humour and festive glee. The latter days of the old boy generally pass very pleasantly away. Though constitutionally full of fun and good humour, he has always paid becoming attention to the main chance. Amidst all his quips and cranks, dancing and drollery, he has never lost sight of number one. His pleasantry and puns have never run away with his prudence; hence he has contrived to feather his nest' pretty comfortably with the good things of this life. Plenty makes pleasantness, or, as Sancho Panza would say, 'good fare lessens care.' Thus, in his little snuggery, with his old faithful housekeeper to minister to all his necessities, the days of the old boy glide away very comfortably. While, however, the old boy is reposing on a bed of roses, his heir is in all probability lying on a bed of thorns. Woe betide the unfortunate wight who is looking forward to inherit the worldly substance' of an old boy. His is no enviable lot. He would require at least the patience of Job. Waiting to step into dead men's shoes is in most cases rather tiresome and trying to the temper; but it is enough to drive any ordinary man to his wits' end to have to wait year after year, enduring all the bitterness of hope deferred, till the common enemy enables him to slip his eager toes into the slippers of a defunct old boy. The old boy will doubtless keep his kinsman waiting a pretty considerable time. He is made of rather tough materials. There is an immense deal of stamina in him. Time has bent, but it will not easily break him. Year after year his friends are dropping away, but he seems determined to live for ever. Fevers and fogs, east winds and agues, hard winters and soft springs, are anxiously watched and welcomed by the heir, but they all pass harmlessly over the head of the old boy. They are filling the churchyard with their victims, but the old boy is still on his legs. He seems to bear a charmed life. The heir, Sunday after Sunday, hears his pastor descant in good set terms about the shortness of life, but when he thinks of his kinsman the old boy, his faith is sorely staggered. He at least forms an exception to the shortness of life. The man has lived nobody knows how many scores of years, and he appears determined never to die. He seems as tenacious of life as an eel. Who knows but the old boy may live to see his heir consigned to the tomb of all the Capulets;' and if it was so, it would then be of little consequence to him though the old boy lived to be as old as the hills.' The poor man begins to have serious apprehensions that such may be the case-that the old boy may see him out. His case is desperate. He has a wife and a large small family, who are like to swallow him up alive. He has been living for years on the death of his kinsman, and ever and anon he hath been comforting himself with the secret hope that the old boy would either accidentally slip into a pool some morning while engaged in fishing, or suddenly drop down in an apoplectic fit. None of these desirable events however occur, and the poor man is much annoyed at being thus kept out of the inheritance. The old boy, however, fortunately for his heir, is not immortal. He must bow his head to the grim king at last. Some morning, when the unfortunate heir is sitting ruminating on his hard fate, in being thus obliged to wait so long for a legacy, a letter with a black seal is put into his hand, which conveys to him the intelligence that the old boy is at last 'gathered to his fathers." BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. WILLIAM HUTTON. WILLIAM HUTTON, according to his very interesting autobiography, was born at the bottom of Full Street, Derby. He remarks that there were no prognostications prior to his birth, except that his father, a day before, was chosen constable. But a circumstance occurred-which, he believes, never had happened before in his family-the purchase of a cheese, price half-a-guinea, so large as to merit a wheelbarrow to bring it home. When about two years and a half old he was sent to Mount Sorrel, where he had an uncle who was a bachelor; also a grandmother who kept his house. With this uncle, and three crabbed aunts, all single, who resided together at Swithland, about two miles distant from his uncle's, he lived alternately for about fifteen months. Here he was put into breeches; but he was considered an interloper, and treated with much ill-nature. One of his aunts was unhappily addicted to drinking; and he says, that upon one occasion when he was out with her, she called at an ale-house and got so very tipsy, that she could neither stand nor walk. This was a scene that often occurred, and though he was very young, it seems to have made such an impression upon him as to cause him to look ever afterwards upon this vice with disgust and abhorrence. His father, too, was so given to the same debasing habit that he squandered the pittance he was able to earn as a journeyman wool-comber, while his wife and family were oftentimes nearly starved for want of bread. Between the age of four and six, Hutton, by some contrivance or other, was sent to school, where he was most