2^1 
servation and reflection in man, which do not enable him to discover 
the connection between a comparatively small, or even only ap- 
parent, 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 vegetables; 
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 perform 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 principles 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 peidod, 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 sub- 
sequent 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, &c. 
