ern the physical agents of the universe, and which regulate them in the due performance of their offices, it is evident, that if the atmosphere had had a greater or less capacity for moisture, or if the proportion of land and water had been different, if the earth, air, and water had not been in exact counterpoise,-the whole arrangement of the animal and vegetable kingdoms would have varied from their present state. But God, for reasons which man may never know, chose to make those kingdoms what they are. For this purpose, it was necessary, in His judgment, to establish the proportions between the land, and the water, and the desert, just as they are; and to make the capacity of the air to circulate heat and moisture just what it is, and to have it to do all its work in obedience to law, and in subservience to order. 7. If it were not so, why was power given to the winds to lift up and transport moisture, and to feed the plants with nourishment? or why was the property given to the sea, by which its waters may become first vapor, and then fruitful showers or gentle dews? If the proportions and properties of land, sea, and air, were not adjusted according to the reciprocal capacities of all to perform the functions required of each, why should we be told that HE "measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, and meted out the heavens with a span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance"?* Why did He span the heavens, but that He might mete out the atmosphere in exact proportion to all the rest, and impart to it those properties and powers which it was necessary for it to have, in order that it might perform all those offices and duties for which He designed it? *Is., 40th chap., 12th verse. 8. Harmonious in their action, the air and sea are obedient to law, and subject to order in all their movements. When we consult them in the performance of their manifold and marvelous offices, they teach us lessons concerning the wonders of the deep, the mysteries of the sky, and the greatness, wisdom, and goodness of the Creator. The investigations into the broad-spreading circle of phenomena connected with the winds of heaven, and the waves of the sea, are second to none for the good which they do, and for the lessons which they teach. The astronomer is said to see the hand of God in the sky; but does not the rightminded mariner, who looks aloft as he ponders over these things, hear His voice in every wave of the sea that “ claps. its hands," and feel His presence in every breeze that blows'? LESSON CXLIV. 1 GENI I, good or evil spirits, supposed by the ancients to preside over man's destiny in life. 1. I THE CLOUD. SHELLEY. BRING fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, I bear light shade for the leaves when laid In their noon-day dreams; From my wings are shaken the dews that waken When rocked to rest on their mother's breast, I wield the flail of the lashing hail, And whiten the green plains under; And then again I dissolve it in rain, And laugh as I pass in thunder. 2. I sift the snow on the mountains below, And their great pines groan aghast ; And all the night 'tis my pillow white, While I sleep in the arms of the blast. Sublime on the towers of my skyey bowers, Lightning, my pilot, sits; In a cavern under is fettered the thunder, It struggles and howls by fits; Lured by the love of the genii1 that move Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills, Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream, And I, all the while, bask in heaven's blue smile, 3. The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes, And his burning plumes outspread, Leaps on the back of my sailing rack, When the morning-star shines dead, As on the jag of a mountain-crag, Which an earthquake rocks and swings, An eagle, alit, one moment may sit, In the light of its golden wings. And when sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath, Its ardors of rest and love, And the crimson pall of eve may fall From the depth of heaven above, With wings folded I rest, on mine airy nest, 4. That orbed Maiden, with white fire laden, Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor, And wherever the beat of her unseen feet, May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof, And I laugh to see them whirl and flee, When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent, Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high, 5. I bind the sun's throne with a burning zone, Sun-beam proof, I hang like a roof, The mountains its columns be. The triumphal arch through which I march When the powers of the air are chained to my chair, The sphere-fire above its soft colors wove, 6. I am the daughter of earth and water, I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores; For after the rain, when, with never a stain, The pavilion of heaven is bare, And the winds and sunbeams, with their convex gleams, Build up the blue dome of air, I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, And out of the caverns of rain, Like a sprite from the gloom, like a ghost from the tomb, I rise and upbuild it again. LESSON CXLV. 1 A CROP O LIS, the upper or higher part of a Grecian city; hence the citadel or castle, and especially the citadel of Athens. EULOGY ON DANIEL WEBSTER.* LEWIS GAYLORD CLARK. HE voice of national eulogy and sorrow unite to tell us, THE Daniel Webster is numbered with the dead. Seldom has mortality seen a sublimer close of an illustrious career. No American, since Washington, has, to so great an extent, occupied the thoughts, and molded the minds, of men. The past may hold back its tribute, and the present give no light; but the future will show, in colors of living truth, the honor which is justly due him as the political prophet, and great intellectual light of the New World. His life-time labors have been to defend the Constitution, to preserve the Union, to honor the great men of the Revolution, to vindicate international law, to develop the resources of the country, and transmit the blessings of good *Daniel Webster died at Marshfield, Mass., Oct. 24, 1852, in the seventyfirst year of his age. |