harshly treated by his teacher, who often took occasion to beat his head against the wall, holding it by the hair, but without being able to drive any learning into it, for he hated all books but those containing pictures. This was the only schooling he ever had. When Hutton was six years old, consultations were held about fixing him in some employment for the benefit of the family. Winding quills for the weaver was mentioned. but this was dropped. Stripping tobacco for the grocer, in which he was to earn fourpence a-week, was also proposed; but it was at last concluded that he was too young for any employment. The year following, however, he was placed in a silk mill in the town of Derby, where for seven years he had to work; rising at five in the morning, summer and winter; submitting to the cane whenever his master thought proper to make use of it; the constant companion of the most rude and vulgar of the human race-never taught by nature, and never wishing to be taught. In the year 1731, about Christmas, there was a very sharp frost, followed by a thaw; and another frost, when the streets were again glazed with ice. On awaking one night it seemed day-light. Hutton rose in tears, being fearful of punishment, and went to his father's bedside to ask what was the clock. He was told it was about six. He then darted out in terror; and from the bottom of Fall Street to the top of Silkmill Lane, not 200 yards, he fell down nine times. Observing no light in the mill, he perceived it was still very early, and that the reflection of the snow into his bed-room window must have deceived him. As he was returning home it struck two. On the 9th of March, 1731, the youth was so unfortunate as to lose his mother. After her death his father gave up housekeeping, sold the furniture, and spent the moneytook lodgings for himself and children with a widow, who had four of her own. His mother dead, his father continually at an alehouse, and himself among strangers, his life was forlorn indeed! He was almost without a home, nearly without clothes, and his cupboard, we need scarcely add, was scanty enough. At one time, he fasted from breakfast one day till noon the next, and then only dined upon flour and water boiled into a hasty-pudding. He was also afflicted with the hooping-cough and with boils. His master at the mill was very cruel to him; he made a severe wound in his back when beating him with a cane. It grew gradually worse. In a succeeding punishment the point of the cane struck the wound, which brought it into such a state that mortification was apprehended. His father was advised to bathe him in Keddleston water. A cure was effected, but he continued to carry the scar. When his seven years' servitude at the silk mill had expired, it was necessary to think of some other trade. Hutton wished to be a gardener, but his father opposed this, and to save himself expense and trouble turned him over for another term of years to his brother, a stocking-maker at Nottingham. On being transferred from Derby to Nottingham, he did not find that his condition was much improved. His uncle acted to determine differences between man and man. He 'Despair of nothing that you would attain, and the difficulties that he at first had to contend with in a very friendly manner towards him, but his aunt was mean and sneaking, and grudged him every meal he ate. She kept a constant eye upon the food and the feeder. This curb galled his mouth to that degree, that he never afterwards eat at another's table without fear. He had also to work over-hours, early and late, to gain a trifle to clothe himself with; but so little was he able to earn, that during even the severest part of the winter, he was obliged to be contented with a light thin waistcoat, without a lining; as for a coat, he could not possibly get money enough to purchase one. In the year 1741, Hutton fell in love. He was struck with a girl, watched her wherever she went, and peeped through the window shutter at night. She lay near his heart eleven years; but he never spoke to her in his whole life, nor was she ever apprized of his passion. His savings now enabled him to purchase a coat and a new wig, with which he was highly delighted. On the 12th of July in this year, the ill treatment he received from his uncle in the shape of a brutal flogging, with a birch broom-handle of white hazel, which almost killed him, caused him to run away. He was then in his seventeenth year, and was badly dressed, nearly five feet high, and rather of Dutch make. He carried with him a long narrow bag of brown leather, that would hold about a bushel, in which was packed up As soon as his second apprenticeship was completed, a new suit of clothes; also a white linen bag which would Hutton continued with his uncle as a journeyman, in hold about half as much, containing a sixpenny loaf of the which capacity he was able to save a little money. coarsest bread; a bit of butter wrapped in the leaves of Having contracted a habit of reading what books came in an old copybook; a new bible worth three shillings; one his way, he was now enabled better to gratify this