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than this, except it be that * breath of life’ by which the ‘dust of the 
earth’ became an ensouled vital substance—a marvel of creative power. 
There is a deep and most wonderful significance in the word ‘breath/ as 
emanating from the great source of life. It was the same quickening 
power that moved upon the ‘face of the waters’ when the earth awoke 
from death into life. It was the body of this ‘earthly tabernacle’ which 
had fallen a prey to death, and not the cherubic element with its flaming 
sword. All the leaves of tradition and history are filled with the most 
beautiful images of poetry, not to say the profoundest truths of science, 
in regard to the perpetually renovating power of the atmosphere. Even 
mythology runs into scientific formularies of physiology when it ap¬ 
proaches the ethereal element; for, as the earth contained alone theprm- 
cijoia or germs of life, so also it contained exclusively those of death. 
If this view of the atmosphere, as the great continent of life, the source 
of perpetual endeavor to produce uses to man, be fanciful, it is a fancy 
suggested by some of the profoundest truths of nature and the highest 
symbolical teachings of mankind. In speaking, however, of nature as a 
living entity; as a force adequate to the production of these uses in the 
material world, we wish to be understood as using the term in that high 
subordinate sense in which it may be considered as having a life in itself, 
but not of and from itself. 
It is true that the atmosphere is constantly undergoing changes ; not 
only great and various changes, but those which are productive of the 
most important, and at times the most violent results. But while there 
are innumerable causes which tend to disturb its equilibrium, there are 
powerful restorative forces, benign and salutary influences, which are 
active in sustaining its freshness, purity and vigor. If the earthquake 
and volcano upheave their sulphureous masses the broad-faced lightning 
cleaves them asunder with his far-reaching bolt, and the deadly and nox¬ 
ious vapors are at once dispersed. Thus, the restorative agents of the 
atmosphere are constantly exemplifying their power—demonstrating their 
superiority over its destructive elements. Every thing in nature is full 
of life, full of activity—bursting into spontaneous birth—under the bal¬ 
samic breath of heaven. The atmosphere is not a sepulchre of death ; 
but a most wonderful laboratory of life—a scene of manifold, diversified, 
unceasing reproduction. It is evident, then, that no long continued and 
