s behind him; often called away
before he has time to make it known, reserving the fond secret till too
late; still clinging to life, and all that makes life dear to him.
Often does the communication, made from the couch of death, in
half-articulated words, prove so imperfect, that the knowledge of its
existence is of no avail unto his intended heirs; and thus it is, that
millions return again to the earth from which they have been gathered
with such toil. What avarice has dug up, avarice buries again; perhaps
in future ages to be regained by labour, when, from the chemical powers
of eternal and mysterious Nature, they have again been filtered through
the indurated earth, and reassumed the form and the appearance of the
metal which has lain in darkness since the creation of the world.

Is not this part of the grand principle of the universe? the eternal
cycle of reproduction and decay, pervading all and every thing, blindly
contributed to by the folly and the wickedness of man? "So far shalt
thou go, but no further," was the fiat; and, arrived at the prescribed
limit, we must commence again. At this moment intellect has seized upon
the seven-league boots of the fable, which fitted every body who drew
them on, and strides over the universe. How soon, as on the decay of
the Roman empire, may all the piles of learning which human endeavours
would rear as a tower of Babel to scale the heavens, disappear, leaving
but fragments to future generations, as proofs of pre-existent
knowledge! Whether we refer to nature or to art, to knowledge or to
power, to accumulation or destruction, bounds have been prescribed which
man can never pass, guarded as they are by the same unerring and unseen
Power, which threw the planets from his hand, to roll in their appointed
orbits. All appears confused below, but all is clear in heaven.

I have somewhere heard it said, that where heaven may be, those who
reach it will behold the mechanism of the universe in its perfection.
Those stars now studding the firmament in such apparent confusion, will
there appear in all their regularity, as worlds revolving in their
several orbits, round suns that gladden them with light and heat, all in
harmony, all in beauty, rejoicing as they roll their destined course in
obedience to the Almighty fiat; one vast, stupendous, and, to the limits
of our present senses, incomprehensible mechanism, perfect in all its
parts, most wonderful in the whole. Nor do I