taste, shirt; a pair of stockings; a sun-dial; his best wig care- by purchasing a few works. Among others, he bought fully folded and laid at the top, that by lying in the hollow three volumes of the Gentleman's Magazine,' which of the bag it might not be crushed. The ends of these being in a tattered state he contrived to bind. As the two bags being tied together, he flung them over his left stocking trade was very bad, and would not support him, shoulder, rather in the style of a cock-fighter. Being un- he contrived, with considerable difficulty, to learn the art able to put his hat into the bag, he hung it to the button of bookbinding, and after the most devoted attention to of his coat. He had only twopence in his pocket, a spa- it, he managed to become pretty expert at it. In the cious world before him, and no plan of operation. He year 1747 he set out for London, with the intention of trycarried neither a light heart nor a light load; and all that ing to gain his livelihood by his third trade. His sister was light about him was the sun in the heavens and the Catherine raised for him three guineas, sewed them in his money in his pocket. He steered his course to Derby, shirt_collar, and he commenced his arduous journey on and near to that town he slept in a field. The next morn- Monday morning the 8th of April, at three o'clock. Not ing he arrived at Lichfield, and espying a barn in a field, being used to walk, his feet were blistered with the first he thought it would afford him a comfortable shelter; on ten miles. He would not, however, succumb to the pain approaching it, however, and trying the door, he found it and fatigue he experienced, but continued to walk on was locked. He then went in search of another lodging, until he had got over fifty-one miles. On the Wednesleaving his bags behind him; to his horror, on returning day evening he arrived in London, and took up his resifor them, he discovered that they had been stolen. Terror dence at an inn called the Horns,' in Smithfield. He seized him, he roared after the rascal, but might as well remained in London a few days, but without being able have been silent, for thieves seldom come at call. Run- to procure any work, and as he was entirely friendless, ning roaring and lamenting about the fields and roads he thought it the most prudent thing he could do to reoccupied some time. He was too deeply plunged in turn to Nottingham. He then took a shop at Southdistress to find relief in tears. He described the bags well, which he stocked with a quantity of old books he and told the affair to all he met; and from all he found had contrived to buy with his slender finances. As be pity or seeming pity, but redress from none. He saw his only attended at Southwell on the market day, Saturday, hearers dwindle away with the summer twilight, and by he had to walk to that place through all sorts of weather eleven o'clock he found himself in the open street, left to setting out about five o'clock in the morning, opening tell his mournful tale to the silent night. It is not easy shop about ten, starving in it all day upon bread and to conceive a human being in a more forlorn situation. cheese and half-a-pint of ale; taking about one shilling His finances were nothing; he was a stranger to the and sixpence or two shillings, and then trudging through world, and the world was a stranger to him; no employ- the solitary night for five hours, he arrived at Nottingham ment, nor likely to procure any; he had neither food to again. Thus for some time he continued to work at the eat nor a place to rest; all the little property he had stocking-frame during the first five days of the week, upon earth had been taken from him; nay, even hope, and to attend at Southwell on the Saturday; and although that last and constant friend of the unfortunate, well he worked early and late, and practised the most rigid nigh forsook him. In this miserable state of destitu- economy, he could scarcely get his daily bread. Never tion he sought repose upon a butcher's block. Next day despairing of success, he looked out for a shop in Birhe continued his way to Birmingham, and on arriving mingham, and removed to that town. He had arrangel there he was much struck with the bustle and alacrity of with a poor woman who resided at No. 6 Bull Street, for the people. He little thought then, that in the course of part of her small shop, agreeing to pay her one shilling nine years he should become a resident in it, and thirty-a-week for the use of it. He was also, through the kindnine years afterwards its historian. Here he made various unsuccessful applications for work. At night he sat down to rest upon the north side of the Old Cross, near Philip Street-the poorest of all the poor belonging to that great parish, of which, twenty-seven years afterwards, he became overseer. He sat under that roof a silent, oppressed object, where, thirty-one years afterwards, he sat ness of a dissenting clergyman, enabled to make a better show than he had hitherto done in point of stock. This gentleman had a quantity of old books, which he let Hutton have upon his signing a note