THE GLORY AND HAPPINESS OF THE WORLD.

"The Lord is King of all the earth: sing ye praises with understanding.'-PSALMS.

WITH What an open, unwithdrawing hand
Hath God poured glory on this glowing earth!
Truly, in wisdom hath he spread it out,
Traced its broad outlines, and with pencil dipt
In sunbeams, portioning its light and shade,
Hath as a finished picture hung it up

In the rich gallery of heaven. This earth,
This small and humble star, mingled and lost
Amidst the glittering clusters of the sky,

Hath not a white sea-wave, a tremulous wind,
A narrow fibre in a pointed leaf,

Unordered by that world-creating hand
That rolled Arcturus burning on his track
Among the constellations. The far sun,
The heaving ocean, and the solid land

The hills, the dark embroidered fields- the trees
Whose leaves thrill wildly to the passionate winds,
The bright-eyed minstrel birds that fluttering load
Their branches; so magnificently decked

In golden-tissued robes; the clouds of heaven,

A crimson canopy for the lowliest brow,

The light and laughing stream, the sheeted lake,
Stampt with the royal signet of the sun,

The fairy-haunted train of flowers, the rain
That rings in music on the bubbling rill,
A blessing measured in its every drop;
The breeze of eve, night with her wizard moon
And sybil stars, and her deep genii winds,
That with perturbéd spirits of the ocean hold
all rich nature's master-tones,
Strong converse-
All beautiful things that make earth paradise,
their maker - God!
the Lord!
Have but one history
- one king
Their archives' register -
Oh! that the dull cold ear of man could hear
Voices as angel-notes from earth's dim caves,
From her mysterious confines, bodiless sounds
And harps upon her winds, that ceaseless swell
Anthems to their strong ruler - God!

And man,

'The fearfully and wonderfully made,'
The prince of this fair realm, hath eye to read
And mind intelligent to comprehend
The teachings of this full and luminous book.
Its leaves how variously read! To some,

The beautiful creations of the world

Are on the heart as dark and feebly sketched,
As soon effaced, as flitting forms that cross

The camera-obscura's sheeted floor,

While some behold them with bright fancy's eye,
Crimsoned and purpled with the costly dyes
Of the prismatic lens; yet few so dull,
Bound by the grovelling senses' leaden chain,
To warm not with the beauty of the stars,
The mercy of the health-dispensing herb,
The glory of the deep and shall not man
Offer the incense of a grateful heart
To Him who placed him in so fair a scene,
And made it such deep happiness to live?

that brief and narrow space -
Our human life!
How many joys are crowded in its span !

The scenery of years hath glowing skies;
Our daily paths are strewed with rosy wreaths;
Earth hath high places for her burning hearts,

For calm confiding love, a cool retreat :
The sceptred monarch on his jewelled throne,
Dispensing mercy, 'attribute of God,'

Whose name in sternly loyal hearts becomes
Religion: the pure patriot's brow, enwreathed
With peace-fraught laurels, in whose gladdened ear
The shout of freemen multitudes is poured:

The scholar'd bard, of high enraptured thought,
Whose breath is harmony, and his life a dream;
Nature's own alchemist, who from harsh scenes
Models his El-Dorado, fancy-born :

These are earth's pride. She hath green homes, where eyes
Beam happily in lone, sequestered peace.

Here woman shines - -woman with angel form,
Whose blush is witchcraft, and her trusting heart
A sweet accordium, that the cunning hand
Will not too rudely touch, but with an ear
Attuned to its own gentle notes, draw thence
Soft, heavenly music. The glad maiden glides
With fairy step to meet her aged sire,
Lifting with tender care his silver locks,
To press upon his brow her long caress.
The tearful bride plights her young years to his,
Her all on earth, her fondest hope in heaven.
The mother, circled with her kneeling ones,
(Like flowers aggroupéd by some tasteful hand,
And bent with evening winds,) pours forth her prayer.

And are these but the bright and glowing spots
On life's wide, chequered board? Do pain, and care,
And many-visaged sorrow, come to crush
Our cherished hopes? Adversity is cheered

With changeless friends, and sickness hath some hand
To bathe the fevered brow, administer

The cooling draught; and when pale death shall come,
Some will tread lightly o'er our tranquil grave.

What though we feel not the warm tears that bathe
Our ashes, nor the cultured violets see,

That make a place of beauty of the tomb?

To have them there, is sweet.

