these creeping things? What are these well wrought masses of walking matter? What are these phantoms that swim? What are these flying phenomena? Nature is rising up in living forms. What prank is this? Is there not danger that in this tendency of things, the old earth itself will some day assume tusks and a proboscis and walk off with us all on its back? Let the atheist beware of that day, for the elephant may possibly become carnivorous in those unique changes!

Hark! I hear this animal life breathe: it moves. Now it sings, or twitters, or croaks, or neighs, or lows, or roars, or barks, or hisses, or coos, or brays, or bleats, or whistles. Now it moves: it walks, or runs, or skips, or swims, or soars, or leaps, or trots, or dances. Now it sleeps, or loves, or hates, or fights, or retreats, or shivers, or swelters, or laughs, or weeps. Now it builds houses, or hoards food, or immigrates, or eats, or drinks, or revels in society. Now it lives and now it dies. This is animal life. They are the profound lessons of design and of evident Deity around us: they are sermons to convince our faith in GOD. The fish comes with his fins and his air vescicles; the beast comes with his fur or hair or thick skin, with his sharp or flat teeth, as

his wants require; with his hoofs or his claws, with his strong limbs for offensive, or his nimble ones for defensive use; the bird comes with his fairy feathers, and his light bones, all harmonious with his mode of existence; the ground mole, the worm, the eel, and the dwellers in caves come with their eyeless brows, thankful for deliverance from eyes which to them would be fatal; and these all have one lesson and voice, that of adaptation and providence.

Nay more; the very eye of an animal speaks of GOD. All its lenses, humors, coats, curtains, muscles, nerves, and its final vision mounting, seizing upon the phenomena of light until the very stars are photographed within us-all these are final arguments of a GOD. Every bone of the frame work, every muscle of the human cordage, every nerve of the animal telegraph system, every organ of the internal cavities, every meandering stream of crimson blood bespeaks creative skill.

16. The air is an emblem of an invisible spirit. "The wind bloweth where it listeth." The ocean of air with its balmy breezes and its potential storms has a significant eloquence. Now it bears up the soaring bird, now it dissipates the noxious smokes and vapors, now it buoys up the rain cloud, from the

ocean to the distant land, and now it gently seeks the lungs of every living thing to pour in its treasures of life. We may not see it, but we can hear its voice in the pines and the mulberry trees, and we can feel its power in the breath. Were the air mixed in a little different proportion, it would become "laughing gas" which would briefly intoxicate all, and hurry life into fearful brevity. If one more element of oxygen entered the formula, the whole atmosphere would become an irrespirable poison. Blessed is the man whose daily breath is not prepared by the Chemistry of atheism or of chance.

17. The crowning proof of God is man. He has the beautiful, upright form, the cheek of dimpled loveliness, the eye of fire and the brow of God-like mien. He has the supremacy over all animal life. For without a supreme head to govern, subdue and protect, all that is noble on earth must still tumble into disorder, strife and ruin. Man is not supreme because of his strength or prowess. The lion is bolder, the whale is larger and more formidable; the eagle soars higher, but man, full of ́ intelligence, representing the very DEITY whose attributes are portrayed in nature, inherits authority

by the power of mind and spirit. His thoughts burn, his memories recover the lost, his judgments rest upon reason, his imaginations create, his passions rise and fall, his plans comprehend the mortal and the immortal. Man is not a God; but man's nobility elevates our conceptions of a GOD.

Man's hands are not modifications of animal limbs, but better; they grasp with firmness, delicacy and facility. Hands portend skill and progress; they lead to trades and professions which prove man's supremacy. Such hands, put upon the forearm of a beast without mind, must be worse than useless, a power for evil. Souls are the essential counterparts of hands. Were chance or accident to cause the horse and the man to exchange hand for hoof, then man's work would be revolutionized, he would become the mauling animal; but his hoofs would be subservient to no end in his econo my and he would die for want of hands; while the horse would become the pawing animal, but he too would soon die for want of his hoofs. Fabled monsters combining the horse and the fish, or the man and the horse, are only fanciful, not real. Not the man alone who ascends the pulpit is a preacher of GOD, but all preach by their wonderful forms. Man

preaches to himself; his body preaches to his soul, and the theme absorbs existence.

"Dim miniature of greatness absolute !
An heir of glory! a frail child of dust!
Helpless immortal! insect infinite!

A worm! a GOD! I tremble at myself,
And in myself am lost."

But the atheist retreats from a living soul; it is the warm breath of a GOD. It is the most formidable and unaccountable mystery of the universe. Secured from infidelity and mortality, the soul stands defiant. It

"Smiles

At the drawn dagger, and defies its point,
The stars shall fade away, the sun himself
Grow dim with age, and Nature sink in years;
But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth;

Unhurt amid the war of elements,

The wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds."

18. Finally, the success of the entire plan is the highest possible test of its divine author. Adaptation and harmony run up through all creation. The mighty plan is a success, and the scheme a unity, from the glow worm which sends a dim lustre but a few feet, up to the burning sun that kindles glory through all space, from the parental love that rescues infancy from want, up to the divine benevolence that