to the effect that he would pay him when he was able. Hutton soon was able, and discharged the debt accordingly. First creep and then go.' is a popular remark: this seems to have been the maxim on which the subject of this memoir acted. He could not possibly have started in business with less means; we shall see how he contrived to get on. When he first opened his Birmingham shop, every thing around him seemed gloomy and disheartening, but he managed to keep up his spirits, and practising his usual rigid economy, he saved during the first year £20. By degrees his business increased, and he took larger premises. In the year 1755, Hutton married a young woman, with whom he had a dowry of £100, and as he had saved £200 himself, he was placed in a situation to extend his business by adding to it the sale of paper. He had now gained a good footing upon the road to wealth, and he followed it up with such ardour and industry, that the results were splendid and triumphant. In 1772, Hutton was chosen one of the Commissioners of the Court of Requests, to the onerous and gratuitous duties of which he devoted himself during a period of nineteen years. In the year 1776, he purchased a good deal of land, and as he kept adding to his acres, he became a very extensive landed proprietor in the course of a few years. We have, as yet, only noticed William Hutton as the poor, miserable, ill-treated, ill-fed, and ill-clad millboy, weaver, and bookseller, gradually making his way through all sorts of hardships, to competency and station. We have now to speak of him as an author. In the year 1780, at the age of fifty-seven, he published a 'History of Birmingham,' which has always been looked upon as a standard book of the kind. He afterwards wrote and published the following works:-The Journey to London: The History of Blackpool: The Battle of Bosworth Field, with a Life of Richard III., till he assumed the regal power:' The History of Derby:' The Barbers, a poem: A History of the Roman Wall which crosses the island of Britain, from the German Ocean to the Irish Sea: describing its ancient appearance and present state. For the purpose of producing a correct work on the last-named subject, Hutton, at the age of seventy-eight years, took a journey of six hundred miles on foot for the purpose of exploring the wall. In this journey he was accompanied by his daughter Catherine, who travelled on horseback. She says, in a letter written to one of her friends, that such was the enthusiasm of her father with regard to the wall, that he turned neither to the right nor to the left except to gratify me with a sight of Liverpool. Windermere he saw, and Ullswater he saw, because they lay under his feet, but nothing could detain him from his grand object. On our return,' she continues, walking through Ashton, a village in Lancashire, a dog flew at my father and bit his leg, making a wound about the size of sixpence. I found him sitting in the inn at Newton, where we had appointed to breakfast, deploring the accident and dreading its consequences. They were to be dreaded. The leg had got a hundred miles to walk in extreme hot weather. I comforted my father. 'Now,' said I, you will reap the fruit of your temperance. You have put no strong liquors or high sauces into your leg; you eat but when you are hungry, and drink but when you are thirsty, and this will enable your leg to carry you home.' The event showed I was right.. When we had got within four days of our journey's end, I could no longer restrain my father. We made forced marches, and if we had had a little farther to go the foot would fairly have knocked up the horse. The pace he went did not even fatigue his shoes. He walked the whole six hundred miles in one pair, and scarcely made a hole in his stockings.' 6 Up to the age of eighty-five, Hutton continued his career as an author. He still enjoyed at that great age the use of his faculties and health. He had now retired to his country seat and set up his carriage, enjoying himself in agricultural and intellectual pursuits. His last years were indeed all happiness and sunshine, if the morning of his life, as he observes, was gloomy and lowering. At the age of ninety, this exemplary man sunk into the arms of death from the exhaustion of old age. ON THE ARGUMENT FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD, FROM THE APPEARANCES OF DESIGN IN THE UNIVERSE.