MATERIAL UNIVEKSE. 49 



sodium, the base of soda ; calcium, the base of 

 lime, &c. Had these metals been allowed to 

 have become solidified, without having been 

 first acted on by oxygen, they would have been 

 unfit to perform the part assigned them by the 

 Creator ; and the earth would probably never 

 have been the abode of organized vegetable and 

 animal creation. But He, who planned the 

 universe, had fixed unerring laws, by which 

 every material had been gradually carried for- 

 ward towards its ultimate destination. These 

 metallic bodies, then, had been perfectly adapted 

 for their union with oxygen, when the oxygen 

 had been prepared, by its union with hydrogen, 

 to approach them. 



Let us, then, for a moment, examine the effect 

 produced by the union of oxygen with the 

 metals. Take, for instance, calcium, the base 

 of lime, which, we suppose, composed a large 

 portion of the earth's crust. When the oxygen 

 came in contact with it, in its igneous or molten 

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