And doth not this

Sate the long hunger of the craving heart?
Doth the soul sicken at the narrow house,'
The worm, the cold obstruction's, endless night?
Doth the blood curdle in life's sparkling hours
To meet amid the banquet's festal throng
The Egyptian spectre? Have the stars a voice,
'We shall shine on when man is but the dust ?''
Read we in fading flowers, Spring shall restore
Their loveliness to earth when we, the dead,
Behold them not? Oh! God hath spared us this!
Turn to the holy volume- trace the words
Inscribed by angels, by the 'Most High' sealed,
'Eternal light, and life for evermore!'
When youth is weeping o'er departed friends,
And age grows wearied even of pleasant life,"
When burns the spirit for enduring bliss,
Turn to the holy volume - God's best gift-
Music to soothe the soul, the healing balm,
The beacon, welcoming our homeward sail,
The desert banyan's sleep-persuading shade,
The golden chalice, whence the thirsty soul
Gladly shall drink of immortality!

Elizabeth-toon, (N. J.,) 1836.

H. L. B.

WARFARE OF MISGUIDED ZEAL UPON SCIENCE.

'It is not the persons of true and solid piety,' says Malebranche, 'who ordinarily condemn what they do not understand, but rather the superstitious and the hypocrites. The superstitious, through servile fear, are startled as soon as they see an active and penetrating spirit. For instance, one need only give them some natural reasons for thunder and its effects, to appear an atheist in their eyes: but the hypocrites make use of the appearance of sacred truths, revered by all the world, in order to oppose new truths, by particular interests; they attack truth with the image of truth; and, in their hearts, make a scoff of what the world respects; they establish, for themselves, in the minds of men, a reputation the more solid and the more formidable, as what they thus abuse is more sacred. These persons are, then, the strongest, the most powerful, and the most formidable enemies of truth.'

'There is a kind of objection,' says Dr. Gall, which new truths never escape. Ignorance, prejudice, envy, and often bad faith, endeavor to combat these truths. If they cannot attack the principles of a doctrine, they try, at least, to render it suspected, by the dangerous consequences of which they accuse it.

"The followers of the different schools of philosophy among the Greeks mutually accused each other of impiety and perjury. The people in turn, detested the philosophers, and accused those who sought to discern the principles of things, of invading, in a presumptuous manner, the rights of the divinity. The novelty of the opinions of Pythagoras caused his expulsion from Athens; those of Anaxagoras threw him into prison. The Abderites treated Democritus as insane, because he wished to discover, in dead bodies, the cause of insanity; and Socrates, for having demonstrated the unity of God, was condemned to drink hemlock.

The same scandal has been renewed in all ages, and among all nations. Many of those who distinguished themselves, in the fourteenth century, by their knowledge in the natural sciences, were punished with death as magicians. Gallileo, for having proved the motion of the earth, was imprisoned, at the age of seventy years. Those who first maintained that climate influences the intellectual faculties of nations, made themselves suspected of materialism.

The physical truths announced by Linnæus, Buffon, by that pious philosopher, Bounet, and George Leroy, were represented as impieties which threatened to commence the total ruin of religion and morality: even the virtuous and generous Lavater has been treated as a fatalist and a materialist. Every where, fatalism and materialism, placed before the sanctuary of truth, have served to deter the world from entering it.' *

These truths deserve consideration, among the friends of improvement, at the present day. At a moment when science, in its various departments, is engrossing so large a portion of the labors and genius of mankind—when its results take so strong a hold upon human belief, and so plainly contribute to human happiness it is exceed

* Gall's works, vol. 1., page 191, et seq. Boston edition.

ingly to be regretted that any persons, professing the Christian religion, are found to be blindly opposing its progress.

'Is it not the same Creator,' says the author last quoted, 'who has made the moral and the physical world? Can physical truth be in opposition to moral truth? If certain men cry out at the danger with which a real discovery threatens an established doctrine, they render this doctrine singularly suspicious; for either it is false, or we may justly accuse the weakness and ignorance of the pretended interpreters of God's works.'