* PART I. As every part of the universe with which we are acquainted exhibits evident marks of design, we must of necessity infer, that it sprung from a Wise and Intelligent Cause. The inference is obvious and undeniable. It is, indeed, principally upon this argument, that our belief in the existence of God is founded; and as it has been often placed in a false light by atheists and sceptics, I shall endeavour to vindicate its justness from the objections of some able, and chiefly of some late, opponents. In order to speak distinctly upon this subject, it is necessary to have a precise and accurate notion of what is meant by design, because some persons seem not to have given sufficient attention to this matter, and have involved themselves in perplexity. In common life we understand distinctly what is meant by design. We say that a man acts with design and foresight, when his actions tend to bring about some end, and were performed by him with this view. If a man propose to make a clock, and adjusts wheels and weights to one another, so that a motion is produced by means of which the hours are pointed out, we say that he acts with design, and we say that the piece of work which is produced manifests contrivance. Whenever anything is properly adapted for producing an end, or answering a purpose, we say it is done with design. It is in this sense that the word design has been employed in stating this argument. It has been shown, that important ends are served by means of the bodies of which the material world consists, and that their revolutions are directed to the accomplishment of certain valuable purposes. It has also been shown, that the fabric and limbs of the human body, and the faculties of the human mind, are well fitted for those offices which they perform. In all these things there are undeniable marks of wisdom and intention. When there appears design or contrivance in anything, the question naturally occurs, from what did it proceed? and the obvious answer is, that it proceeded from a designing cause. In this case there is no occasion for any chain of reasoning. The judgment is formed intuitively, and without any intermediate step. That every effect must have a cause, is an axiom manifest to every person; and it seems to be equally evident, that every effect that exhibits marks of design, must have proceeded from a designing cause. Whatever is well adapted for answering an end, must have been adapted by its author and contriver to answer that purpose. No judgments we can form appear to be more self-evident than these; and accordingly they seem to have been formed by the whole of mankind, with respect to every subject to which they are applicable. It may then be laid down as a first principle, founded on the constitution of our minds, and standing in need of no proof whatever, that design, wherever it is observed, naturally, and therefore necessarily, suggests to us the notion of a cause.' The one conception is always connected with the other. We apply this principle in all the common affairs of life. If we behold a ship well built, completely rigged, and properly accommodated for containing a cargo of goods, or for lodging a number of passengers during a long voyage, we never hesitate in pronouncing, that it must have been the workmanship of a skilful carpenter. If we look at a palace adorned with all the *This essay, in which the argument for the existence of a God is stated and illustrated in a very clear and forcible manner, is philosophical subjects by Professor ARTHUR, the successor of the taken from a posthumous volume of discourses on literary and celebrated Dr Reid, in the ethical chair of Glasgow College. At a time when, unhappily, attempts are making to subvert this funda mental article of all religion, its republication may not be without its advantages. Part II. of the essay will appear in the next number of the INSTRUCTOR. elegant ornaments of architecture, and conveniently disposed for the accommodation of its inhabitants, and for exhibiting to spectators their splendour and magnificence, we cannot entertain the slightest doubt of its having been contrived by an architect, and executed by the hands of artists adequate to such a noble piece of workmanship. If we were going through a desert, and saw a wretched hovel erected, though we observed no vestige of living creatures near it, we would immediately ascribe it to intelligent beings, and conclude, without further reflection, that men had once been there. Aristippus the philosopher was shipwrecked upon an island; and he, along with his fellow-sufferers, were walking on the shore, deploring their miserable fate, and not doubting but they would soon be attacked and destroyed by barbarians, or torn to pieces by wild beasts. While they were in this situation, the philosopher made a discovery which dispelled his own fears; and by means of which he was enabled to rouse the drooping spirits of his companions. He perceived certain mathematical figures scratched upon the sand of the sea-shore. The judgment which he formed was certain, and it was immediate. 'Let us take courage, my friends,' said he, for I discern the vestiges of civilized men.' He never imagined that regular figures, adapted to the demonstration of abstract truths, could have been accidentally formed by the foot of a sea-fowl; nor even that they could have been drawn by the hand of savages. In these suppositions there would have been no probability. He instantaneously judged that they must have been constructed by men who had made progress in knowledge and mental improvement; and who, of consequence, must have attained to gentle and polished manners. If we hear a tune well played, we never imagine that the sound is produced without the efforts of a musician; and if we read an excellent poem, we are immediately convinced that it is the work of a good