untouched by the tool. So long as Ocean exists, there must be disintegration, dilapidation, change; and should the time ever arrive when the elevatory agencies, motionless and chill, shall sleep within their profound depths, to awaken no more,—and should the sea still continue to impel its currents and to roll its waves,-every continent and island would at length disappear, and again, as of old, "when the fountains of the great deep were broken up,"

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"A shoreless ocean tumble round the globe."

Was it with reference to this principle, so recently recognised, that we are so expressly told in the Apocalypse respecting the renovated earth, in which the state of things shall be fixed and eternal, that "there shall be no more sea?" or are we to regard the revelation as the mere hieroglyphic,the pictured shape, of some analogous moral truth? Reasoning from what we know," and what else remains to us?-an earth without a sea would be an earth without rain, without vegetation, without life,-a dead and doleful planet of waste places, such as the telescope reveals to us in the moon. And yet the Ocean does seem peculiarly a creature of time,-of all the great agents of vicissitude and change, the most influential and untiring; and to a state in which there shall be no vicissitude and no change, in which the earthquake shall not heave from beneath, nor the mountains wear down and the continents melt away, it seems inevitably necessary that there should be "no more sea."HUGH MILLER.

HYMN TO THE SETTING SUN.

Slow, slow, mighty wanderer, sink to thy rest,
Thy course of beneficence done;

As glorious go down to the ocean's warm breast
As when thy bright race was begun.

For all thou hast done,
Since thy rising, oh! sun,

May thou and thy Maker be blest.

Thou hast scattered the night from thy broad golden way, Thou hast given us thy light through a long happy day, Thou hast roused up the birds, thou hast wakened the

flowers,

To chant on thy path, and to perfume the hours.

Then slow, mighty wanderer, sink to thy rest,
And rise again beautiful, blessing, and blest.

Slow, slow, mighty wanderer, sink to thy rest,
Yet pause but a moment to shed

One warm look of love on the earth's dewy breast,
Ere the starr'd curtain fall round thy bed.
And to promise the time

When, awaking sublime,

Thou shalt rush all refreshed from thy rest.
Warm hopes drop like dews from thy life-giving hand,
Teaching hearts closed in darkness like flowers to expand;
Dreams wake into joys when first touched by thy light,
As glow the dim waves of the sea at thy sight.
Then slow, mighty wanderer, sink to thy rest,
And rise again beautiful, blessing, and blest.

Slow, slow, mighty wanderer, sink to thy rest
Prolonging the sweet evening hour;

Then robe again soon in the morn's golden vest,
Το
go forth in thy beauty and power.
Yet pause on thy way,

To the full height of day;

For thy rising and setting are blest.

When thou com'st after darkness to gladden our eyes,
Or departest in glory, in glory to rise,

May hope and may prayer still be woke by thy rays,
And thy going be marked with thanksgiving and praise.
Then slow, mighty wanderer, sink to thy rest,
And rise again beautiful, blessing, and blest.--JAMES.

THE TELESCOPE AND MICROSCOPE.

It was the telescope that, by piercing the obscurity which lies between us and distant worlds, put Infidelity in possession of the argument against which we are now contending; but, about the time of its invention, another instrument was formed, which laid open a scene no less wonderful, and rewarded the inquisitive spirit of man with a discovery, which serves to neutralise the whole of this argument. This was the microscope. The one led me to see a system in every star-the other leads me to see a world in every atom

The one taught me, that this mighty globe, with the whole burden of its people and of its countries, is but a grain of sand on the high field of immensity-the other teaches me, that every grain of sand may harbour within it the tribes and the families of a busy population. The one told me of the insignificance of the world I tread upon-the other redeems it from all its insignificance; for it tells me that in the leaves of every forest, and in the flowers of every garden, and in the waters of every rivulet, there are worlds teeming with life, and numberless as are the glories of the firmament. The one has suggested to me, that beyond and above all that is visible to man, there may lie fields of creation which sweep immeasurably along, and carry the impress of the Almighty's hand to the remotest scenes of the universe-the other suggests to me, that within and beneath all that minuteness which the aided eye of man has been able to explore, there may lie a region of invisibles; and that, could we draw aside the mysterious curtain which shrouds it from our senses, we might there see a theatre of as many wonders as astronomy has unfolded, a universe within the compass of a point so small, as to elude all the powers of the microscope, but where the wonder-working God finds room for the exercise of all His attributes, where He can raise another mechanism of worlds, and fill and animate them all with the evidences of His glory.

