FEBRUARY VIII.

The sun is not always apparent.

THE heavens are not continually obscured by clouds of rain and snow. After showering down their contents upon the earth, they sometimes separate, and serenity again diffuses her cheerful smiles throughout the sky. The aspect of the sun, after an obscurity of many days, again animates life, and fills the creation with joy and youth; from his appearing so seldom in winter, and then for only a very short space, we better know how to appreciate his blessings. And, perhaps, this will hold good with regard to many other gifts of Providence: we are too apt to consider the choicest blessings of life with indifference, if constantly in our possession. Health, repose, friendship, and affluence, with many other benefits which we daily enjoy, seldom appear to men as valuable as they really are; and their true worth is often never felt till they are irrevocaly lost. Rightly to know and sufficiently to feel the happiness of a bosom friend, perfect health, and an independent income, we should first have been stretched on the bed of sickness, deserted by our dearest friends, and redeed to the miseries of hopeless poverty.

How uncertain and inconstant is the serenity of the sky in the winter season! How little are we able to rely with certainty upon the possession of the beneficent rays of the sun! At present he shines with unclouded majesty; but soon the clouds will thicken, and, before noon, the splendour and the beauty, which in the morning shone apon the earth, will be eclipsed. Such is, likewise, the instability of all human transactions; we can never promise to ourselves durable pleasures, and uninterrupted felicity. This consideration should render us careful and eircumspect in the hour of prosperity, and moderate our desire for earthly joys, since every thing is subject to change and inconstancy. Virtue alone is immutable; vir tue alone makes us support with unbending firmness, the vicissitudes and the contingencies of life, unmoved by the frowns or the smiles of fortune; and enables us to sustain the mocks and the scorn of the world, whilst we pity and

compassionate the weak children of delusion, who shew their gilded wings in the sunshine of to-day, and to-morrow are heard of no more.

FEBRUARY IX.

Of Earthquakes.

THE earth is subject to two kinds of shocks; one of which is caused by the action of subterraneous fires, and the explosion of volcanoes. These commotions are only felt at short distances, and when the volcanoes act, immediately before a complete eruption. As soon as the materials which form the subterranean fires begin to ferment and inflame, the fire makes an effort in every direction; and, if it does not find a natural vent, throws up the earth with violence, and forces a passage. In this kind of earthquake the shock is more confined, seldom extending for many miles.

But there is another species of earthquake, very different in its effects, and most likely produced by very different causes. In this no eruption takes place, but the shaking of the earth is frequently felt at an immense distance; we have instances of their being felt at the same time in France, England, and Germany: they are accompanied with a deep rumbling sound, and their effects are often dreadfully fatal.

Of all the catastrophes and desolations which have ever visited the earth, none, since the flood, have been so terribly awful in their effects, and destructive in their consequences, as earthquakes. When rivers swelled into rapid torrents burst their banks, and with one immense gush pour upon the neighbouring country, sweeping every thing in their way, there is still some resource; we can fly to the tops of our houses, or ascend the summits of the mountains, and in safety behold the vast deluge, which, soon as its first fury has abated, gently retreats so its former boundaries. But when the earthquake violently perturbs the face of nature, when the earth heaves like the waves of the ocean, agitated by a storm, and opens a tremendous chasm, which receives within its abyss a whole. city, vain is the thought of flight, and ineffectual the hope

