THOMAS CHALMERS.

THOMAS CHALMERS, Professor of Divinity in the University of Edinburgh, the foremost leader in the ecclesiastical policy which resulted in the establishment of the Free Church of Scotland, and author of its constitution, was born A.D. 1780, and died 1847. Of the twenty-five volumes of his works, the chief are his Astronomical and Commercial Discourses, Lectures on Natural Theology, Bridgewater Treatise on the Mental and Moral Constitution of Man, etc.

THE TELESCOPE AND THE MICROSCOPE.

ABOUT the time of the invention of the telescope, another instrument was formed which laid open a scene no less wonderful, and rewarded the inquisitive spirit of man with discoveries no less important; it was the microscope. The one led me to see a system in every star; the other leads me to see a world in every atom. The one taught me that this mighty globe, with the whole burden of its countries and its peoples, is but a grain of sand in the field of immensity; the other teaches me that every grain of sand may harbour within it tribes and families. The one told me of the insignificance of the world I tread upon; the other redeems it from all that insignificance, for it tells me that in the leaves of the forest, in the flowers of the garden, in the waters of the rivulet, there are worlds teeming with life, and numberless as are the glories of the firmament.

The one has suggested to me that, beyond and above all that is visible to man, there may be fields of creation which sweep immeasurably along, and carry this impress of the Almighty's hand to the remotest parts of the universe; the other suggests to me that, within and beneath all that minuteness which the unaided eye of man can explore, there may be a region of invisibles; and that, could we draw aside the mysterious curtain which shrouds it from our senses, we might see a theatre of as many wonders as astronomy has unfolded, a universe within a point so small as to elude the powers of the microscope,

but where the wonder-working God finds room for the exercise of His attributes, where He can raise another mechanism of worlds, and fill them with the evidences of His glory.

By the telescope we have discovered that no magnitude, however vast, is beyond the grasp of the Divinity; by the microscope we have also discovered that no minuteness, however shrunk from the notice of the human eye, is beneath His regard. Every addition to the powers of the one instrument extends the limit of His visible dominions; but by every addition to the powers of the other, we see each part of them more crowded than before with the wonders of His unwearying hand. By the one I am told that the Almighty is now at work in regions more distant than geometry has ever measured, and among worlds more numerous than numbers have ever reached; but by the other I am also told that, with a mind to comprehend the whole in the vast compass of its generality, He has also a mind to concentrate a close and a separate attention on each and all of its particulars; and that the same God who sends forth His upholding influence among the orbs and movements of astronomy, can fill the recesses of every single atom with the intimacy of His presence, and travel in all the greatness of His attributes upon every one spot and corner of the universe He has formed.

They, therefore, who say that God will not put forth such a power and such a goodness, in behalf of this world, as are ascribed to Him in the New Testament, because He has so many other worlds to attend to, think of Him as a man; they confine their views to the informations of the telescope, and forget those of the other instrument. They find room in their minds for His one attribute of a large and general superintendence, and keep out of their remembrance the equally impressive proofs we have for His other attribute of a minute and multiplied attention to all the diversity of operations where it is He that worketh all in all.

And when I think that as one of the instruments of philosophy has heightened every impression of the first

of these attributes, so another has no less heightened our impression of the second of them, then I can no longer resist the conclusion that it would be a transgression of sound argument, as well as a daring impiety, to draw a limit around the doings of this unsearchable God. And should a revelation from heaven tell me of an act of condescension in behalf of some separate world so wonderful that angels desire to look into it, and the Eternal Son of Glory had to move from His seat of glory to carry it into accomplishment, all I ask is the evidence of such revelation; for, let it tell me as much as it may of God letting Himself down for the benefit of one small portion of His dominions, this is no more than what I see lying scattered in numberless examples before me, running through the whole line of my recollections, and meeting me in every walk of observation to which I can betake myself. And now that the microscope has unfolded the wonders of another region, I see strewed around me, with a profusion which baffles my every attempt to comprehend it, the evidence that there is no one portion of the universe of God too minute for His notice, or too humble for the visitations of His care.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, poet and metaphysician, was born A.D. 1771, and died in 1834. Of his poems may be mentioned, the Ancient Mariner, Christabel, Khubla Khan, Love, etc.; and of his prose works, Aids to Reflection, The Friend, Biographia Literaria, etc.

