SECTION IX.-NECESSITY FOR SAFETY.

The first article of necessity with the wild creatures, before food, is to consult for their safety. Birds look out to see if any danger is at hand before they dare venture to descend to their food, and then they look around every time they dare venture to peck a morsel.

Other wild creatures also are careful to reconnoitre, proceeding with timid caution ere they venture far out from their haunts in pursuit of their prey or in search of food.

With mankind the same might be the case, were they in similar circumstances, surrounded by many implacable and ferocious enemies. Sentinels would have to be posted, and pickets sent out, and reconnoitering parties, before the rest dare venture to their labours from their strongholds; every dwelling of any pretension, as in feudal times, would have to be fortified; surrounded by a rampart and moat, with draw-bridges and watch-towers, as a guard against any sudden

surprise, or assault. Always ready armed to the teeth; leading an unquiet and miserable life, surrounded on all sides by dangers and terrors, like that of the mutually hostile tribes of American savages, mutually pursuing or being pursued to the death,-muffling their feet in mocassins, lest the sound of their footsteps or the marks of the same, should betray their movements to their watchful enemies, going softly all their days, like beasts of prey upon their velvet paws, preserving an awful silence amid the gloomy solitudes of boundless forests, listening to every sound, and disturbed by every leaflet that moves. What improvement in anything could be expected under so awful a system? What of civilization, and the arts of peaceful industry, which require a sure dwelling-place, security, and peace?

Those creatures that have made their peace with man are relieved for the term of their very short-cut lives, from those constant fears for their immediate safety. They find themselves for the time present at least secured against being worried by beasts and birds of

prey under the protection of man everything they stand in need of being supplied to them by his watchful but interested care.

Next to life, bread is said to be the first article of necessity with mankind; but that is not the first necessity-there is another essential more necessary than daily bread, and all other needful supplies; and that is to consult their well-being and safety by securing the love and favour of God, above every other consideration. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness." That is the first necessity, and then all those things your heavenly Father knoweth that ye stand in need of, as food, raiment, and shelter, will be added unto you. Then will he give us his blessing, and show us his salvation;-then will he provide for us, and feed, and clothe, and comfort, and put joy and gladness in our hearts;—then will he bless the labour of our hands, and vouchsafe to us his almighty protection, without which we could not possibly be safe in any place or at any time. The kingdom of God was established before all others,-before the earth

was created, before the vegetable and the animal kingdoms, and the kingdoms of this world. His kingdom ruleth over all, and in you all.

“Let the nations rejoice, and the multitude of the isles be glad thereof, as may all happily hereafter, saying, as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him. For the marriage of the Lamb is come," &c.*

Who reigneth in universal beneficence, who hath created and redeemed all his subjects. It is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves. It is he who hath given to all both temporal and spiritual blessings. The spirits of all are his, and he gave them. And for all these his gratuitous and unnumbered favours and continual mercies, what does he receive from each and all his subjects whom he has created in this world? What does he exact from or levy upon them of tribute, of revenue? As though,

* Rev. xix. 6.

D

like the powers that be among the nations,

he

needed anything! Seeing he giveth to

"And

all, life, and breath, and all things, hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; that I should seek the Lord, if haply they

they

might feel after him, though he be not far from every one of us: for in him we live, and move, and have our being."

SECTION X.-MATER ARTIUM. With the gradually increasing real or artificial wants, desires, and necessities of the more civilized nations, in proportion to their

means

of gratifying the same: useful arts,

sciences, inventions, and public works, have generally kept pace, establishing the truth of that memorable maxim, "Necessitas mater Where no immediate necessity

artium.

was felt, or from means being deficient,

* Acts xvii. 26—28.