larged view, all the phenomena of nature, visible and invisible, are natural; but, in the popular use of the word, "supernatural" refers to all incidents which arise beyond or above; and which cannot be produced by the ordinary laws of nature around us: thus, if a table be set on the ground, it remains there according to the laws of gravitation; but, if that table were to rise off the ground, without any material body or mechanism attached thereto, we should say it was supernatural, super, superior, or above the laws governing the visible elements around us. Having cleared the path, by a distinct apprehension of the meaning to be attached to the words material, immaterial, and supernatural, I deem it advisable that we should examine the world, earth, or globe, on which we live, so far as those portions are concerned which will interest the student of nature; and guide the mind or spirit, to a safe and clear preception of the first great compound of our being-the BODY.

MAN is a body, composed of iron, lime, magnesia, potash, soda, water; water, of course, being composed of oxygen and hydrogen; under the anatomical or medical phrases of blood, bone, muscle, fat, gastric juice, saliva, tears, serum, oil, &c.; and, as we find all these substances, in larger or smaller quantities, diffused in strata or veins through the crust of the earth; we at once perceive our affinity with matter of a similar kind to that of which our bodies are composed. This explains a considerable portion of the phenomena developed in man, during health and sickness, ease and disease, change of soil and atmosphere, producing depression or exhilaration; and when powerful magnetic changes are taking place, why the human body so sensibly feels the magnetic influence of the atmosphere on the iron in the blood-a power unseen, invisible, yet felt.

The Earth is a solid, so far as is known. We have no desire to enter within the range of theories, as to the probable hollowness, fluidity, or solidity of the earth, four thousand miles deep; the crust of the earth being sufficient for our purpose,

except so far as relates to the birthplace of our atmosphere. Let us examine its compound parts, in order to lay the foundation of our superstructure on a solid basis.

The World, so far as its crust is concerned, is composed of granite and minerals-both devoid of organic life, yet containing in their several divisions, properties external and internal; which act on animated nature. The research of man has unfolded mystery upon mystery, wonder upon wonder; till the rapidity of the discoveries within the last few years has so enlarged the mind, as to leave it open to expect still greater marvels. Look at astronomy-the child gazes upwards; he thinks as a child; he speaks as a child; as he looks upward, space to him is "bue (blue) bue," and the ponderous orbs, rolling, fleeing, with light-like speed; are "sparks sticking in the bue." Turn to the savage-his views are almost as child-like as the other; while the mass of civilized human beings, educationally instructed to a certain extent, can call space" sky," and worlds "stars;" but attempt to explain their size, distance, speed, and circle sweep; and the half-vacant, half-incredulous eyes tell you, they cannot comprehend; therefore you are either drawing the strong-bow of imagination, or deliberately deceiving them; and, amongst their companions in the quiet of domestic life, or social gatherings, the portraiture of you, will be in accordance with their opinion-that you are "half-cracked."

How often are the great truths and mysteries of physical and mental knowledge, treated in the same off-hand manner, by even educated man? No one man can grasp the infinite, as displayed in the finite around and beneath us. Astronomy, geology, botany, or anatomy, each take a life-time; and leave at death, the wise man still a child in knowledge. It is only by trusting in the truthfulness of the investigators of any given branch of knowledge, that facts can be collected and laws deduced therefrom. Cavil at every declaration, and the chariot-wheels of science would be still. Each band or class of examiners into nature agrees; and thus, out of the mouth, or

by the pen of two or three witnesses, every principle is established. As some of my readers are well versed in astronomy and geology, and both are woven in the subject we are grappling with, a few minutes' revelling in the magnificence of creation, will refresh our memories, enlarge our thoughts, and enable us to perceive the bearings of the universe upon our world, and of our world upon Man.

SECTION II.

UNIVERSE.

THE UNIVERSE in its vastness, is beyond the comprehension of man's faculties; yet it is material. The ponderous balls of metal, revolve in circles at such distances, as to prostrate our powers of apprehension, calculation, and knowledge of such distances; and force us to confess that the attempt at naming numbers, conveys words only and not ideas-language so feeble, that it affords no idea, except that one which swallows up all in its measureless nothingness, "incomprehensible." When we find that the sun which lights our world is 95,000,000 miles from us, that a ray of its light travels to us at the rate of 192,000 miles in every second of time, or every breath we draw-that while the earth is 8,000 miles thick, the sun is 880,000 miles; equal to 1,300,000 globes of the size of our earth-we are lost in the distance, light, and size of the object; but when we reflect, that that sun only shines by borrowed light, is only one of a number of suns fed by one great central sun in the Pleiades; and again, that that sun, compared to which our earth, our vaunted and boasted earth is as a floating particle of dust to an orange-is only a lesser light to other worlds, systems, and suns of greater magnitude;-lash the thoughts of the mind into action; count our hundreds, our thousands, our tens of thousands, our hundreds of thousands, our millions of globes, or spheres, or stars, or suns: take our eyesight scan of the heavens, whether at the north or south side of the equator; take our common telescope, and the sum of worlds is countless; look at the milky way, and the nebulæ scattered throughout the heavens as fringe clouds in the sky; which the telescopes of Herschel and of Rosse resolve into worlds, countless, myriad worlds; displaying fresh nebulæ in far-off yonder, for the resolving of which, no instrument yet made, or likely to be made, will ever display, even as dots or points, those stars or suns, or what else you choose to

:

call them. Herschel states, that in seven minutes 50,000 passed the field of his telescope-that 860,000 stars were visible with the telescope-each star a sun-and if accompanied with the same number of planetary bodies we have in our solar system, say thirty Behold an assembly of 2,400,000,000 ponderous globes of rock, or semi-metal, or whatever the earths are composed of—whose intellect thrills not with wonder and with awe? -Grasp, comprehend, if you can, the mighty, the magnificent scene; pierce if you can through the light of day into the ether of the limitless; continue to look at that awful procession of fleeing worlds travelling their thousands of miles per minute; and dare we say with the atheist, "There is no Creator, no Sustainer?" Track, if you can, the movements of those glorious orbs; watch the circle sweep of thousands-the elliptic orbits of some, the apparently erratic course of others; calculate their distances, the one from the other, and who dare affirm that that Creator, that Sustainer, has no organization of workers, to carry out the details of so infinite a universe? Materialist, do your "Idealist" bridge and building-makers, not engage their superior and inferior workmen, to embody and utilise their conceptions and plans? Is not earth a portion of the universe, governed by the same laws which govern the countless hosts of orbs? If you cannot grasp the size, and analyze the material; if you cannot understand how the food, the bread you eat, and the water you drink, is metamorphosed into flesh, material flesh; how can you deny as a thinker, as a reasoner, that as life, mind, mental action is more subtile than matter, you are likely to be lost, paralyzed, and subdued, by the might, magnitude, and irresistless power, life, and ideality, of its energies, when not incorporated in flesh. Man in flesh, without lifting his hand, employs his fellow-man, animals, metals; he wills, he moulds each according to his knowledge of their capabilities; and mountains are pierced or blown up, rivers bridged, the land lined with railways, and the earth almost girded with the metal nerves of electricity, conveying the thoughts of man with the speed of light.