changed circumstances. In birds of prey this power of regulating the sight is very wonderful; for while they can discern the smallest objects close to them, they can clearly see larger ones at comparatively immense distances. Who has not seen the hawk suddenly descend from great heights in the air, and, as if directed by a sunbeam, pick up the little bird chirping in the hedge-row, or the tiny mouse gambolling in the grass? There is no other known means than those adopted by which this visual power could be given. That out of all possible unsuccessful schemes this successful one should have been employed, seems to point to the exercise of something very like an intelligent choice.

In the construction of the bones of birds, and in the quills of their feathers, it was necessary to have considerable strength. Without this they would be liable to be constantly disabled by their own voluntary movements. But a strong, heavy, solid bone would not have answered the purpose, for a bird has to fly, and to fly freely and rapidly. And yet a small amount of solid bony matter, such as the necessities of the case required, would have given bones so thin, that they would have snapped on the slightest touch. The bone of a parrot's leg, if reduced to one solid piece, would be considerably thinner, and so of the wing-bones; and were the matter of which the quills of all birds' feathers are composed so treated, there would remain nothing more than a mere piece of thin wire, which would break at nearly every exertion of flying. Now, a given portion of matter, say of iron, copper, or wood, is strong according to its thickness, but when only a specific amount of matter is available, and a certain length must be preserved, such a piece of matter can only be thickened by making it hollow; and strange to say, by being made hollow, and therefore thicker, the strength is very considerably increased. This is the reason that engineers now make so much use of hollow rods or tubes; for by the expenditure of the same amount of material they get a vastly increased strength. In doing this they have simply copied from nature, where the same lesson has been taught since the creation. The bones of all animals are more or less hollow, and are therefore stronger with their specific amount of bonematter than if they were solid; but birds were made to fly, and therefore thick, solid bones were out of the question, and unusually hollow bones a necessity: the necessity, indeed, was a strong bone, but it must be a strong light one, to prevent the bird from falling to the earth from its sheer weight. Now it is a fact that, according to their weight, birds have the largest bones of any animals, but their bones are lighter than any other, because they are hollower, in order to adapt them to their habits. They have the necessary strength without the increased weight. Besides this, when more rapid motion than ordinary is required, birds have the power to take into their bodies from their lungs a quantity of air, which, by expanding their bodies, makes them specifically lighter-not lighter than the air, nor lighter really, but lighter in proportion to their bulk. We are not aware of any reason why these expedients should have been contrived, and contrived thousands of years before our engineers understood the philosophy of them, except that which induces our architects to place hollow pillars in our chapels in preference to solid

bars. We may probably return to this bird question, and deal fully with the philosophy of flying.

Now the bee is a very stupid insect, except so far as doing its own specific work is concerned. That is, clever as it is at its own business, you cannot teach a bee anything, for it does not appear to have a grain of sense beyond that which we observe in connection with its allotted employment. It seems to know that it can punish with its sting, and thus protect its own labour, but it does not seem to know that the exercise of this punishing power will probably result in its own death. Yet, in its daily employment, it works unerringly on purely mathematical and philosophical principles. Much of the material it gets for the hive is procured from places it cannot possibly reach without mechanical aid; and yet it may be seen, on any bright summer's day, heavily loaded with that material. Its sweets often come from small, narrow-necked flowers, such as the honeysuckle. It is utterly impossible for a bee to get to the bottom of a honeysuckle flower; and yet it does procure thence much of the fine dust and sweet juices so necessary in its snug and elegant home.

