But hides the black wreck of extinguished realms,
Where anarchy and darkness long have reigned.

Yet what is this, which to the astonished mind
Seems measureless, and which the baffled thought
Confounds? A span, a point, in those domains
Which the keen eye can traverse. Seven stars
Dwell in that brilliant cluster, and the sight
Embraces all at once; yet each from each
Recedes as far as each of them from earth.
And every star from every other burns

No less remote. From the profound of heaven,
Untraveled even in thought, keen, piercing rays
Dart through the void, revealing to the sense
Systems and worlds unnumbered. Take the glass,
And search the skies. The opening skies pour down
Upon your gaze thick showers of sparkling fire-
Stars, crowded, thronged, in regions so remote,
That their swift beams-the swiftest things that be—
Have traveled centuries on their flight to earth.
Earth, sun, and nearer constellations! what

Are

ye, amid this infinite extent

And multitude of God's most infinite works!
And these are suns!-vast, central, living fires,
Lords of dependent systems, kings of worlds
That wait as satellites upon their power,
And flourish in their smile. Awake, my soul,

And meditate the wonder! Countless suns

Blaze round thee, leading forth their countless worlds!-
Worlds in whose bosoms living things rejoice,
And drink the bliss of being from the fount
Of all-pervading Love. What mind can know,
What tongue can utter, all their multitudes!
Thus numberless in numberless abodes!

Known but to thee, blessed Father! Thine they are,
Thy children, and thy care-and none o'erlooked
Of thee! No, not the humblest soul that dwells
Upon the humblest globe, which wheels its course
Amid the giant glories of the sky,

Like the mean mote that dances in the beam
Amongst the mirrored lamps, which fling
Their wasteful splendor from the palace wall
None, none escape the kindness of thy care;

All compassed underneath thy spacious wing,
Each fed and guided by thy powerful hand.

Tell me, ye splendid orbs! as from your throne,
Ye mark the rolling provinces that own

Your sway-what beings fill those bright abodes?
How formed, how gifted? what their powers, their state,
Their happiness, their wisdom? Do they bear
The stamp of human nature? Or has God
Peopled those purer realms with lovelier forms
And more celestial minds? Does Innocence
Still wear her native and untainted bloom?
Or has Sin breathed his deadly blight abroad,
And sowed corruption in those fairy bowers?
Has War trod o'er them with his foot of fire?
And Slavery forged his chains; and Wrath, and Hate,
And sordid Selfishness, and cruel Lust,

Leagued their base bands to tread out light and truth
And scatter wo where Heaven had planted joy?
Or are they yet all paradise, unfallen
And uncorrupt? existence one long joy,
Without disease upon the frame, or sin
Upon the heart, or weariness of life-
Hope never quenched, and age unknown,

And death unfeared; while fresh and fadeless youth
Glows in the light from God's near throne of love?
Open your lips, ye wonderful and fair!

Speak, speak! the mysteries of those living worlds
Unfold! No language? Everlasting light,
And everlasting silence?-Yet the eye

May read and understand. The hand of God
Has written legibly what man may know,
THE GLORY OF THE MAKER. There it shines,
Ineffable, unchangeable; and man,

Bound to the surface of this pigmy globe,
May know and ask no more.

In other days,

When death shall give the encumbered spirit wings,

Its range shall be extended; it shall roam,

Perchance, amongst those vast mysterious spheres,

Shall pass from orb to orb, and dwell in each
Familiar with its children-learn their laws,
And share their state, and study and adore
The infinite varieties of bliss

And beauty, by the Hand divine

Lavished on all its works. Eternity
Shall thus roll on with ever fresh delight;
No pause of pleasure or improvement; world
On world still opening to the instructed mind
An unexhausted universe, and time

But adding to its glories. While the soul,
Advancing ever to the Source of light
And all perfection, lives, adores, and reigns
In cloudless knowledge, purity, and bliss.

THE NATURE OF TRUTH.

