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p, with the steady gait of destiny, until the continents would melt with fervent heat, the atmosphere glare with the ominous conflagration, and all living creatures, in land and sea and air, perish in one universal catastrophe." Then suddenly starting to his feet, he drew himself up to his full height, and murmured solemnly, "I feel like a God! and I recognize my fellow-men but as pigmies that I spurn beneath my feet." "Summerfield," said I calmly, "there must be some strange error in all this. You are self-deluded. The weapon which you claim to wield is one that a good God and a beneficent Creator would never intrust to the keeping of a mere creature. What, sir! create a world as grand and beautiful as this, and hide within its bosom a principle that at any moment might inwrap it in flames, and sink all life in death? I'll not believe it; 't were blasphemy to entertain the thought!" "And yet," cried he passionately, "your Bible prophesies the same irreverence. Look at your text in 2d Peter, third chapter, seventh and twelfth verses. Are not the elements to melt with fervent heat? Are not 'the heavens to be folded together like a scroll?' Are not 'the rocks to melt, the stars to fall and the moon to be turned into blood?' Is not fire the next grand cyclic consummation of all things here below? But I come fully prepared to answer such objections. Your argument betrays a narrow mind, circumscribed in its orbit, and shallow in its depth. 'Tis the common thought of mediocrity. You have read books too much, and studied nature too little. Let me give you a lesson to-day in the workshop of Omnipotence. Take a stroll with me into the limitless confines of space, and let us observe together some of the scenes transpiring at this very instant around us. A moment ago you spoke of the moon: what is she but an extinguished world? You spoke of the sun: what is he but a globe of flame? But here is the _Cosmos_ of Humboldt. Read this paragraph." As he said this he placed before me the _Cosmos_ of Humboldt, and I read as follows: Nor do the Heavens themselves teach unchangeable permanency in the works of creation. Change is observable there quite as rapid and complete as in the confines of our solar system. In the year 1752, one of the small stars in the constellation Cassiopeia blazed up suddenly into an orb of the first magnitude, gradually decreased in brilliancy, and finally disappeared from the skies.
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