FEBRUARY. 49 



C. The brightness of the meteor,, and the rapid and 

 sudden changes of position among the beams, resembling the 

 evolutions of an army, are calculated to strike awe into the 

 minds of the vulgar and ignorant, especially where its appear- 

 ance is an unusual occurrence ; but even here, where it is so 

 common, when an Aurora of unwonted splendour occurs, I have 

 often heard people, sagely shaking their heads, prophesy that 

 " something " is going to happen. 



F. No doubt some of the accounts of armies fighting in 

 the air, of which we read in profane history, may safely be 

 supposed to be nothing more than the Aurora Borealis : but I 

 am very far from thinking with many of the philosophers of 

 our day, that all the portents and wonders of ancient days 

 are to be reduced to the effects of natural causes. Do not 

 these men, endeavouring to be ' ' wise above that which is 

 written," forget that the " immutable laws of nature," so 

 called, are but the laws which God has been pleased to im- 

 pose upon" the objects of His creation, and which he has 

 undoubted right to suspend at His pleasure ? Still farther 

 am I from believing that the clashing hosts, and fiery fal- 

 chions suspended in the air, over devoted Jerusalem, during 

 her last struggle, were, as some would persuade us, but a 

 bright Aurora. Oh ! no : they were foretold by our Lord : 

 " fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven ;" 

 and were no doubt contrived by the skill of the " Prince of 

 the power of the air," who, it was said, should, with his lying 

 wonders, deceive almost the very elect : the reprobate Jews, 

 for their unparalleled sin, being given up to judicial blind- 

 ness, to strong delusion, that they might believe a lie. 

 * But yonder is a light more cheering, if less 



splendid, than the Aurora, the rays from our own cottage 

 windows. 



