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to be deficient," the defect will ever be found in the powers of ob- 

 servation, and reflection of man, which do not enable him to dis- 

 cover the connection, between a comparatively small, or even only 



apparent, evil, and a really great and important good. After a 



short period the waters pass through their destined channels, and 

 the earth again becomes covered by the delightful verdure of vege- 

 tables ; fitted for the gratification of man, and for the support of 

 animal life. The vast forests, too, thus buried in 'the earth, instead 

 of mouldering into an inert and useless mass, still continue to per- 

 form an important part in the operations of nature. Instead of 

 having been destroyed, they are only changed : but so changed in 

 their forms and qualities, as with difficulty again to be recognized. 

 They have ceased, indeed, to live a vegetable life; but another 

 mode of useful existence is allotted them. Their constituent prin- 

 ciples are now so arranged, as to form a substance entirely new, 

 and different from any other which had previously existed; and 

 they are again made, after the lapse of a considerable period, to 

 contribute in another mode to the comforts and enjoyment of man. 

 Thus that which might once have appeared to have proceeded 

 from imbecility, or from a system of destruction, is at a distant 

 subsequent period shown to have been the result of supreme 

 wisdom ; which has ordained that every atom, as well as the 

 immense masses of matter, shall be continually suffering certain 

 changes, agreeable to those laws by which the universe exists. In 

 these processes of nature, the work of a supreme intelligence is 

 discovered ; and none can hesitate to say, with the poet, 



NATURE is but a name for an effect, 

 Whose cause is GOD. 



COWPER. 



Yours, 



