this world is one grand answer to such objections as are built on apparent impossibility. From infancy to manhood the individual is daily expanding his comprehension to new possibilities of things; and from barbarity to refinement, philosophy is daily enriching society with new treasures of knowledge, with new powers and capacities of nature, with new results of new combinations. "Who can define the outgoings of the divine fecundity, or number the rounds of the intellectual scale?"

It is worth while also to remark, that there is nothing proposed to us by our religion, of which we have not clear ideas of the parts separately, although we cannot take in their various attributes and relations. We may understand the terms of the proposition, although we are unable to comprehend its truth. We know very accurately what is meant by a circle and a square, but we are unable to determine their proportions, for want of some related idea on which this discovery depends: so no man is without a clear general idea of what is meant by spirit; but, for want of being possessed of some other ideas which bear relation to spirit, he is perfectly unqualified to comprehend its properties and attributes.

In strictness of speech, we can be said to know nothing thoroughly, unless we could trace it back through all its causes, in one uninterrupted series, up to its original mover; nor is it at all possible to acquaint ourselves with the various relations between any existent things, unless we could ascend from proximate cause to proximate cause, up to the beginning of all things. Impressed with this sense of my own insufficiency, I would not presume to assert that the potatoe that grows in my garden, and the

oyster that lies upon the rock, are not necessary to each other's existence; or that, if Alexander had not conquered Asia, Milton could have composed his Paradise Lost. Exhibit to a native of New Holland an English clock, will he readily surmise that the minute and the hour hand, as well as the striker, all owe their several motions to one original mover? Show him the internal works, will he readily comprehend that complicated operation of wheel within wheel, which produces that proportion and dependence between parts so different in their constructions, so opposite in their motions, and so apparently unconnected in their functions? Will he not make the same conclusion as the story tells us was made by one of his condition, that the whole is an animal?

But little more than this Indian could know of the clock, did sir Isaac Newton know of the great system of the universe. More of its dependencies, connections, and relations, he certainly did discover than had been till then conceded to human penetration; yet was he forced to bottom all his reasonings on the hypothesis of gravitation, of which he could give no other account than that it was necessary to the conclusions he rested upon it. I think I cannot finish my paper better than by laying before the reader the sentiments of Job on this subject, which seem in one place to have anticipated this barrier to our natural researches.

"He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing.

"He bindeth up the waters in his thick clouds, and the cloud is not rent under them.

"He holdeth back the face of his throne, and spreadeth his cloud upon it.

"He hath compassed the waters with bounds, until the day and night come to an end.

"The pillars of heaven tremble, and are astonished at his reproof.

"He divideth the sea with his power; and by his understanding he smiteth through the proud.

"By his spirit he hath garnished the heavens; his. hand hath formed the crooked serpent.

"Lo! these are parts of his ways;

"Yet how little a portion is heard of him!

"But the thunder of his power, who can underatand?"

N° 69. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 7.

"I bless God heartily that I had the advantage of a religious education, which is an invaluable blessing; for even when I minded it least, it still hung about me, and gave me checks." LORD RUSSEL'S Paper, given to the Sheriff at the Place of his Execution.

POLEMO was the most abandoned of the Athenian youth. He seemed not only to have lost all the scruples of conscience, but the dread of infamy; and no one suspected that any portion of either principle or feeling remained in his mind. One day after sunrise, as he returned from a feast, he saw the gate of Xenocrates the philosopher open. He was full of wine, and anointed with a variety of essences; his head was crowned with a garland, and his limbs were clothed with a thin transparent garment. In this condition he reeled into the school, in which were assembled the most grave and learned men in the city. Unawed by so venerable a sight, he sat himself down in the midst of them, to laugh at their proceedings. The whole assembly were to the last degree indignant at this outrageous behaviour. Xenocrates alone was unmoved: without the smallest change of countenance, he dismissed the theme upon which he was discoursing, and drew a lively and affecting picture of the miserable consequences of intemperance and debauchery. As he proceeded in

his subject, Polemo was observed to comport himself with more decency. In a short time he laid aside the garland from his head: at length he drew his arm within his cloak, and seemed wrapt in the profoundest attention.-This Polemo became afterwards one of the greatest philosophers of his time.

I am inclined to think that a great many Polemos are every day lost to society for want of a Xenocrates to give a turn to their lives. There is, in all minds in which the sensibilities are not entirely dead, and the understanding impenetrably dull, some secret hold or handle by the help of which a new motion may be given to the machine; some fastening that may bind one solitary proposition or so, to which salutary conclusions may attach, or whereon may depend a train of irresistible truths. In a mind of dissipation and disorder, to search out this saving quality demands something beyond the activity of common virtue, or the patience of common philosophy. The thorough disgust of vice implies a certain share of positive virtue; but to bear with it in the hope of reclaiming it, is a much higher reach of excellence. The physician can never hope to rise to perfection in his art, until he can subdue his repugnance to whatever is most terrible and disgustful in the maladies to which human nature is subject: and he who cherishes with his virtue an exclusive spirit, that abandons the vicious to themselves, must expect rewards no greater than his sacrifices, and praise proportioned to his pains; must expect to be answerable for a crime rising out of his virtues, that of neglecting their noblest use and natural direction.

Providence, who knows the weakness of our strength, and oscitancy of our zeal, has not left the