VISION. 39,9 



of remote analogies or vague conjecture. Wherever 

 we fortunately succeed in decypliering any con- 

 tinued portion of the discourse, we find it charac- 

 terized by that perfection of style, and grandeur 

 of conception, which at once reveal a masters 

 hand, and which kindle in us the most ardent de- 

 sire of supplying the wide chasms perpetually in- 

 tervening in the mysterious and inspiring narrative. 

 But in the subject which now claims our attention 

 we have been permitted to trace, for a considerable 

 extent, the continuity of the design, and the 

 lengthened series of means employed for carrying 

 that design into execution ; and the view which is 

 thus unfolded of the magnificent scheme of crea- 

 tion is calculated to give us the most sublime ideas 



of THE WISDOM, THE POWER, AND THE BENEVOLENCE 



OF God. 



On none of the works of the Creator, which we 

 are permitted to behold, have the characters of 

 intention been more deeply and legibly engraved 

 than on the organ of vision, where the relation of 

 every part to the effect intended to be produced is 

 too evident to be mistaken, and the mode in which 

 they operate is at once placed within the range of 

 our comprehension. Of all the animal structures, 

 this is, perhaps, the one which most admits of being 

 brought into close comparison with the works of 

 human art ; for the eye is, in truth, a refined 

 optical instrument, the perfection of which can 

 never be fully appreciated until we have instituted 

 such a comparison ; and the most profound scientific 

 investigations of the anatomy and physiology of 

 the eye concur in showing that the whole of its 

 structure is most accurately and skilfully adapted 



