166 
BliAMBLES AND BAY LEAVES. 
Meantime, the elements wait on man, and combine to 
do him service; he has made matter subservient to his 
will, and in this conquest of the material by the imma¬ 
terial, the world reads the idea of its advancing 
humanity. The lesson is one w 7 hich humbles, because it 
points to a dependence on God, and suggests that there 
are regions into which the mind will yet have to enter to 
learn its spiritual duties, and connect them with its 
conquest of the world. 
“ In whatever light we consider these matters, the 
argument of benevolent design and contrivance, deduced 
from the obvious facts themselves, remains unaltered. 
The care and beneficence of the Creator is not less shown 
in the connexion He has established between physical 
and moral health. The labour which a man is obliged 
to exert to procure for himself the necessaries of life, is 
not less essential to the maintenance of a healthy tone of 
mind than of a sound and active condition of the bodily 
organism. No evil can be greater than the rust, alike 
of body and soul, which results from inactivity. The 
state of labour is the very condition of enjoyment; not, 
indeed, the excessive and slavish toil to which a very large 
portion of mankind have, by a most unfortunate combina¬ 
tion of circumstances, been reduced; but that moderate 
and well-regulated labour of mind and body which 
conduces so much to the welfare of both, and which 
would be, under more favourable auspices, fully sufficient 
to impart comfort and abundance to all. If men only 
knew and felt how inseparably their own individual 
happiness is connected with the welfare and prosperity 
of their species ; if those who have intellect and power, 
