minds-is that of errors. We perceive a discordance between what we expect, and what we find. The first occurrence of such a discordance we attribute to accident. It happens again and again; and we begin to suspect our instruments. We then inquire, to what amount of error their determinations can, by possibility, be liable. If their limit of possible error exceed the observed deviation, we at once condemn the instrument, and set about improving its construction or adjustments. Still the same deviations occur, and, so far from being palliated, are more marked and better defined than before. We are

now sure that we are on the traces of a law of nature, and we pursue it till we have reduced it to a definite statement, and verified it by repeated observation under every variety of circumstances."-Pp. 89, 90, § 139.

Many of the changes detected in the manner here described are so slow, and require so long a period to amount to any appreciable quantity, that ages are sometimes requisite to bring them to light; and it is on this account that length of time is such an important element in astronomical investigations, and that the age of this science, owing to its peculiar nature, is a more than ordinary advantage.

Again:-space being the theatre of astronomic phenomena, the science of space and its relations, namely, geometry in the widest sense of the term, becomes directly applicable, and all the improvements, from the sublime geometry of the ancients to the most refined results of modern analysis, become available, and contribute to the perfection of astronomy. Finally, since the great discovery of the law of gravitation by Newton, astronomy has presented itself in another and new aspect; the movements of the heavenly bodies are brought under the laws of force and motion which constitute the science of mechanics,—a strictly mathematical science, requiring for its full development all, and even more than all, that the highest branches of mathematical calculus in their present imperfect state can furnish.

Astronomy, indeed, may be divided into four distinct branches: 1. Practical Astronomy, which includes the use of the instruments, the calculations necessary to free the observations with them from the effects of atmospheric refraction, parallax, and the aberration of light, and such solutions of spherical triangles as may be necessary to determine the co-ordinates of the places of the heavenly bodies, to wit, their right ascension and declination, or latitude and longitude. 2. Theoretic Astronomy, or the theory of the movements of the heavenly bodies in space, as derived from the results of practical astronomy:-as, for instance, the determination of the nature of the orbits of the planets; their eccentricities; their nodes, or points of intersection with the plane of the earth's orbit; the inclination of the planes of their orbits to that of the earth; the mean distance of the planets from the sun, and their periodic times or terms of revolution.

3. Descriptive Astronomy, which relates to the physical constitution of the planets, and requires for its prosecution the aid of powerful telescopes. This branch of the subject leads to inquiries into the existence of atmospheres, of oceans, mountain-ranges, volcanoes, and other features in the physical phenomena and topography of