LESSON XXVIII. 



ON FIRE. 



Fire, thou swift herald of His face, 

 Whose glorious rage, at his command, 

 Levels a palace with the sand, 

 Blending the loft; spires in rin with the base! 

 Ye heavenly flumes that singe the air, 



Artillery of a jealous God; 

 Bright arrows that his sounding quivers bear, 



To scatter deaths abroad : 



Lightnings, adore the Sovereign Arm that flings 

 His vengeance, and your fires upon the heads of kings. 



WATTS. 



IN our contemplations, we will now make a 

 transition, to consider the advantages, nature, and 

 effects, of that wonderful agent of nature called 

 Fire : and here we shall find numerous reasons fc* 

 increasing in gratitude and love to the beneficent 

 POWER who produced so astonishing an element 

 chiefly for our use. If there were no such thing as 

 fire, in what would the earth we inhabit, after the 

 setting of the sun, covered with cloudy and noc- 

 turnal vapours, differ from the most dismal sub- 

 terraneous caverns and dungeons j since, during 

 such time, no man would be able to dispatch any 

 I & kind 