of safety. The thunder roars, and the red lightnings flash, and desolation marks their course: the plague sweeps through a country, and despair and haggard wretchedness track its wide-wasting progress; but in an earthquake, the earth heaves, opens, and whole provinces are seen no more, whilst the perturbation affects half the globe. Who can stand before the Almighty when he excrcises his power? Who can oppose the God of Nature when he rises to judge the nations? The hills tremble, and the mountains rock to their centre. The foundations of the earth are shaken, and the inhabitants greatly fear. His word consumeth like fire, and the rocks melt at his coming. But let not man vainly imagine that these convulsions of nature are merely to destroy him, when a blast of wind might in an instant lay waste the whole creation. Can any one be so weak as to suppose that the whole artillery of heaven must be employed, when a few individuals are ingulphed in the bosom of the earth? and that to punish the iniquity of a town, or to strike terror into the inhabitants of the earth, nature is to be thus convulsed? Consider rather, in these dreadful visitations, a much nobler and more exalted view. Consider them as instruments in the hands of God, working for the general good and advantage of mankind. Earthquakes answer certain ends in the system of nature, without which it probably could not attain its present degree of perfection; and in all great states, it is found that individual must give way to general good: so also with regard to the earth and its inhabitants, it is better that a small part suffer than that the whole be destroyed. Let us then acknowledge that all which appears terrible in nature, all the seeming imperfeetions in the universe, are necessary for the due order and preservation of the whole; that partial evils are always to be disregarded; and that all tends to shew the glory and perfections of God. We shall then adore and bless his name, though desolation impend and destruction threaten: we shall repose upon him with confidence, and though the final termination of the world may seem to be at hand, and the mountains, hurled from their bases, be plunged into the sea, He will be our protector, our sup porter, and sure resting-place.

FEBRUARY X.

Upon Life and Death.

GOD has observed the most exact and wonderful order in the life and death of man; both are measured and regulated in the best manner; and nothing is more evident than the wisdom of God in the population of the world. In a given number of years, a proportional number of people of every age dies. Out of thirty-five or thirty-six living persons, one dies each year: but the proportion of births is rather greater; for ten who die, in the same period of time, and among the same number of persons, twelve are born. In the first year, one infant out of three generally dies; in the fifth year, one out of twenty-five; and so on, the number of deaths lessening till the age of twenty-five, when they again begin to increase. How evident is the care which Divine Providence extends over his creatures! From the very moment of their entering the world he protects and watches over them; the poor as well as the rich enjoy his protection. Les us then not anticipate the hour of death with fear, nor render unpleasant our time with apprehension; but firmly rely upon the all-sufficient arm of God, who will support us through life with tender care, and when it seenteth meet, enable us to resign our bodies to their native dust with firmness, in the confidence of our soul, divested of its cumbrous load, winging its flight with joy to the regions of eternal glory. Let not the supposition of a long life, arising from a present good state of health, make you forgetful of the duties you owe to God and to one another, under the idea that there will be time enough allowed you to prepare for the awful change. Life is extremely uncertain: though from strength of constitution some individuals may not be so liable to illness, they may be hurried off by accidents; and no man, however strong, is secure from contagion. But a much more powerful motive than fear should excite us so to act, that our deeds shall always find favour with the Almighty; the pleasure arising from good actions, which is a constant reward and source of pure delight to the virtuous, the sensations of which are un

known to the wicked, who exchange the only true enjoyment we are capable of for false and fleeting pleasures, whose consequences are sorrow, disease, and death.

FEBRUARY XI.

Formation of Ice.

WHEN water is exposed to the influence of cold air, it gradually loses its fluidity, and becomes a solid body, which we call ice. This change, which at this season of the year comes so frequently under our notice, is well deserving of attention. Ice is of less specific gravity than water; for if we put a vessel containing water, the surface of which is frozen over, into a temperate heat, the ice soon detaches itself from the sides of the vessel, and floats on the top of the water. One cause of its lightness is the increase of volume; for although the general law of cold is to contract, in this instance, at the time of congelation, such an expansion takes place, that vessels are frequently broken by the power of the dilatation, the violence of which is sufficient to cleave a globe of copper of such thickness as to require a force of 28,000 pounds weight to produce a similar effect. When the ice first shoots in crystals over the surface of the water it is transparent, but as it increases in thickness becomes opaque, which is owing to the air contained in the ite occasioning a more frequent refraction of the rays of ight. Exhalations eontinually arise from the ice, even during the greatest cold. It is found from experiments that, during the most intense cold, four pounds of ice lose one pound weight by evaporation in the space of eighteen days.

The manner in which ice begins to form is very curi. ous; when it slightly freezes, a number of needle-shaped crystals shoot in all directions from the inner circumfer ence of the vessel making numerous angles, and uniting together, form upon the surface of the water a very thin pellicle of ice; to these succeed more, which multiply and enlarge in form of plates, and being increased in number and thickness unite to the first pellicle. As the ice thickens, a multitude of air bubbles are seen, and the greater VOL. I.

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