"A man, considered in his present state, seems only sent into the world to propagate his kind. He provides himself with a successor, and immediately quits his post to make room for him:

Heir urges on his predecessor heir
Like wave impelling wave.

He does not seem born to enjoy life, but to deliver it down to others. This is not surprising to consider in animals, which are formed for our use, and can finish their business in a short life. The silk worm, after having spun her task, lays her eggs and dies. But a man can never have taken in his full measure of knowledge, has not time to subdue his passions, establish his soul in virtue, and come up to the perfection of his nature, before he is hurried off the stage. Would an infinitely wise Being make such glorious creatures for so mean a purpose? Can he delight in the production of such abortive intelligences, such short-lived reasonable beings? Would he give us talents that are not to be exert ed? capacities that are never to be gratified? How can we find that Wisdom, which shines through all his works in the formation of man, without looking on this world as a nursery for the next? and believing that the several generations of rational creatures, which rise up and disappear in such quick successions, are only to receive their first rudiments of existence here, and afterwards to be transplanted into a more friendly climate, where they may spread and flourish to all eternity.

"There is not, in my opinion, a more pleasing and triumphant consideration in religion than this, of the perpetual progress which the soul makes towards the perfection of its nature, without ever arriving at a period in it. To look upon the soul as going on from strength to strength; to consider that she is to shine for ever with new accessions of glory, and brighten to all eternity, that she will be still adding virtue to virtue, and knowledge to knowledge, carries in it something wonderfully agreeable to that ambition which is natural to the mind of man. Nay, it must be a prospect pleasing to God himself to see his creation forever beautifying in his eyes, and drawing nearer to him by greater degrees of resemblance.

"Methinks this single consideration of the progress of a finite spirit to perfection will be sufficient to extinguish all envy in inferior natures, and all contempt in superior. That

cherubim, which now appears as a god to a human soul, knows very well that the period will come about in eternity, when the human soul shall be as perfect as he himself now is; nay, when she shall look down upon that degree of perfection as much as she now falls short of it. It is true the higher nature still advances, and by that means preserves his distance and superiority in the scale of being; but he knows how high soever the station is, of which he stands possessed at present, the inferior nature will at length mount up to it, and shine forth in the same degree of glory.

"With what astonishment and veneration may we look into our own souls, where their are such hidden stores of virtue and knowledge, such inexhausted sources of perfection? We know not yet what we shall be, nor will it ever enter into the heart of man to conceive the glory that will be always in reserve for him. The soul considered with its Creator, is like one of those mathematical lines that may draw nearer to another for all eternity without a possibility of touching it and can there be a thought so transporting, as to consider ourselves in these perpetual approaches to Him who is not only the standard of perfection but of happiness?*

SECTION V.

On the unlimited range of view which is opened to the human faculties throughout the immensity of space and of duration.

The unlimited range of view which is opened to the human imagination throughout the immensity of space and of duration, and the knowledge we are capable of acquiring respecting the distant regions of the universe, are strong presumptions and evidences of the eternal destination of man.

If the universe consisted solely of the globe on which we dwell, with its appendages, and were the spaces with which it is surrounded nothing more than an immense void, it would not appear surprising were the existence of man to terminate in the tomb. After having traversed this earthly ball for eighty or a hundred years, and surveyed all the varieties on its surface; after having experienced many of the physical and moral evils connected with its present constitution, and felt that "all is vanity and vexation of

* Spectator, vol. 2,

spirit," and that no higher prospect, and no further scope for the exercise of his faculties were presented to view; he would be ready to exclaim with Job, "I loathe it, I would not live alway; let me alone, for my days are vanity: my soul chooseth strangling and death, rather than my life." To run the same tiresome round of giddy pleasures, and to gaze perpetually on the same unvaried objects, from one century to another, without the hope of future enjoyment, would afford no gratification commensurate with the desires and capacities of the human mind. Its powers would languish, its energies would be destroyed, its progress to perfection would be for ever interrupted, and it would roam in vain amidst the surrounding void in quest of objects to stimulate its activity.

