450 THE MICROSCOPE. 



contrived without skill in optics ?" or with the divine Psalmist : " He 

 that formed the eye, shall He not see ?" 



By vision, aided by knowledge, we pierce into the heavens and 

 the interior of bodies,, examine the minutest fragments of matter, and 

 the universe of stars ; by our motion on the surface of the globe, and 

 by its motion, we measure space, and are at once convinced that the 

 infinitely small, and the infinitely great, of which we get an idea by 

 vision, have for us no bounds — nothing that we can reach and measure. 

 Infinity is every where around us, and the evidences of this revealed 

 by the microscope carry with them convictions that are not to be sur- 

 passed for their solemnity and grandeur. 



The restless curiosity of the human intellect led to the invention 

 of the telescope, by which man daringly pierced the mysterious and 

 illimitable space above us ; revealing to his understanding a great and 

 wonderful series of worlds lost to his unaided powers of vision ; while, 

 by the microscope, he has discovered an animal, vegetable, and mineral 

 kingdom, of which he was previously ignorant, on account of its minute- 

 ness placing it beyond the keenest observation of the naked eye. In 

 this last-named, new, and amazing world there is displayed a beauty, 

 a perfection, adaptation, and reproduction, surprisingly surpassing 

 those objects with which we are familiar in every-day life. With the 

 microscope we search into the mysteries of creation, and detect many 

 of the secret workings of nature. We see the utility of a busy, mul- 

 titudinous, invisible world of animal life, to the health, comfort, and 

 preservation of human-kind ; and the unbounded love of God in the 

 admirable secret provisions for the unceasing changes in the form of 

 matter. The more powerful the,instrument, the more astounding its 

 revelations; until we marvel in what sized atom organic matter ceases; 

 and our facts become stranger than fiction, and far beyond the ima- 

 ginings of the most poetic brain. 



How vast, indeed, is the variety of forms under which organised 

 nature exists ! How endless the number of animals and plants that 

 people and adorn the globe ! Day after day brings us acquainted with 

 species hitherto unknown ; and it seems as if the door of discovery is 

 never to be closed. Whenever a new country is visited, animals and 

 plants, different from what had before either been known or imagined, , 

 are discovered ; but how many regions will remain to be explored in 

 that, as yet almost unknown country, which belongs to the microscope, 

 after every spot of the earth shall have been described and laid down 

 accurately in the map 1 



What we know at present, even of things the most near and 



