in the present day, when the world abounds in illustrations of the DONKEY system of the Universe. By the way, we have not, of late, heard much praise of Lord Rosse's famous and gigantic telescope, since, according to newspaper report, Sir James South, by its aid, found the moon to be of a transparent nature,-a formidable and fearful discovery! by which the loss of one Newtonian world is inevitable. Neither is this all, as, by analogy, the roundness of the stars, and their pale colour, similar to that of the moon, would lead to the inference that they are of the same nature as that body, and hence, unless they can be proved to be made of other than crystaline materials, farewell to the theory of the Solar System, as it is utterly impossible for human nature to exist where neither soil nor earth can be!

How just were the prophet Isaiah's remarks on the system founded on the molten calf; of which, metaphorically speaking, he says, that neither line nor plummet, that is, judgment nor righteousness, formed any part of it; so that neither bed nor wrapper, in consequence of the

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absurdity and apostacy of such unscriptural building, could be found for the comfort of man,alluding to its incompetency to bestow the promised heavenly rest!

Now, lest it should be surmised that we cannot bring forward any learned or respectable authority which coincides with our own sentiments regarding the baneful tendency of the Newtonian theory of the solar system, we adduce the following.

Mr. Thomas Baker, the learned antiquary,who was educated and resided in the same University from which Newton's mysterious notions were promulgated,-in his admirable book entitled 'Reflections upon Learning,' &c., which he published about fifteen or twenty years previous to Newton's death, makes the following remarks upon the doctrine of ATTRACTION :

Another incomparable person, who has added mathematical skill to his observations upon nature, after the nicest inquiry, seems to RESOLVE ALL INTO ATTRACTION; which, though it may be true and pious withal, perhaps will not be thought so

philosophical. The truth of it is, we may as well rest there, for, after all, GRAVITATION was never yet solved, and possibly never may; and after men have spent a thousand years longer in these inquiries, they may perhaps sit down at last under ATTRACTION, or may be content to resolve all into the power of the Providence of GOD. And might not that be done as well now? We know little of the CAUSES of things, but may see wisdom enough in every thing: and could we be content to spend as much time in contemplating the wise ENDS of Providence, as we do in searching into causes, it would certainly make us better men, and, I am apt to think, no worse philosophers."

The pious and learned Dr. Scott, a few years after Newton's decease, saw with wonderful clearness the atheistical tendency of his imaginary system, and, with indignant feelings, gave expression to the following sentiments:

"Our celebrated philosopher, whose system I have now under consideration, hath in contradiction to, and therefore in contempt of, (for culpable ignorance doth not excuse men from contempt of

God's Word,) the divinely revealed and demonstratively true Word of God, set forth in the Holy Scriptures, most audaciously presumed to ascribe to imaginary and unknown, and inconceivable and improbable, and therefore incredible causes, those phenomena in nature, whose true, real, and sensibly evident, and self-sufficient cause, God hath been graciously pleased most clearly by revelation and representation, to point out to us in his Holy Scriptures; and by so doing, hath imposed upon the world not only a most false and useless, and unprofitable, but a spiritually injurious system, as will by-and-by be made most clearly and evidently to appear: whereas, had he chosen to have consulted and considered the divine revelations set forth in the Holy Scriptures, when he was about to assign the causes of the phenomena in nature, and to have been applauded rather for pointing out and reviving and restoring to the world those most ancient and beneficial, but greatly neglected and long overlooked, divinely revealed truths, concerning the causes of the phenomena in nature,

than for having been an inventor and discoverer of new, unintelligible, and false and unmechanical, instrumental causes of natural effects, he would have left a truer and more useful system of natural philosophy to the world, by which his memory would have been perpetuated with gratitude and justly acquired praise in all succeeding ages of the world; although his statue might not have found a place among theirs who have eminently, but vainly, laboured to raise natural religion upon the ruins of that which is spiritual and divinely revealed."

There is no reason to doubt the sincerity of Newton's confession in the latter part of his life, -"that he had been amusing himself with trifles, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before him;" because, as Dr. Scott remarks in another place, he ascribed the phenomena in nature "to unknown and inconceivable and improbable, and therefore incredible causes, whose existence in nature cannot possibly be shown, and whose attractions and other actions at immense distances cannot possibly be either sensibly or rationally