Most of us have some vague notion that the atmosphere has the qualities of weight and pressure; and that pumps, syphons, and barometers are constructed on the principle of these ascertained facts. The pressure of the atmosphere is about 15 pounds to the square inch. On the body of a man, therefore, say with a surface of 2,000 square inches, the pressure is something over 13 tons; but this is not inconveniently felt (indeed, the inconvenience is most felt when any considerable part of this pressure is removed), because there is an equal pressure outward from the gases and fluids within the body, as all fluids press equally on all sides. The force of this pressure may easily be seen, by simply emptying a thin glass bottle of air by means of a common air-pump. If this be done, or as nearly as is possible, it will be found that the pressure of the external atmosphere will break the bottle, but when the air is in the bottle there is no such danger. Or the same may be seen by placing a thin glass bottle, especially if flat, full of air under the exhausted receiver of an air-pump. The absence of air in the receiver will cause the air inside the bottle, by mere outward pressure, to burst it. Any soft substance, such as leather in the shape of a bag or tube, if emptied of air, would at once be crushed flat; or, if it were possible so to place the naked foot on the floor, as to completely exclude the air, the strongest man would never be able to move it, for the foot would be fast as if a dozen nails were driven through it. Now it is on this principle that the bee procures the dust and juices from narrownecked flowers. With its body it fills up the mouth of the flower, and then it sucks out the air, or most of it from the narrow part, and produces a vacuum, or at least a partial vacuum. When this is effected the external air presses the sides of the flower together, squeezes the dust and juice towards the mouth of the bee, and the thing is done, as well as if an intelligent being had squeezed the honeysuckle with the fingers. There goes the bee-philosopher with its load as unconcerned as would Professor Faraday, had he been there with his air-pump. How is this to be accounted for? The bee

knows no more that it is due to the properties of the atmosphere, than the duckling, just escaped from the egg, and making for the pond, knows that the water it seeks is a chemical combination of oxygen and hydrogen.

Then bees, in the construction of their combs, work as truly on mathematical principles as if every one of them had the intellect of Sir Isaac Newton, and had been carefully educated under him. Bees have to divide their houses into a large number of rooms, and a swarm of bees is mostly so numerous, that it is indispensable that the best possible use should be made of the space they have at their disposal. Now, in order to effect this, there are only three shapes or figures of rooms or cells by which this could be done without a considerable loss of space-the rooms must either be perfect squares, figures of three equal sides, or figures of six equal sides. The last is the best and the strongest form, because its corners are flatter, giving more room for any round body, little being lost of room in the corners, and in strength it has something of the nature of an arch. A round figure would lose much space, though it would have an advantage in strength, but a six-sided one loses no space at all, and approaches the arch shape. This six-sided figure is precisely the one always chosen, in all times and all countries, by bees in the construction of their cells. In the roof and floor of each cell, the bee works with the same strict mathematical accuracy. Mathematicians have proved that, to secure the greatest strength and save the most room, roofs and floors should be made of three square planes meeting in a point; and by operations in the highest branch of algebra, it has been proved that there is one particular angle or "inclination of those planes to each other, where they meet," which secures a greater saving of labour and materials, than can be saved by any other possible inclination. The tops and bottoms of the cells of bees are actually constructed of three planes meeting in a point, and the angles at which these planes meet are exactly those which the mathematician finds to be the best possible for economizing both labour and wax.

Here, then, is an insect senseless enough for anything, except in the exercise of its own peculiar trade; but in that trade, labouring according to the principles of the highest branch of mathematicsthat which is the result of Newton's most wonderful discovery—a result, too, of which Newton himself was ignorant, and which was only made known by one of his disciples many years after. The bee then works, without the slightest knowledge of the philosophy of the thing, with an accuracy which is perfect, and according to rules which man only discovered after ages of close attention and gradual improvement; and even then, through the medium of one of the most intricate and difficult of the sciences. How is this to be accounted for? Oh! "by instinct," says every reader. And what then? That is not accounting for it any more than the work of a steam-engine is accounted for by saying it is the result of heat and machinery. We know very well that in the piston, the cylinder, and the steam, is the great secret of the capacity of the locomotive; as we know that in the feet and other organs of the bee is the secret of its architectural skill. But the bee, as far as appears, naturally is as

incompetent, or nearly so, to work intelligently by the higher branches of mathematics, as are iron and water in their crude state to do the work of railway companies. There is no doubt that the only possible and rational mode of accounting for these wonders in Nature applies equally in both cases. The materials of the steam-engine could effect nothing without the intervention of skill and intelligence; nor could any powers with which the bee is endowed, intelligently apply, or work in strict accordance with, the principles of mathematics, unless as it had been operated upon, and made to a large extent an involuntary agent by an external power and skill, equal at the least to the intellectual exertion necessary to the result. One solution only is possible, at least to an intelligent, reflecting being: The great Architect who built up the universe, is alike the author of the mechanical powers of the bee and the intellectual capacities of a Watt-the one working like a machine, the other thinking like a divinity.

