throughout the sidereal regions, were brought into existence by the united and harmonious action of fixed and established principles. What is meant by attraction, gravitation and condensation, is an association of particles possessing mutual affinities. The constant attraction existing between all bodies in the vast system of planetary worlds is owing to mutual gravitation from each of particles that have become fitted to associate with each other.

One sun by day, by night ten thousand shine,

And light us deep into the Deity;

How boundless in magnificence and might !
Oh what a confluence of ethereal fires,

From urns unnumbered, down the steep of heaven,
Streams to a point, and centers in my sight!
Nor tarries there; I feel it in my heart;
My heart at once, it humbles and exalts;
Lays it in dust, and calls it to the skies.

ALL THINGS ARE FORESHADOWED.

Truth, industry, exploration, discovery, accomplishment -five practical words; let us stand by these. It would be absurd to suppose that the confines of the universe have yet been explored, and scarcely less absurd to imagine that man, in his present state of feeling, and with his limited powers, can ever reach them. Our own planetary system, comprising, as it does, a sweep of nearly eighteen thousand millions of miles in circumference, is but a speck, and almost immeasurable on account of its minuteness, when viewed from the nearest of those stupendous luminaries which sparkle in our skies like brilliants studding the dark mantle of night.

The theory is that an intervening medium modifies, in a remarkably perceptible manner, the complexion, quality or intensity of the element or energy transmitted through it, and that light, modified by our atmosphere, is another name

for motion. This luminous ether travels at the rate of two hundred thousand miles per second. The emanations from our sun reaches earth in eight minutes, while it would be traveling hundreds and thousands of years in coming to us from the most distant suns.

Electricity is computed to travel round the earth three times in a single beat of the pulse-two hundred and eighty thousand miles per second.

Our sun and the entire solar system travels at the rate of four hundred thousand miles per day, and it requires eighteen million and two hundred thousand years for our visible sun and its planetary dependences to travel around our central sun, Alcyone.

Our earth is literally a perpetual motion; it is really a revolving electrical machine; it is practically an immense magnetic battery.

No human intellect can possibly contain these stupendous facts as a realization, although they may be computed accurately and be presented in figures. The mind does not comfortably live on conceptions of distances and magnitudes, neither can a mind comprehend eternal progression, what there is to see, to meet, to feel and to know.

Open thy soul to God, O man, and talk

Through thine unfolded faculties with Him
Who never, save through faculties of mind,
Spake to the fathers.

EVIDENCES OF DESIGN.

Throughout all the phases of seeming waste and chaos in the physical history of the earth's surface, there is evidence of design; the concentration of useful metals in veins and beds; in the storing-away of vast supplies of fossil fuel; in the consolidation and upheaval of the strata, giving relief and depression to the surface; in their subsequent erosion

and depression to form soil; and in all the changes which these material elements have undergone; there is an evident design to fit the earth for the habitation of man, and to afford him useful materials for the exercise of industry and the promotion of his comfort and convenience. We can perceive that events are brought about, not by insulated interpositions of Divine power exerted in each particular case, but by the establishment of general laws. God is the author and governor of the universe through the laws which He has given to its parts, the properties which He has impressed upon its constituent elements; the laws and properties are the instruments with which He works; the institution of such laws, the selection of the quantities which they involve, the combination and application, are the modes in which He manifests His power, His wisdom, His goodness and beneficence.

It has been well said that truth is more wonderful than fiction, and that reason may advance where imagination dare not follow. The philosophers engaged in searching for laws which govern the phenomena of nature, and gaining but a glimpse of the uniformity of plan which is to be discovered amidst their countless variety, sees there displayed an order, a beauty, a harmony, a majesty more glorious than anything which the fictions of the imagination can ever produce.

It is then the legitimate use, the noblest employment of the intellectual powers to apply them to the attainment of those lofty views of the Creator's works, survey them as parts of one vast harmonious whole, to see all the clustering stars, and the whole assemblage of the luminaries bound together by a common tie. It is thus that we are led to the highest conception of Infinite power, wisdom and love of which our minds are capable. If the eye of man is permitted to behold such dazzling wonders-if his mind can soar into such depths of space, and grasp such immensity of time

-what will be the world which eye hath not seen, and which the imagination cannot conceive, forgetting time and space, oppressed by no weight in accumulative experience.

O listen, man!

A voice within us speaks that startling word
"Man! thou shalt never die!"

Celestial voices

Hymn it unto our souls; according harps

By angel fingers touched, when the mild stars
Of morning sang together, sound forth still
The song of our great immortality.

Thick clustering orbs, and this our fair domain,
The tall, dark mountains and the deep-toned seas,
Join in this solemn universal song.

O listen, ye, our spirits! drink it in

From all this air! 'Tis in the gentle moonlight;
'Tis floating midst day's setting glories; night,
Wrapt in her sable robe, with silent step,
Comes to our bed, and breathes it in our ears.
Night and dawn, bright day and thoughtful eve,
All time, all bounds, the limitless expanse,
As one vast mystic instrument, are touched
By an unseen living hand, and conscious chords
Quiver with joy in this great jubilee.

The dying hear it and as sounds of earth

Grow dull and distant, wake their passing souls
To mingle in this heavenly harmony.

OUR BODIES ARE REALLY BUT FLEETING SHADOWS.

Animal and vegetable forms are little more than consolidated masses of the atmosphere-a combination of atoms. and parts of matter, animated with an inherent vitalic essence. We discover that bodies are formed of certain determinate atoms which unite one with another, according to an arithmetical system, to form molecules, which, combining with molecules, observe a similar law; all the harmonies of chemical combination are but the necessary consequences of these simple and guiding first-principles.

A plant is an organized creation; it is so in virtue of certain strange phytochemical operations which are rendered active by solar influences involved in the great phenomenon of light and by the excitation of calorific force and electrical circulation. Electricity is set in motion, under every condition of change, whether induced by chemical or calorific action. The innumerable varieties of form that constitute the vegetable kingdom are only the successive degrees of modified development, each form at the same time being elaborated as an outward existence by the interior energies and promptings of the essence of life. Inasmuch as essence is the parent and animator of material organizations, it follows that each body is an eternal representative of its interior essence.

If we take water rising from a subterranean spring and expose it to sunshine, we shall see, after a few days, a curious formation of bubbles and a gradual accumulation of green matter. It slowly aggregates and forms a sort of mat over the surface, which at the same time assumes a dark green color. Careful examination will show the original corpuscles involved in a net-work formed of threads, which are tubes of circulation-the vegetable unit. But here we have to deal with. four elements-oxygen, hydrogen, carbon and nitrogenwhich compose the world of organized forms; the water affords the first as its constituent, and gives us carbon in the form of carbonic acid, dissolved in it, nitrogen, surrounding it in the air, is frequently mixed with it also. Under the influence of sunshine, we have now seen these elements uniting in a mysterious bond, and the result is the formation of a cellular tissue, which possesses many of the principles of vegetable growth. If the bare surface of a rock rises above the waters, covered with this thin veil of delicate net-work, it soon forms the basis of a mighty growth. Sea