THERE are so many whose feelings or habits of thought incline them to take discouraging views of the progress of their faith, that it is well to state the fact at times, that no power can offer any permanent resistance to the truth; and that their confidence in the success must be in proportion to their confidence in the truth of their opinions. In this sacred cause the weakest hands are strong; not so on the other side; though many may be blinded, though many live and die in delusion, still the cause of truth advances. The defenders of the right may be discouraged for a season;obstacles may withstand it, as the ice bars the course of some Alpine river; but their only effect is to send it on with a broader sweep and a deeper energy, when it bursts triumphantly through. All who have just ideas of the nature of truth, look forward with perfect confidence to this result. The world has seen men, advocates of truths less inspiring than those of religion, who have showed what this great confidence will do. When the world with one voice denied the truths they endeavored to impress; when lover and friend were far from them; when even the wise advised them to forbear; when they felt that they could hardly spread their light further than the lamp, with which they pursued their labors;-they kept on with a courage that nothing could depress, and showed how the weakness of human nature is raised in power when sustained by principle and duty. There has been many an apostle of Christianity, too, who has expressed a similar confidence, when there seemed little hope for the cause he had at heart; he was like an ancient prophet who in strength of God had foretold some mighty change; the incredulous began to triumph

and the timid to despair; no cloud in the heaven gave sign of the storm,-still the noble prophet persevered, waiting with a heart that never faltered till the predicted hour

was come.

This confidence is not surprising, when we remember what truth is; it is not something arbitrary, changing, and capricious; it is not formed by invention, nor does it depend on argument; it exists, whether it is acknowledged or not, whether it is perceived or not, being wholly independent of the consent of men. It is important to remember this, because we are apt to speak of it as if it were an invention rather than a discovery. As if it were a system framed and communicated to the world by Jesus Christ. But he only revealed to men what was truth in itself,-what would have been truth, even though he had never existed. And thus with all the messengers of heaven. The truths which they communicated were not new, though they were new to men. One by one they lifted the veil from the works of God; each raised it higher than the one who came before him, till at last it was torn away as by the lightning shining from the west to the east, when our Savior came into the world. Men no more invent new truths than the discoverers of the planets added new orbs to the sky; they only measured their periods and revolutions, and declared to men that what seemed like bright points, were actually worlds rolling above them; but there they had rolled from the beginning of creation. So the truths which successively open on the human mind have been shining with equal brightness from the earliest time to the present hour, though their magnitude and importance were unknown.

The advocates of truth wish to see something rapid and striking in its success. True, it is less sublime to see it spreading silently heart by heart, than to see multitudes with folded hands bowing down before it. It is less sublime to see some broad river unchained by the gentle influences of spring, than to see it lift its icy pavement with a thunder-crash and dash its fragments down the stream; but in one case property, life, and happiness are endangered, in the other it floats harmlessly away. To spread itself in the quick and violent way is not the nature of truth; error only is tumultuous and loud. Whenever men act suddenly and strongly, they are more or less governed by passion; and just in proportion as passion rises, principle is in danger of giving way.

Every man who knows what truth is, and desires to see it spread surely as well as fast; every man who feels how soon the best excitement dies away; every man who looks on truth as the power of God, desires to see it pass over the world, not like the hurricane that makes whole forests bend, but like the gentle breeze that bears healing in its wings to nature and to man.

WILL

Intelligence and Virtue protect the Republic?

It is assumed by the friends of civil liberty, that nothing can be easier than to carry on such a simple process of governing as that of our own country.

It would be easy, if the whole number, who have the right to an opinion, were always agreed. This is not so; and by the laws of nature cannot be so. Men must act in combinations, and in parties. And what is very striking, there is a rule for parties, which the individuals who compose it, disavow. The moral principle of the man, is often lost in the devotion to a party, or a sect; and sometimes men take praise to themselves for the measures of a party, when, if separated from the irresponsible whole, they might be ashamed to have engaged in them. A numerous collection acting to one end, and by one spirit, may be compared to an overwhelming torrent. If each man were separated, and put on his own responsibility, he would be as harmless as the drops which compose the torrent would be, if separated and left to the action of the air. This, one would think, is the very country of all others for combinations; for, instead of discouraging, almost all its institutions afford facilities for combining. The peculiar danger in republics is, the popular combination to aid by force, a reigning faction; this is the more difficult to be met, and managed, because, it moves under that very authority, which should control and repress it.

But leave out all unusual excitement. Take only the common daily, inevitable course of affairs. We have to encounter honest difference of opinion on vital interests; we have to meet long cherished prejudices. We differ in those things which are thought to be best understood. We say, familiarly, that every man has a right to liberty. But what is liberty? what is right? An abstract notion is easily arrived