220 Natural Theology. 



various disguises. At first view this seems beyond 

 human power. A vast globe is to be investigated. 

 Were there no order nor law in the structure of 

 minerals the task would be hopeless. For where 

 there is no relationship, the study of one object can 

 give no aid in understanding anotner. Any ar- 

 rangement not founded upon like nature, is only an 

 arbitrary placing, which is no sign of progress in 

 any de ; artment of science But all of these objects 

 in the mineral kingdom have a definite plan, and 

 each one has a relationship to some other. Upon 

 every one of them are stamped the characters 

 by which its nature may be known by those who 

 look with patient study. And nothing in the de- 

 partment of mind is given without labor. Any 

 scheme that should fail to tax and draw out the 

 mental powers, would so far be wanting in evidence 

 of design. We find here a system that leads the 

 mind on from one discovery to another, ever calling 

 for greater and greater power, and ever meeting 

 its highest requisitions by the perfection of the 

 relations when discovered. What more fitting pro- 

 vision than this can be conceived of? There is 

 engraven within the very structure of all the mine- 

 rals of the globe a story, an autobiography, that 

 unrolls the more, the longer we gaze upon it. It is 

 perfect, for the writing is a transcript by their Maker 

 of the nature He has given them ; not like the 

 daguerreotype, the very shadow, but the very thing 

 itself. It is the nature given by God, manifested in 

 all these sensible signs- by which the thing is 