TOLERATION-NOT INDIFFERENCE.

As far as opinions-not motives, principles, and not men, are concerned, I neither am tolerant, nor wish to be regarded as such. According to my judgment, it is ostentation, or a poor trick that hypocrisy plays with the cards, when a man makes protestation of being perfectly

tolerant of all principles, opinions, and persuasions, those alone excepted which render the holders intolerant. For he either means by this, that he is utterly indifferent toward all truth, and finds insufferable the persuasion of there being any such mighty importance attached to it as should give a marked preference to one conviction above any other, or else he means nothing, and amuses himself with articulating the pulses of the air, instead of inhaling it in the more healthful and profitable exercise of yawning.

That which doth not withstand, hath itself no standing place. To fill a station is to exclude and repel others; and this is not less the definition of moral, than of material solidity. We live by continued acts of defence, that involve a kind of offensive warfare. But a man's principles, on which he grounds his hope and his faith, are the life of his life. We live by faith, says the philosophic apostle; and faith without principles is but a flattering phrase for wilful positiveness, or fanatical bodily sensation. Well, and of good right therefore, do we maintain with more zeal, than we should defend body and estate, a deep and inward conviction, which is as the moon to us, and like the moon with all its massy shadows and deceptive gleams, yet lights us on our way, poor travellers as we are, and benighted pilgrims. With all its spots, and its changes, and temporary eclipses, with all its vain halos and bedimming vapours, it yet reflects the light that is to rise upon us, though intercepted from our view by the mountains that inclose and frown upon the vale of our mortal life.

This again is the mystery and the dignity of our human nature, that we cannot give up our reason, without giving up our individual personality. For that must appear to each man to be his reason, which produces in him the highest sense of certainty; and yet it is not reason, except in so far as it is of universal validity and obliga tory on all mankind. There is one heart for the whole mighty mass of humanity, and every pulse in each par ticular vessel strives to beat in concert with it,

He who asserts that truth is of no importance, except in the signification of sincerity, confounds sense with madness, and the Word of God with a dream. If the power of reason be the gift of the Supreme Reason, that we be sedulous, nay, militant, in the endeavour to reason aright, is His implied command. But what is of permanent and essential interest to one, must needs be so to all, in proportion to the means and opportunities of each. Woe to him by whom these are neglected, and double woe to him by whom they are withholden, for he robs at once himself and his neighbour. That man's soul is not dear to himself, to whom the souls of his brethren are not dear. As far as they can be influenced by him, they are parts and properties of his own soul, their faith his faith, their errors his burthen, their righteousness and bliss his righteousness and reward, and of their guilt and misery his own will be the echo.

It has been said, "The Brahmin believes that every man will be saved in his own persuasion, and that all religions are equally pleasing to the God of all. The Christian confines salvation to the believer in his own Vedas and Shasters. Which is the more humane and philosophic creed of the two?"

Let question answer question. Whom meanest thou by God? The God of truth? and can He be pleased with falsehood, and the debasement or utter suspension of the reason which He gave to man, that He might receive from him the sacrifice of truth? Or the God of love? and can He be pleased with the blood poured out under the wheels of Juggernaut, or with the shrieks of children offered up as fire-offerings to Baal or to Moloch? Or dost thou mean the God of holiness? and can He be pleased with abominations and more than brutal defilements, and equally pleased as with that religion, which commands us that we have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but reprove them-but I check myself.

It is at once folly and profanation of truth, to reason with the man who can place before his eyes a minister of the Gospel directing the gaze of the widow from the