146 ACTION OF HEAT. 



cally united, how small and how close soever the 

 masses may be, which can resist the force of crys- 

 tallization between the ultimate atoms of the same 

 kind of matter ; so also there is no power of crys- 

 tallization, that can ultimately resist the force or 

 action of heat. It is heat indeed which holds those 

 powers of crystallization in restraint, and allows 

 compounds to be formed and vegetables to grow, and 

 animals to live ; and were it not for the mysterious 

 motion of heat, which, for aught we know, may all 

 have been originally produced by the sunbeams, 

 the earth would not only be plantless and tenant- 

 less ; but earth, and sea, and sky would be reduced 

 to one mass of crystals, probably to one crystal, 

 and that crystal so small, and so near the verge of 

 that mysterious nothing out of which Almighty 

 power and goodness evolved all the worlds in all 

 their variety and in all their beauty, that it might 

 escape the senses, and we might be altogether un- 

 conscious of its existence. With God all things 

 are possible, and in his sight there is no miracle. 

 Large as is the earth, vast as is the solar system, 

 boundless as are those systems of which the suns 

 are the stars of our sky, and indescribably distant 

 as they glide off into the depths of space, and set 

 at nought the eye and mock the telescope, they, 

 in their, to us, innumerable multitude and incom- 

 prehensible variety, are in his sight less than the 

 " small dust of the balance;" and howsoever they 

 may seem or change appearances, they all obey 

 the one commandment the single creative fiat. 

 When we glance back to the first stage of crea- 

 tion's history, which it is consistent with finite 

 minds to comprehend, weight and measure, time 

 and space, gradually melt from our view, and 



