2o8 Natural Theology. 



of properties and relations, but each property and 

 relation apparently a special provision for the organic 

 kingdom, and many of its properties evidently hav- 

 ing reference to man himself. We have no doubt 

 the diamond was made to delight man by its beauty, 

 and that the coal was stored up for his use. If its 

 affinities were different from what they now are, it 

 would 'not withstand the agencies of nature as it 

 now does, or it would defy them. But now it does 

 service in untold ways for man. 



How easily it is conveyed over the world when 

 changed to gas ! Having done its work as carbon, 

 it must now be distributed and brought in contact 

 with vegetation to perform its work anew. We 

 need not recount all its nicely-balanced affinities, 

 by which at a high temperature it combines like a 

 giant in strength, and then under the soft sunbeam 

 playing upon the leaf, relaxes its grasp and becomes 

 an obedient servant under the ordinary power of 

 life in arr organic being. 



These four elements now considered, were they 

 alone known to science, would be enough to 

 establish the proof of design in the constitution 

 of matter. Every plant that clothes the earth, 

 every animal on the land and in the waters, as well 

 as the unnumbered tribes buried in the earth, 

 declare the wonderful fitness of these four elements 

 for producing the myriad forms of organic beings 

 that have appeared upon the globe. We have not 

 here simply a thousand chances to one in favor of 

 design, but they are millions to one. For these 