Now, mark how all this may be made to meet the argument of our infidel astronomers. By the telescope, they have discovered that no magnitude, however vast, is beyond the grasp of the Divinity; but by the microscope, we have also discovered, that no minuteness, however shrunk from the notice of the human eye, is beneath the condescension of His regard. Every addition to the powers of the one instrument extends the limit of His visible dominions; but, by every addition to the powers of the other instrument, we see each part of them more crowded than before with the wonders of His unwearying hand. The one is constantly widening the circle of His territory-the other is as constantly filling up its separate portions with all that is rich, and various, and exquisite. In a word, by the one I am told that the Almighty is now at work in regions more distant than geometry has ever measured, and among worlds more manifold than numbers have ever reached; but, by the other, I am also told, that with a mind to comprehend

the whole, in the vast compass of its generality, He has also a mind to concentrate a close and a separate attention on each and on all of its particulars; and that the same God, who sends forth an upholding influence among the orbs and the movements of astronomy, can fill the recesses of every single atom with the intimacy of his presence, and travel, in all the greatness of His unimpaired attributes, upon every one spot and corner of the universe He has formed.

They, therefore, who think that God will not put forth such a power, and such a goodness, and such a condescension, in behalf of this world, as are ascribed to Him in the New Testament, because He has so many other worlds to attend to, think of Him as a man. They confine their view to the informations of the telescope, and forget altogether the informations of the other instrument. They only find room in their minds for His one attribute of a large and general superintendence; and keep out of their remembrance the equally impressive proofs we have for His other attribute, of a minute and multiplied attention to all that diversity of operations, where it is He that worketh all in all. And when I think, that as one of the instruments of philosophy has heightened our every impression of the first of these attributes, so another instrument has no less heightened our impression of the second of them—then I can no longer resist the conclusion, that it would be a transgression of sound argument, as well as a daring of impiety, to draw a limit around the doings of this unsearchable God-and, should a professed revelation from heaven tell me of an act of condescension, in behalf of some separate world, so wonderful, that angels desired to look into it, and the Eternal Son had to move from His seat of glory to carry it into accomplishment, all I ask is the evidence of such a revelation; for, let it tell me as much as it may of God letting himself down for the benefit of one single province of His dominions, this is no more than what I see lying scattered, in numberless examples, before me; and running through the whole line of my recollections; and meeting me in every walk of observation to which I can betake myself; and, now that the microscope has unveiled the wonders of another region, I see strewed around me, with a profusion which baffles my every attempt to comprehend it, the evidence that there is no one portion of the universe of God too minute for His notice, nor too humble for the visitations of His care.-DR CHALMERS.

THE RUINED COTTAGE

None will dwell in that cottage, for they say
Oppression reft it from the honest man,
And that a curse clings to it; hence the vine
Trails its weight of leaves upon the ground,
Hence weeds are in that garden, hence the hedge,
Once sweet with honeysuckle, is half dead,
And hence the grey moss on the apple tree.

One once dwelt there, who had been in his youth
A soldier; and when many years had pass'd,
He sought his native village, and sat down
To end his days in peace. He had one child,
A little laughing thing, whose large dark eyes,
He said, were like the mother's she had left
Buried in strangers' land: and time went on
In comfort and content-and that fair girl
Had grown far taller than the red rose tree
Her father planted on her first English birthday.
And he had trained it up against an ash
Till it became his pride-it was so rich
In blossom and in beauty, it was called
The tree of Isabel. 'Twas an appeal
To all the better feelings of the heart
To mark their quiet happiness; their home
In truth a home of love; and more than all,
To see them on the Sabbath, when they came
Among the first to church, and Isabel,
With her bright colour, and her clear glad eyes,
Bowed down so meekly in the house of prayer;
And in the hymn her sweet voice audible:
Her father looked so fond of her, and then
From her looked up so thankfully to heaven!
And their small cottage was so very neat;

Their garden filled with fruits, and herbs, and flowers;
And in the winter, there was no fireside
So cheerful as their own. But other days
And other fortunes came-an evil power.
They bore against it cheerfully, and hoped
For better times, but ruin came at last;
And the old soldier left his own dear home,