No doubt the diffusion of scientific truth is retarded by ill-judged appeals to religious prejudice; but science suffers less than religion. itself. Science rests upon palpable and demonstrative evidence ; religious belief on moral proof. The former compels conviction; the latter may be doubted. The evidence of religious truth, though so conclusive as to form the just basis of human action and belief, can never, from its very nature, rise to the certainty of scientific demonstration. To disbelieve the former, may be irrational; to disbelieve the latter, is absurd. When, therefore, well established truths in science are confronted by religious creeds, the verdict of the world will be in favor of science. More clearly will this be the result, when those creeds are confined to a small portion even of the Christian world, and one regarded as unsound, by other portions. Bigotry is indeed strong; it is armed with the most frightful terrors; but science is stronger, and must inevitably triumph in every collision between the two. Sectarian denunciation cannot destroy it; and any modification of belief, which is inconsistent with demonstrative science, must certainly, sooner or later, be discarded.

It is, therefore, an ill-judged artifice of misguided zeal or hypocrisy, to raise the cry of infidelity, whenever a discovery in science is announced. If the discovery be confirmed by proper evidence, it will take its place among the subjects of human belief, whatever preconceived doctrines it may conflict with. Nor can it be refuted by exciting alarm at its supposed tendencies and results. 'Reason,' says a modern writer, knows neither useful truths nor dangerous truths. What is, is; there is no compromising with this principle.' When clerical prejudice was armed with civic power, and, by the terrors of torture, extorted verbal recantations from philosophers of the novel truths their labors had established, it could not quench the light of science. Much less, at the present day, when thoughts and words are free, and science is not within the power of intolerance and bigotry, can empty denunciations and misapplied epithets hinder the spirit of progressive investigation, and arrest the march of discovery.

It is surprising that the force of these considerations can still be overlooked by any well meaning person. It is most of all to be wondered at, that any portion of the clergy, when history is pregnant with examples of the folly of opposing science by zeal, should prejudice the religion they teach, by persisting in the futile and pernicious practices of darker ages. Yet there are persons at the present time, as there have been in all former ages, who, possessed of overweening zeal and slender knowledge, do not hesitate to raise the cry of infidelity against every new claim to discovery in science. It

is a trace of that same spirit which subjected Gallileo, two hundred years ago, to the persecutions of the Roman Catholic Church:

"They bore

His chained limbs to a dreary tower,

In the midst of a city, vast and wide;

For he, they said, from his mind had bent,
Against their gods, keen blasphemy;

For which, though his soul must roasted be
In hell's red lakes, immortally,

Yet even on earth, must he abide
The vengeance of their slaves!'

SHELLEY.

Natural philosophy and chemistry, medicine and physiology, have each in turn excited the jealousy and encountered the denunciations of misguided zeal. Physiology, in particular, is still regarded with no kindly feeling by some uninformed religious men. The celebrated William Lawrence, the pupil and colleague of Dr. Abernethy, and the successor of Sir Astley Cooper in the London Royal College of Physicians, was removed from the office of Surgeon of the Royal Hospitals of Bridewell and Bethlem, in 1819, on account of the publication of his lectures on physiology. In 1822, he was restored to his office, upon expressing his regret at the publication of his lectures, without admitting any change of opinion with regard to their truth. His removal from office did not contribute, in the least, to weaken the force of his conclusions, or to demonstrate their unsoundness. On the contrary, it gave extraordinary notoriety to principles and arguments which might otherwise have gained but an ordinary portion of the public attention. The lectures, partly in consequence of the indiscreet opposition they met with, have been widely circulated and read in Europe and America. Such is ever the effect of that misguided zeal, which accounts it an act of impiety to pry too closely into the structure of man, and which accuses those who seek to discern the principles of things, of invading, in a presumptuous manner, the rights of the divinity.'

This jealousy of the results of science takes various forms, and sometimes exhibits itself in the most fantastical and absurd notions. There are well meaning persons who object, on religious grounds, to the establishment of hospitals for foundlings, and who regard it as a presumptuous resistance of the dispensations of Providence, to guard against disease by innoculation, or against lightning by metallic rods !

At so late a period as May last, Dr. Fife, a lecturer on chemistry in Edinburgh, complained to his hearers, that in that enlightened city, their instructors, while laboring in their vocations among them, had been assailed as tending to disseminate principles bordering upon infidelity.'

We have met with religious men who regarded the beautiful theory which accounts for the rainbow, as a most dangerous infidel doctrine, because it explains, upon the principles of natural science, a phenomena which, according to their apprehension of the Bible, should be regarded as a perpetual miracle.

The moral character of the nations of antiquity, and the value of their philosophy, have been grossly misrepresented by the same unjust and jealous spirit of fanaticism. Their philosophy has been sneered at as vain and frivolous, and the moral precepts of their sages