such exalted views of God, or of creation, or of providence. And now the great question is, Was He right? Are we to receive his testimony, single and alone, against the sentiments and practices of the whole world? Was his teaching according to fact and truth? Is it sustained and confirmed by the light of this nineteenth century? We answer, YES; COMPLETELY AND IN ALL PARTICULARS. No fact has been more clearly demonstrated by modern research, than that the Creation is one in its origin, one in its government, and one in its end. The heathen, we have seen, placed a separate god, of distinctive character and aims, to preside over every particular province and element of nature; but, as the GREAT TEACHER utterly discarded, so the light of modern science has wholly dissipated these phantoms, by revealing one general plan, and the same general laws, running throughout every region and department of the universe. And now to the proof of this. III. LET us take a general survey of the globe we inhabit, And what do we find in evidence that all its parts and elements are the productions of one hand, and under the government of one mind? The same sun illumines the day, and the same moon cheers the night, in every land. The same atmosphere envelopes the whole earth, and the same ocean-waters begirt and beat upon its thousand sinuous shores. The tides rise and fall, and the rivers form and flow after the same manner wherever we go. Seed-time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night, pursue their unwearied rounds for all nations, and for all time. Nowhere do we find or feel ourselves to have passed into the dominion of another and a different god. The grand elements of nature move and operate according to the same uniform laws, the world over. Whether we traverse the plains, climb the mountains, sail upon the seas, dive into caverns, or ascend into the clouds, we find these laws in undeviating operation. Not an element moves capriciously, not an atom floats at random. Gravitation exerts its power according to the same rule, gases combine in the same proportions, metals fuse and liquids boil at the same points of heat, light is reflected and refracted at the same angles, heat is radiated and the air is condensed or rarefied after the same laws, and dew and rain and snow are produced under the same circumstances and according to the same process-whether we stand on this or that side of the globe. The electric, magnetic and vital forces are likewise invariable in their action. The Needle elects its position, the fiery fluid of the clouds recovers its equilibrium, and life puts forth its powers, in the same way, wherever we go. Atoms cohere to atoms, and unite to form the crystal, or coalesce to produce the green blade, or aggregate to build the lordly tree, or blend to put forth the painted and perfumed flower, or combine to yield the luscious fruit-under the impulses of the same mysterious laws, from the rising to the setting sun. In like manner, one vast and magnificent plan runs and ramifies throughout the animal kingdom. While ten thousand varieties and innumerable minor distinctions prevail, all animated beings belong to this one system, and are related one to another as are the various members of one animal body. So uniformly is this plan of animal structure followed that, give to a Cuvier or an Owen a single bone, a single tooth, and he will be able to tell to what class of animals the owner belonged, and even what its character, its food, and its general habits were. The fowl and the fish, the carnivorant and the ruminant, the quadruped and the biped, retain and exhibit their distinctive peculiarities in every quarter of the globe. Modern investigation has gone still further, and proved that every province, element and agency of creation are connected with every other province, element and agency, that nothing stands isolated or alone, but that all form one grand and complete whole. Sea and land and air are closely related and mutually dependent. The expanse of the ocean has been proportioned to the extent of the continents, while the atmosphere has been constituted to form a medium of direct and ceaseless communication between them. The waters of the deep ascend in perpetual exhalations into the atmosphere, the atmosphere collects these into clouds, the clouds are borne along by the winds and condensed by the cold into rain, the rain descends in showers on the plains and the mountains, part of it is retained to nourish their vegetation and living tenants, and part flows together and returns by the rivers to the ocean, to commence the same circuit again. Such are the connections and mutual adaptations of all these elements and agencies, fitting as wheel into a wheel, and pursuing their magnificent round of operation without waste, or weariness, or cessation. 1 A thousand other bonds of relation and adjustment exist between the ground under our feet and the firmament over our heads. Every plant and tree and blade of grass is such a bond; each of these with its roots. takes hold of the soil, and draws from it its food, while with its leaves it maintains communication with the atmosphere. Every bird, and beast, and human being, is also a similar bond; while these derive their nourishment from the ground, they inhale the vital fluid from the air. Add to all this, their lungs, their ears, their organs of smell, their organs of speech, and even the pores of their skins are made for the atmosphere, and the atmosphere is made for them, being so constituted as ever to serve the purposes and meet the necessities of all these with promptness, facility and pleasure. Nothing can indicate more clearly the unity of creation than the balancings of its different departments, as these depend upon the most skilfully arranged adjustments. Of this many striking instances at once present themselves. The ground is constituted to absorb heat from the sunbeams, and to retain it till night comes on, when it gives it out again, and thus its temperature is most admirably equalized. Again: the grass and the leaves absorb heat during the day, and again radiate it into the clear atmosphere at night, till they are so reduced in temperature as to condense the moisture floating in the air into the dew-drops necessary to refresh and nourish them. And again: animals breathe oxygen, and in their exhalations set carbonic acid free for the use of plants; and plants through the pores of their leaves imbibe this carbonic acid, and in return set oxygen free for the benefit of animals. Thus animals and plants balance one another to their mutual benefit, by the preservation of the atmosphere in its purity. And when both the plant and the animal have run their course, and die, the soil stands ready to receive their grosser materials, and the atmosphere to resume their more ethereal substances, which they had before respectively contributed to rear their organizations; and, having renovated them, each is prepared to bestow them again on other and new plants and animals. In this way the Great Ruler of all unfolds and carries on that beautiful round of being, in which every link maintains its place and importance, and the happiness of every part flows from the harmony of the whole. "Look round the world! behold the chain of love See plastic nature working to this end; Atoms to atoms-clods to crystals tend. See dying vegetables life sustain ; See life, dissolving, vegetate again. All served, all serving, nothing stands alone, The chain holds on, and where it ends unknown." Nothing, therefore, like the diversity of plan, or the divided dominion, or the conflicting authority of different |