christian theory of its greatness. My purpose in this discourse is not to penetrate into the wisdom of its deeper relations, but to confine myself to its humblest aspects, and to things that are known and acknowledged to be matters of fact.

With this view, I proceed to observe in the last place, that every thing in this life bears traits that may well stir our minds to admiration and wonder.

How mysterious is the connection of mind with matter; of the act of my will with the motion of my hand; this wonderful telegraphic communication between the brain and every part of the body! We talk of nerves; but how knoweth the nerve in my finger, of the will that moves it? We talk of the will: but what is it, and how does its commanding act originate? It is all mystery. Within this folding veil of flesh, within these dark channels, every instant's action is a history of miracles. Every familiar step is more than a story in a land of enchantment. Were the marble statue before us, suddenly endowed with that self-moving power, it would not be intrinsically more wonderful than is the action of every being around us.

The human face is itself a wonder. I do not mean in its beauty, nor in its power of expression; but in its variety and its individuality. What is the problem that is here solved? Suppose it were stated thus: given, a space nine inches long and six inches broad; the form essentially the same, the features the same, the colors the same; required, unnumbered hundreds of millions of countenances so entirely different, as, with some rare exceptions, to be completely and easily distinguishable. Would not the whole mechanical ingenuity of the world

be thrown into utter despair of approaching any way towards such a result? And yet it is completely achieved in the human countenance. Yes, the familiar faces that are around us bear mysteries and marvels in every look.

Again, the house thou dwellest in-that familiar abode-what holds it together, and secures. it on its firm foundation? Joint to joint, beam to beam, every post to its socket, is swathed and fastened by the mighty bands that hold ten thousand worlds in their orbits. This is no phantasm of the imagination; it is the philosophical fact. All actual motion, and all seeming rest, are determined by unnumbered, most nicely balanced, and at the same time, immeasurable influences and attractions. Universal harmony springs from infinite complication. And therefore, every step thou takest in thy dwelling-still I only repeat what philosophers have proved-the momentum of every step, I say, contributes its part to the order of the universe.

What then is a life, conscious of these stupendous relations, and what are its humblest dwellings? If you lived in a palace that covered an hundred miles of territory, and if the stamping of your foot could convey an order to its farthest limits, you would feel that that, indeed, was power and grandeur. But you live in a system of things, you dwell in a palace, whose dome is spread out in the boundless skies, whose lights are hung in the wide arches of heaven, whose foundations are longer far than the earth and broader far than the sea, and you are connected by ties of thought, and even of matter, with its whole boundless extent. If your earthly dwelling, your house of life, were lifted up and borne visibly among the stars,

guarded with power and clothed with light, you would feel that that was a sublime fortune for any being to enjoy. To ride in a royal chariot would be a small thing compared with that. But you are borne onward among the celestial spheres; rolling worlds are around you; bright, starry abodes fill all the coasts and skies of heaven; you are borne and kept by powers-silent and unperceived indeed but real and boundless as the immeasurable universe.

The infinite, we allow is mysterious; but not less so, in truth, is the finite and the small. It is said that man cannot comprehend infinity. It is true, and yet it is falsely said in one respect. The declaration that we cannot understand infinity, usually conveys the implication that we can comprehend that which is the opposite of infinity, that is, the little scene around us. But the humblest object beneath our eye as completely defies our scrutiny, as the economy of the most distant world. Every spire of grass, of which the scythe mows down millions in an hour, holds within it secrets, which no hu. man penetration ever fathomed. Examine it with the microscope, and you shall find a beautiful organization; channels for the vital juices to flow in; some to nourish the stalk; others, to provide for the flower and prepare the seed; other instruments still, to secrete the nutriment that flows up from the soil, and to deposit and incorporate it with the plant; and altogether, a mechanism more curious than any, perhaps, ever formed by the ingenuity of man. And yet there are questions here, which the profoundest philosopher cannot answer. What is the principle of life,-without which, though the whole organization remains, the plant dies? And what is that

wonderful power of secretion? No man can tell. There are inscrutable mysteries, wrapped up in the foldings of that humble spire of grass.

Sit down now, and take thy pen, and spread out thine account, as some writers have done, of the insignificance of human life. But wilt thou pause a little and tell me first, how that pen was formed wherewith thou art writing, and that table whereon thy tablets are laid? Thou canst tell neither. Wilt thou not pause then, when the very instruments thou art using, should startle thee into astonishment? Lay thine hand where thou wilt and thou layest it on the hiding bosom of mystery. Step where thou wilt, and thou dost tread upon a land of wonder. No fabled land of enchantment ever was filled with such startling tokens. So fraught are all things with this moral significance that nothing can refuse its behest. The furrows of the field, the clods of the valley, the dull beaten path, the insensible rock, are trod over and in every direction, with this hand-writing, more significant and sublime than all the beetling ruins and all the buried cities, that past generations have left upon the earth. It is the hand-writing of the Almighty!

In fine, the history of the humblest human life is a tale of marvels. There is no dull or unmeaning thing in existence, did we but understand it; there is not one of our employments, no, nor one of our states of mind, but. is, could we interpret it, as significant-not as instructive, but as significant as holy writ. Experience, sensation, feeling, suffering, rejoicing-what a world of meaning and of wonder lies in the modes and changes and strugglings and soarings of the life in which these are bound up. If it were but new, if we had been cast upon "this shore of

being" without those intervening steps of childhood that have now made it familiar ground, how had we been wrapt in astonishment, at every thing around, and every thing within us!

ence.

I have endeavoured in the present discourse-perhaps in vain to touch this sense of wonder: to arouse attention to the startling and awful intimations, to the striking and monitory lessons and warnings of our present existAnd if some of the topics and suggestions of my discourse have been vague and shadowy, yet I am ready to say-better to be startled by the shadows of truth, than to sleep beneath its noontide ray better to be aroused by the visions of a dream, than to slumber on in profound unconsciousness of all the signs and wonders of our being. Oh! that I couid tear off, this dreadful commonplace of life, and show you what it is. no want then, of entertainment or excitement, no need of journeys or shows or tales to interest us; the every-day world would be more than theatres or spectacles; and life all-piercing, all-spiritual, would be more than the most vivid dream of romance-how much more than the most eager pursuit of pleasure or profit!

There would be

My Brethren, there is a vision like that of Eliphaz, stealing upon us, if we would mark it, through the vails of every evening's shadows, or coming in the morning with the mysterious revival of thought and consciousness; there is a message whispering in the stirred leaves, or starting beneath the clods of the field, in the life that is everywhere bursting from its bosom. Every thing around us images a spiritual life-all forms, modes, processes, changes, though we discern them not. Our great business with life is so to read the book of its teaching,—to