35 
the Union becomes more crowded for business or amusement, all whe- 
ther in private or public life, will also have in it a place of resort in their 
leisure, more instructive than gaming or the bottle, or too much of the 
frivolities of fashion ; and the influences of this for good, like those 
of the invisible dews, must be more and more felt through the whole re- 
public, and to the remotest posterity. And not the least of the advantages 
will be, that which flows to mankind from all kinds of encouragement 
to scientific developments of the laws which pervade and control every 
part of creation — I mean the increased moral and religious feeling they 
are calculated to inspire. Instead of tending to check this, as some fear, 
they are, in truth, a revelation of, and from God, almost as striking as 
ever was written on tables of stone, or by the pen of prophet or evan- 
gelist. Nature is thus full of apostles from on high. And if an unde- 
vout astronomer has justly been denounced as mad, how truly must that 
person have eaten of the “ insane root,” who can trace out similar ways of 
Providence even in a dew drop, or ray of light, no less than loftier ob- 
jects, and not become, at the same moment, more humble in the visible 
presence of such Almighty wisdom, and more disposed to obey all his 
'wonderful laws. 
