294 STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



conveying light into subjects in general, it is pecu- 

 liarly so when employed in elucidating the truths of 

 religion. Here the force of contrast with which it 

 acts is at the maximum. We bring together the 

 things of heaven and the things of earth ; and be- 

 stow on the most remote and inaccessible objects, 

 some portion of that circumstantial particularity 

 which belongs to those present and visible. To 

 behold truths, in themselves so high above our 

 comprehension, in connection with those which are 

 familiarly inculcated on us by experience^ must 

 call forth our strongest admiration, and powerfully 

 interests us on both sides, but particularly on that of 

 our religion. Divine Wisdom then descends from 

 its etherial seat, as the accessor of the throne of the 

 Eternal, and communes with us face to face, and 

 hand to hand. We find that the subjects of which 

 Scripture treats are not chimeras, not creations of 

 the fancy, which have no substantial existence ; but 

 things which are: things in which we live, and 

 move, and have our being. It no longer appears to 

 us in the light of a scheme, contrived in the bowers 

 of philosophic seclusion, and addressing itself only to 

 the contemplative and impassioned devotee, like the 

 day dreams of the Koran, emerging from the gloom 

 and solitude of the cave of Hara; but it shines 

 forth conspicuously, as an energising principle, as a 

 knowledge which is power, as a work of the Lord, 

 carried on in the passing scene, with which we 

 cannot help sympathising without doing violence to 

 all the principles of our nature."* 



* Hampden. 