But beyond the precincts of this earthly scene," a wide and unbounded prospect lies before us;" and the increasing light of modern science has enabled us to penetrate into its distant regions, and to contemplate some of its sublime and glorious objects. Within the limits of the solar system of which our world forms a part, there have been discovered twenty-nine planetary bodies, which contain a mass of matter more than two thousand five hundred times greater than the earth, besides the numerous comets, which are traversing the planetary regions in all directions, and the immense globe of the Sun, which is like a universe in itself, and which is five hundred times larger than the earth and all the planets and comets taken together. These bodies differ from each other in their magnitude, distances, and motions, and in the scenery with which their surfaces are diversified; and some of them are encircled with objects the most splendid and sublime. They appear to be furnished with every thing requisite for the accommodation of intellectual beings, are capable of containing a population many thousands of times greater than that of our world, and are doubtless replenished with myriads of rational inhabitants. Within the limits this system the soul of man would find full scope for the exertion of all its powers, capacities, and activities, during a series of ages.

Our views of the universe, however, are not confined to the system with which we are more immediately connected. Every star which twinkles in the canopy of heaven, is, on good grounds, concluded to be a sun, and the centre of a magnificent system similar to our own; and perhaps surrounded with worlds more spacious and splendid than any

of the planetary globes which we are permitted to contemplate. Nearly a thousand of these systems are visible to every observer, when he directs his eye, in a clear winter's night, to the vault of heaven. Beyond all that is visible to the unassisted eye, a common telescope enables us to discern several thousands more. With higher degrees of magnifying power, ten thousands more, which lie scattered at immeasurable distances beyond the former, may still be descried. With the best instruments which art has hitherto constructed, many millions have been detected in the different regions of the sky-leaving us no room to doubt, that hundreds of millions more, which no human eye will ever discern in the present state, are dispersed throughout the illimitable tracts of creation. So that no limits appear to the scene of Creating Power, and to that vast empire over which the moral government of the Almighty extends. Amidst this boundless scene of Divine Wisdom and Omnipotence, it is evident, that the soul might expatiate in the full exercise of its energies, during ages numerous as the drops of the ocean, without ever arriving at a boundary to interrupt its excursions.

Now, it ought to be carefully remarked, in the first place, that God endowed the mind of man with those faculties by which he has been enabled to compute the bulk of the earth, to determine the size and distances of the planets, and to make all the other discoveries to which I now allude. In the course of his providence he led the human mind into that train of thought, and paved the way for those inventions by means of which the grandeur and extent of his operations in the distant regions of space have been opened to our view. It, therefore, appears to have been his will and intention, that the glories of his empire, in the remote spaces of creation, should be, in some measure, unveiled to the inhabitants of our world.

Again, when the soul has once got a glimpse of the magnificence and immensity of creation, it feels the most ardent desire to have the veil, which now interposes between us and the remote regions of the universe, withdrawn, and to contemplate at a nearer distance the splendours of those worlds whose suns we behold twinkling from afar. A thousand conjectures and inquiries are suggested to the mind, in relation to the systems and worlds which are dispersed through the immensity of space. Are all those vast globes peopled with inhabitants? are they connected together,

under the government of God, as parts of one vast moral system? are their inhabitants pure moral intelligences, or are they exposed to the inroads of physical and moral evil? What are the gradations of rank or of intellect which exist among them? What correspondence do they carry on with other provinces of the Divine empire? What discoveries have they made of the perfections of Deity, of the plan of his government, and of the extent of his dominions? With what species of corporeal vehicles do they hold a correspondence with the material world? With what organs of perception, and with what powers of intellect are they furnished? What faculties and organs different from those of man do they possess, and by what laws are their social intercourses regulated? Do benignity and love for ever beam from their countenances, and does ecstatic joy perpetually enrapture their hearts? What capacities for rapid movement do they possess? Are they confined within the limits of a single globe like ours, or can they fly from one world to another, on the wings of a seraph? What magnificent landscapes adorn the places of their residence? What celestial glories are hung out for their contemplation in the canopy of heaven? What visible displays of the presence and agency of their Creator are presented to their view? By what means are they carried forward in their progress towards intellectual and moral perfection? What sciences do they cultivate-What objects engage their chief attention-in what solemn and sublime forms of worship and adoration do they join? What changes or revolutions have taken place among them? What transactions does their history record? What scenes of glory or of terror have been displayed towards any particular system or province of this immense empire? Are sin, disease, and death altogether unknown, and do their inhabitants bask for ever in the regions of immortality? What knowledge do they possess of the character and condition of the inhabitants of our globe, and of the system of which it forms a part? What variety of sensitive and intellectual beings is to be found in the different systems of the universe? What diversity of external scenery, superior to all that the eye o man has seen or his imagination can conceive, is displayed throughout the numerous worlds which compose this vast empire? What systems exist, and what scenes of creating power are displayed in that boundless region which lies beyond the limits of human vision? At what period in dura