2 CHANGE OF FORM. 



is worn away by the soft rains which fall to fertilize, 

 and from their wrecks, borne by the waters to the 

 ocean, new continents are forming. The mutations of 

 the old earth may be read upon her rocks and mountains, 

 and these records of former changes tell us the infallible 

 truth, that as the present passes into the future, so will 

 the form of Earth undergo an important alteration. 

 The same forces which lifted the Andes and the Hima- 

 layas are still at work, and from the particles of matter 

 carried from the present lands by the rivers into the sea, 

 where they subside in stratified masses, there will, in 

 the great future, be raised new worlds, upon which the 

 work of life will go forward, and over which will be 

 spread a vast Intelligence. 



If we regard the conditions of the beautiful and varied 

 organic covering of the Earth, the certainty, the con- 

 stancy, of change is ever before us. Vegetable life 

 passes into the animal form, and both perish to feed the 

 future plant. Man, moving to-day the monarch of a 

 mighty people, in a few years passes back to his primi- 

 tive clod, and that combination of elementary atoms, 

 which is dignified with the circle of sovereignty and the 

 robe of purple, after a period may be sought for in the 

 herbage of the fields, or in the humble flowers of the 

 valley. 



We have, then, this certain truth, all things visible 

 around us are but aggregations of atoms. From parti- 

 cles of dust, which under the microscope could scarcely 

 be distinguished one from the other/ are all the varied 

 forms of nature created. This grain of dust, this particle 

 of sand, has strange properties and powers. Science has 

 discovered some truths, but still more are hidden within 

 this irregular molecule of matter which we now survey, 

 than have yet been shadowed in the dreams of our 

 philosophy. How strangely it obeys the impulses of 

 heat mysterious are the influences of light upon it 

 electricity wonderfully excites it and still more curious 



