g to slacken the course of a planet, or increase even the
distance of the fixed stars, the decree would be soon known on earth.
Our ignorance is great, because so is our knowledge; for it is from the
mightiness and vastness of what we do know that we imagine the
illimitable unknown creation. And to whom has God made these
revelations? To a worm that next moment is to be in darkness? To a piece
of earth momentarily raised into breathing existence? To a soul
perishable as the telescope through which it looks into the gates of
heaven?

"Oh! star-eyed science, hast thou wander'd there
To waft us home--the message of despair?"

No; there is no despair in the gracious light of heaven. As we travel
through those orbs, we feel indeed that we have no power, but we feel
that we have mighty knowledge. We can create nothing, but we can dimly
understand all. It belongs to God only to _create_, but it is given to
man to _know_--and that knowledge is itself an assurance of immortality.

"Renounce St Evremont, and read St Paul.
Ere rapt by miracle, by reason wing'd,
His mounting mind made long abode in heaven.
This is freethinking, unconfined to parts,
To send the soul, on curious travel bent,
Through all the provinces of human thought:
To dart her flight through the whole sphere of man;
Of this vast universe to make the tour;
In each recess of space and time, at home;
Familiar with their wonders: diving deep;
And like a prince of boundless interests there,
Still most ambitious of the most remote;
To look on truth unbroken, and entire;
Truth in the system, the full orb; where truths,
By truths enlighten'd and sustain'd, afford
An archlike, strong foundation, to support
Th' incumbent weight of absolute, complete
Conviction: here, the more we press, we stand
More firm; who most examine, most believe.
Parts, like half-sentences, confound: the whole
Conveys the sense, and GOD is understood,
Who not in fragments writes to human race.
Read his whole volume, sceptic! then reply."

Renounce St Evremont! Ay, and many a Deistical writer of high repute now
in the world. But how came they by the truths they did know? Not by the
work of their own unassisted faculties--for they lived in a Christian
country; they had already been imbued with many high and holy beliefs,
of which--had they willed it--they could never have got rid; and to the
v