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aurora, &c., were all viewed as special divine interferences, 

 presaging calamities, as war, pestilence or famine. A farmer 

 of Essex, living at the beginning of the last century, would 

 have been agitated with terror had he cast his eyes upward to 

 the skies and discovered a fiery object in the heavens like the 

 one upon which we bestowed so much interest during the last 

 summer months. He could look for no morning newspaper 

 which would explain the nature of the terrifying object, nor 

 was there any source from which a ray of light could be ob- 

 tained. If he turned from the painful object in the skies, to 

 his own surmisings, he gazed into a dark void, which had 

 neither beginning nor ending. 



Meteorological changes and movements were likewise pro- 

 ductive of much apprehension and fear. In seasons of ex- 

 treme drought or flood, upon occurrences of early frosts, when 

 the harvests were in danger, deep gloom pervaded the hearts 

 of all. The loss of a harvest, in those days, meant real 

 suffering, and possibly famine and death. We are pelulant 

 and complaining, if our crops partially or wholly fail, but we 

 are not tormented with fear of famine with all its dreadful 

 consequences. Our facilities of communication are such, 

 thanks to science and art, that we are able to speedily com- 

 mand the crop resources of any portion of a continent reach- 

 ing through many degrees of latitude and many climates, so 

 that failure in them all is impossible. We live in the pleasing 

 consciousness that a want of food is a calamity not probable 

 to continue long enough to cause serious alarm in any part of 

 the country. 



THE UNIVERSE GOVERNED BY LAW. 



The discovery that the movements and operations in nature 

 2 



