OF GROWTH IN TREES. 101 



electricity (those forces which control matter), are also eternal. 

 And why should not mind be immortal mind, the highest force 

 in the universe, which now guides the lightnings, and to form 

 and advance which is the design of this vast system of sea and 

 land, air and skies? It is natural for a noble mind to desire 

 immortality. But if man is not immortal, then in vain a nation 

 weeps for its mighty dead, and erects its noblest cenotaphs. 

 Where will they be when the perpetual beat of ocean shall have 

 shattered to ashes these continents, and the Alps and the Andes, 

 those majestic monuments of Nature, lie entombed under its 

 rolling waters? Matter and the forces which govern it are 

 eternal, and human life, (I mean that life which we have in 

 common with plants,) is a mere integral* portion of eternity; 

 yet, why doubt the immortality of that higher manifestation of 

 life called mind, when it can sweep over the vastness of Nature 

 and unfold the principles of things? If the value of man is to 

 be estimated by the duration of his frail and perishable body, 

 then is he of less importance than 'the tree which he fells for 

 timber, for that frequently outlives him and his successive gen- 

 erations. Oh, let us not think thus meanly of ourselves ! The 

 mind is the man ; and " one living mind is worth more than a 

 dead universe." Never can I sympathise with those who seek 

 to inspire man with low, reptile feelings, and try to shame 

 him out of his trust in his Creator ! What moral good can 

 ever result to the human race from the advocacy of such 

 sentiments ? 



I see the sun now sinking in the West. He is casting his 



All the researches of science tend to show that matter has always been subject 

 to law. It is not impossible for the matter of our earth to have existed in 

 some other form anterior to its attraction together about the earth's centre, 

 and when the earth shall have answered the purposes of its creation, when 

 she shall grow weary in her diurnal march, and the ocean roll its last billow, 

 the winds breathe their last gasp, may not the matter of the earth, like that 

 of one of the beautiful trees and flowers which have disappeared from its 

 surface, still be in existence, and reappear again in some other form, to beau- 

 tify the heavens and go through another grand cycle of change ? 



* Integral, the sum of a series of differentials or infinitely small quantities. 

 The moments of human life are ita differentials, and human life itself is their 

 sum or integral. 



