282 RELIGIOUS VIEWS. 



distinguish them from small ones ; and when we 

 disregard the common limits of our own faculties, 

 which, though important to us, can have no ap- 

 plication to the Divine nature, it is quite as al- 

 lowable to suppose a million millions of earths, as 

 one, to be under the moral government of God. 



2. In the next place we may remark, not only 

 that no reason can be assigned why the Divine 

 care should not extend to a much greater number 

 of individuals than we at first imagine, but that 

 in fact we know that it does so extend. It has 

 been well observed, that about the same time 

 when the invention of the telescope showed us 

 that there might be myriads of other worlds 

 claiming the Creator's care ; the invention of the 

 microscope proved to us that there were in our 

 own world myriads of creatures, before unknown, 

 which this care was preserving. While one dis- 

 covery seemed to remove the Divine Providence 

 further from us, the other gave us most striking 

 examples that it was far more active in our neigh- 

 bourhood than we had supposed : while the first 

 extended the boundaries of God's known king- 

 dom, the second made its known administration 

 more minute and careful. It appeared that in the 

 leaf and in the bud, in solids and in fluids, animals 

 existed hitherto unsuspected ; the apparently 

 dead masses and blank spaces of the world were 

 found to swarm with life. And yet, of the 

 animals thus revealed, all, though unknown to 

 us before, had never been forgotten by Provi- 



