fireside during the blasts of winter, the enlightened man
can survey the numerous tribes of mankind scattered over the various
climates of the earth, and entertain himself with views of their
manners, customs, religion, laws, trade, manufactures, marriage
ceremonies, civil and ecclesiastical governments, arts, sciences,
cities, towns, and villages, and the animals peculiar to every region.
In his rural walks he can not only appreciate the beneficence of Nature,
and the beauties and harmonies of the vegetable kingdom in their
exterior aspect, but he can also penetrate into the hidden processes
which are going on in the roots, trunks, and leaves of plants and
flowers, and contemplate the numerous vessels through which the sap is
flowing from their roots through the trunks and branches; the millions
of pores through which their odoriferous effluvia exhale; their fine and
delicate texture; their microscopical beauties; their orders, genera,
and species, and their uses in the economy of nature.

Even when shrouded in darkness and in solitude, where other minds could
find no enjoyment, the man of knowledge can entertain himself with the
most sublime contemplations. He can trace the huge earth we inhabit
flying through the depths of space, carrying along with it its vast
population, at the rate of sixty thousand miles every hour, and, by the
inclination of its axis, bringing about the alternate succession of
summer and winter, of seed-time and harvest. By the aid of his telescope
he can transport himself toward the moon, and survey the circular
plains, the deep caverns, the conical hills, the lofty peaks, and the
rugged and romantic mountain scenery which diversify the surface of this
orb of night.

By the help of the same instrument he can range through the planetary
system, wing his way through the regions of space along with the
swiftest orbs, and trace many of the physical aspects and revolutions
which have a relation to distant worlds. He can transport himself to the
planet Saturn, and behold a stupendous ring six hundred thousand miles
in circumference, revolving in majestic grandeur every ten hours around
a globe nine hundred times larger than the earth, while seven moons
larger than ours, along with an innumerable host of stars, display their
radiance to adorn the firmament of that magnificent world. He can wing
his flight through the still more distant regions of the universe,
leaving the sun and all his planets behi