the evening twilight, softening the glare of day into the shadows of night! 18. And night's repose how welcome! Kind nature's rest and solace! How sweet its slumbers to all prepared by exercise, and undisturbed by guile! 19. How admirably the sun, by its inclining axis, affords to every portion of the globe a share of its inspiring light and heat; producing the various seasons of the year, bringing forth the fruits of the earth, and diversifying the enjoyments of the creatures that inhabit it! 20. And then the human mind; the Almighty's highest gift on earth; our guide and safeguard: how marvellous its powers! 21. All meaner creatures it reduces to the use of man! Some yield their fleeces to give him cloathing, others their lives for his sustenance; the strong their strength to lighten his toil, the wild their fierceness in submission to his will. The refractory of his own race it subdues to a regard for justice; and this established, how large a flow of blessings follow! Civil wars and anarchy, persecutions and massacres, famine and pestilence, cease to desolate the earth. Never failing supplies of necessaries and luxuries attend on peace, and well protected industry; and increase of knowledge raises additional sources of mental and bodily enjoyments. 22. Wondrous indeed is this mighty world of matter and of mind, and yet this mighty world, with all its living multitudes, is but as a grain of sand on the seashore, compared with the worlds that surround it! 23. From infinity in minuteness, we turn toward infinity in immensity! We look up to the starry firmament, and there see millions of worlds unceasingly revolving in their orbits through boundless space! 24. The swiftest projectile on earth is slowness, com pared with the velocity of these heavenly bodies. Their volume, their velocities, their orbits, all differ; they intersect each other in their rapid flights, but never vary from their appointed courses. 25. In these they run with such undeviating precision, that the periods of their transits are foretold to an instant of time, at the distance of many centuries! 26. What a sublime manifestation of the power of the Divinity! Millions of worlds! But we avail ourselves of optical means, and beyond these millions of worlds, other millions undistinguishable by the natural sight are successively discovered. Further advances in science disclose other millions still more distant, until the aching sight can follow them no further. 27. Grand and stupendous is this heavenly scene, even to vulgar eyes; but how sublime the contemplation to minds enlightened. No strain of intellect can scan the heavenly vault! No power of numbers count the orbs within it!-No power of words, no songs of praise, no human sacrifice, can raise an incense of Adoration worthy of its Divine Author! 28. By patient meditations, and thoughts intense alone, can man conceive the wondrous beauty and perfection of the Almighty's works, and duly learn to venerate the infinite power and goodness, which extending its protection to all created things, at the same instant assigns to worlds innumerable their appointed courses, and furnishes every invisible living atom with organs and means for the support and enjoyment of existence. HYMNS. HYMN I. Worship at Sun-rise. BOWRING. EXTINGUISHED now is the last, lone star, And hark for a thousand voices call,- 'Tis He who opens the eastern gates, His spirit all nature animates, And the darkness and the day: The light of hope, and the smile of bliss, His temple is yonder arch sublime; The boisterous wind, and the raging main, He rides unseen on the hurrying storm, He wraps in the clouds his awful form, A thousand messengers wait his will, And their Sovereign's high behests fulfil, He smiles and new worlds spring forth to birth, And suns in new glory rise; He frowns-and darkness covers the earth, And mantles the frighted skies; He speaks in the thunder's dreadful roar; HYMN II. Commencement of Worship. HAPPY hours! all hours excelling, Which the smiles of Heav'n adorn. And, from earthly cares refining, HYMN III. (Ps. 100,) God's Sovereignty. BEFORE Jehovah's awful throne, WATTS. His sov'reign pow'r, without our aid, We are His people, we His care, We'll crowd thy gates with thankful songs, Wide as the world is thy command; Firm as a rock thy truth must stand, HYMN IV. The Acceptable Sacrifice. WHEREWITH shall I approach the Lord, And bow before His throne? Or how procure His kind regard, Shall altars flame and victims bleed, Will these my earnest wish succeed, O! no, my soul, 'twere fruitless all, BROWNE. |