AS RELATED TO INTELLECT. 25 



in understanding another. Any arrangement not 

 founded upon like nature is only an arbitrary placing, 

 which is no sign of progress in any department. 

 But these have each a definite plan, and each a 

 relationship to some other. And upon them are 

 stamped the characters by which their nature may 

 be known, by those who look with patient study. 

 There is engraven within their very structure 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 those sensible signs 

 by which the thing is known. 



A celebrated mineralogist was once asked how he 

 knew that a certain body had fallen from the heav- 

 ens, which he was giving thousands of dollars for, to 

 enrich his collections of meteorites. His answer was, 

 " I see the finger-marks of the Almighty stamped 

 upon every part of it." This might seem a bold 

 expression, or as indicating some wonderful property 



in those bodies that fall from the heavens. But if 



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