bend in humble adoration before a wisdom which we cannot
fathom, and a power which we cannot comprehend, it directs our attention
to a display of moral attributes which at once challenge our reverence
and demand our imitation. By thus leading us to compare ourselves with
the supreme excellence, it tends to produce true humility, and, at the
same time, that habitual aspiration after moral improvement which
constitutes the highest state of man. "The proud," says an eloquent
writer, "look down upon the earth, and see nothing that creeps upon its
surface more noble than themselves;--the humble look upwards to their
God." This disposition of mind, so far from being opposed to the
acquirements of philosophy, sits with peculiar grace upon the man who,
through the most zealous cultivation of human science, ascends to the
Eternal Cause. The farther he advances in the wonders of nature, the
higher he rises in his adoration of the power and the wisdom which guide
the whole;--"Where others see a sun, he sees a Deity." And then, in
every step of life, whether of danger, distress, or difficulty, the man
who cultivates this intercourse with the incomprehensible One "inquires
in his temple." He inquires for the guidance of divine wisdom, and the
strength of divine aid, in his progress through the state of moral
discipline;--he inquires, in a peculiar manner, for this aid in the
culture of his moral being, when he views this mighty undertaking in its
important reference to the life which is to come;--he inquires for a
discernment of the ways of Divine Providence, as he either feels it in
his own concerns, or views it in the chain of events which are going on
in the world around him. He learns to trace the whole to the same
unerring hand which guides the planet in its course; and thus rests in
the absolute conviction that the economy of Providence is one great and
magnificent system of design and order and harmony. These, we repeat
with confidence, are no visions of the imagination, but the sound
inductions of a calm and rational philosophy. They are conclusions which
compel the assent of every candid inquirer, when he follows out that
investigation of mighty import,--what is God,--and what is that essence
in man which he has endowed with the power of rising to himself.

To enlarge upon these important subjects would lead us away from the
proper design of a work, which is intended chiefly to investigate the
light we derive from the pheno