UNIVERSAL DREAD OF MAN. 



not find it ; and though a man think to know it, 

 yet shall he not be able." But the contemplation 

 is not wholly an unworthy occupation of time. All 

 ages, all people, must have perceived the admitted 

 power and universal dread occasioned by the pre- 

 sence of man, but no reason, no motive, could have 

 been assigned for it ; but in these days, by revela- 

 tion, we know the cause, have impressed upon our 

 minds the immutable truth of that Being which 

 ordained, and of that volume which has proclaimed 

 his mandate to us. But man has the power as- 

 signed him of calling to his aid a visible object of 

 dread, confided to him from the earliest periods ; 

 and he alone of all created beings has the agency 

 of this terror. All the inferior orders have a fear 

 of it, and flee from it, even when its effects could 

 never have been known or experienced, but which 

 appears to be innate and inseparable from all. 

 Man alone has the knowledge, the means of calling 

 heat into action ; and though warmth is the de- 

 light, and essential to the being of most, yet, rouse 

 it into active operation producing fire, and terror 

 and flight succeed enjoyment and rest: it deters 

 the approach of the most ferocious, and man and 

 his charge abide unharmed when surrounded by 

 the terror he has raised. In addition to the many 

 characters given as a definition of man, we might 

 call him a fire-producing creature. 



The end of our summer months, and the autum- 



