446 UNITY OP DESIGN. 



the sea-shore. Compared, indeed, with the magnitude of 

 the universe, how narrow is the field of our perceptions, and 

 how far distant from any approximation to a knowledge of 

 the essence of matter, of the source of its powers, or even 

 of the ultimate configurations of its parts! How remote 

 from all human cognizance are the intimate properties of 

 those imponderable agents, Light, Heat, and Electricity, 

 which pervade space, and exercise so potent a control over 

 all the bodies in nature! Doubtless, there exist around us, 

 on every side, influences of a still more subtle kind, which 

 " eye hath not seen, nor ear heard," neither can it enter into 

 the heart or imagination of man to conceive. How scanty 

 is our knowledge of the mind; how incomprehensible is its 

 connexion with the body; how mysterious are its secret 

 springs, and inmost workings! What ineffable wonders 

 would burst upon us, were we admitted to the perception of 

 the spiritual world, now encompassed by clouds impervious 

 to mortal vision! 



The Great Author of our being, who, while he has been 

 pleased to confer on us the gift of reason, has prescribed cer- 

 tain limits to its powers, permits us to acquire, by its exer- 

 cise, a knowledge of some of the wondrous works of his 

 creation, to interpret the characters of wisdom and of good- 

 ness with which they are impressed, and to join our voice 

 to the general chorus which proclaims " His Might, Ma- 

 jesty, and Dominion." From the same gracious hand we 

 also derive that unquenchable thirst for knowledge, which 

 this fleeting life must ever leave unsatisfied; those endow- 

 ments of the moral sense, with which the present constitu- 

 tion of the world so ill accords; and that innate desire of per- 

 fection which our present frail condition is so inadequate to 

 fulfil. But it is not given to man to penetrate into the coun- 

 sels, or fathom the designs of Omnipotence; for in directing 

 his views into futurity, the feeble light of his reason is scat- 

 tered and lost in the vast abyss. Although we plainly dis- 

 cern intention in every part of the creation, the grand ob- 

 ject of the whole is placed far above the scope of our com- 