In these papers we shall try to show, by a more particular examination of things, that this world of ours, only a mere point in the vast universe, is ruled by an Ever-Superintending Intelligence; and we shall endeavour to form an intelligent judgment as to what is the character and disposition, and what are the designs of its Governor. In doing this, we shall proceed by slow steps, because the number and variety of the laws, so to speak, by which his government is administered, are so vast, so combined, and so endlessly intermixed, and yet so dependent on each other in modifying the general results, that an attempt to comprehend at once the whole, or any considerable part of it, would only bewilder and overwhelm us by its magnitude and complexity. But if we proceed gradually, carefully, and earnestly into such of the details as our space will admit, we shall find it difficult, and probably impossible to the sober and reflective, to exclude from our notions of the government of this world, the presence of a Mind that contrives, controls, preserves, and harmonizes all things, by the exercise of a power, a wisdom, and a goodness that infinitely transcend our highest conceptions.

Is this earth our only heritage, my Christian friend? Does this vale of tears open to no brighter region? To this stormy sea is there no quiet haven? Beyond this firmament, so often overcast, is there no cloudless sky? We toil on, struggling with the elements, alternately parched and chilled, famished and surfeited; we buffet with human selfishness and Satanic malice; we grope in a labyrinth of fallacies- we chase fatuous lights- calumny shoots her poisoned arrows-bulletins of war come daily, written over, within and without, in blood-the earth we stand on heaves beneath us, presently it opens, and we are swallowed up. What means this mysterious drama? Is the whole tale thus told? Is our life only a riddle? Many, many

bright dreams have we; there are traditions of Paradise and a golden age; for thousands of years men have been talking about Hesperian regions; but for thousands of years they have dreamed, sinned, and suffered, till they drop into the grave.

But, hark! amid this gloom and perplexity a voice is heard: "Come unto Me, all ye that labour, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." We go to him, we find him infinitely benignant, yet perfect rest we do not find. The sun loses none of its fierceness thereby, nor frosts aught of their chill; disease has the same virulence, and slanderous tongues have the same venom as before. Emancipation from the effects of sin is anything but complete. How, then, is it true, "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord?" What are we to think of those who, up to the hour of their departure, still suffer and grieve? The messenger of the Apocalypse answers, "They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall lead them unto living fountains of waters, and God shall wipe all tears from their eyes."

Complete deliverance, then, from all evils will be our future portion, if we are but faithful unto the end. We shall enjoy exemption from every physical evil. Our resurrection body will be perfectly free from all infirmities; all its organs will discharge their offices with perfect exactness, and the vital forces will play for ever with unabated freshness.

The inconveniences of hunger and thirst will not be experienced. What those inconveniences are, in their extreme, was known by Hagar, when she said, "Let me not see the death of the child ;" by the fainting Israelites, when they dared not to taste the dropping honey in the wood, because of Saul's adjuration; by our blessed Saviour on the cross, when he cried, "I thirst;" by many a perishing caravan, by many a shipwrecked crew, by many a starving province. And who is there that, by his own experience, has not often been reminded of the curse, "In the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat bread, till thou return unto the ground?" But to the saved the curse reaches not beyond the grave. Lazarus is no longer spurned from the gate of affluence; he has ceased begging for crumbs; nor does any one in the realms of the blest beg for a drop of water to cool his parched tongue. "For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters.' Oh, to receive manna from the sacred hands of Jesus Christ, our Saviour! What flavour, beyond ambrosia, will that possess! And once seated with the patriarchs, with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, there will be perpetual rest, but no craving for change, and no satiety. Nor will there be any imperfection of the senses. The tongue of the dumb shall sing as loudly and as joyously as any. Every deaf ear, too, shall be unstopped. And then will many a Bartimeus leap for joy, when he opens his eyes for the first time on such views as feast the vision on the shores of the holy city, New Jerusalem.

I read, a short time ago, an account of a blind Hindoo boy, who lived in a miserable hole which had been excavated for him in the ground, and who was drawing near his end. His mind, happily, had (through the instructions of a missionary) been enlightened by