292 CONCLUSIONARY REFLECTIONS. 



faculties of that mind, which formed all these be increased '. 

 How heartfelt and unassumed a sense of humility, a virtue 

 which maybe justly considered the most distinguished orna- 

 ment of man, must take the place of those presumptuous 

 ideas and opinions which are too often to be found in the 

 minds of those who are unfortunately ignorant of the great 

 truths that are only to be found in the book of nature, and 

 which it is the business of science to reveal. 



The meanest insect we can see, nay, the minutest and 

 most contemptible weed we can tread upon, is really suf- 

 ficient to confound Atheism,* and baffle all its pretensions. 

 How much more astonishing is that variety and multiplicity 

 of God's works with which we are continually surrounded '. 

 Let any man survey the face of the earth, or lift up his 

 eyes to the firmament ; let him consider the nature and in- 

 stincts of the lower animals, and afterwards examine the 

 operations of his own mind ; will he then presume to say 

 or to suppose that all the objects he meets with are nothing 

 more than the result of unaccountable accidents and blind 

 chance ? Can he possibly imagine that such wonderful order 

 should spring out of confusion ? Or that such perfect beauty 

 should even be formed by the fortuitous operations of un- 

 concious, inactive particles of matter '? As well, nay, better, 

 and more easily, might we suppose that the earthquake 

 might happen to build towns and cities; or the materials 

 carried clown by a flood, fit themselves up without human 

 hands into a regular fleet. For what are towns, cities, or 

 fleets, in comparison with the vast and amazing fabric of 

 the Universe? The answer is promptly given: Nothing. 



The pious Bishop Watson remarked, he had long thought 

 the motions of the heavenly bodies, the propagation and 



* I did not conceive that there was such a being as an Atheist exist- 

 ing ; but unfortunately, at the last November Old Bailey Sessions, two mis- 

 guided individuals avowed themselves confirmed Atheists : earnestly do I 

 hope they may be convinced of their unbelief, and returned to the paths 

 of religion and happiness. 