poet. We never imagine that letters accidentally thrown down, could form themselves into an Iliad or an Eneid. We do not even imagine that a person of small abilities could have arranged words, or contrived incidents, so as to have formed works of such distinguished merit. We are naturally led to assign a cause adequate to the effect, and to ascribe poems of such beauty and grandeur to minds of a superior order. In our connexions with men, in the same manner, we observe their words and their actions. We consider these as effects proceeding from an internal cause. We judge of the cause from the effects which we observe; and we conclude, that he who acts and speaks with prudence and discernment, must possess faculties corresponding to his behaviour. All these judgments proceed from our constitution. We are so made that we naturally form them, just in the same manner as we pronounce snow to be white; or as we infer the existence of a substance from discerning its qualities. The whole of mankind form similar judgments, and they do it intuitively. They use no argument on such subjects, and they can use none. They employ no intermediate steps, as in a chain of reasoning; and do not arrive at their conclusion by adjusting premises to one another. If we judge in this manner in the ordinary transactions of life, it is surely to be expected that we should judge in the same manner with respect to the design and contrivance discernible in the fabric of the universe. If a mathematical figure be scratched upon the sand, we instantaneously ascribe it to a designing cause, and acknowledge that he who formed it was a man acquainted with certain abstract truths. If we observe a building or an elegant contrivance, we ascribe them to an artist. If we see well directed conduct, we conclude that he who performed it is a prudent agent. Can we then behold the regularity and order of the universe, the subserviency of every part to the rest, the excellent adjustment of means to ends, and the invariable succession of revolutions, without pronouncing inmediately that there must be an intelligent cause that produced them? It is impossible to behold the planetary system, to consider how nicely its parts are fitted to one another, how regularly its motions are directed, and how beneficial every part of it is to living creatures, without declaring that it is the workmanship of a wise being. The bodies of animals are infinitely better constructed, and are also much more complex, than the best machine of human contrivance; and if no person ever thought a watch was formed without intention, can any person imagine that animal bodies were produced without an artist? If we take into consideration the provision that is made for the support of animal life, the instinct with which every creature is furnished, its appetites and its passions adapted to its manner of life, we observe still more and more reason for drawing the same conclusion. The faculties which man possesses, the powers of understanding and of action, and his capacity for discerning what is fair and beautiful, and of prosecuting what is honourable and proper, must obtain from every candid mind an acknowledgment that this lord of the lower world must have been formed by the hand of wonderful intelligence. He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? He that formed the eye, shall he not see? He that teacheth man knowledge, shall he not know?' The judgment in this case is as natural and necessary as in any other whatever. It flows from a principle in our constitution, and it has been formed in all ages. These judgments which we form concerning causes, from observing their effects, must be founded upon an original principle in our constitution. They are universal, and yet nobody assigns a reason for them. They are evidently not conclusions from reasoning. It is impossible to point out any intermediate steps by which they are proved, and nobody has attempted it. No man can give any argument by which it can be shown, that a mathematical figure must be the work of an intelligent being, and could not be the work of a fowl or of a quadruped. We judge indeed in this manner, but we can assign no reason for our judgment, any more than we can assign any reason why we judge that two and two make four. Neither did we learn to judge in this manner by experience. From experience we can acquire knowledge only concerning contingent truth or matters of fact, which may be, or may not be, without any absurdity. We can never learn from experience any knowledge concerning necessary truths which must be, and which it involves an absurdity to suppose not to be. We may learn from experience that bodies gravitate. This is not a necessary truth; it is only contingent, and depends on the will of the Creator; and if he had pleased, body might have had opposite properties, or might not have existed. But we cannot learn from experience that the whole is equal to all its parts. This is a necessary truth, and necessarily flows from the notions we have of a whole and of its parts. It must be true; and it is impossible, and involves absurdity, to think otherwise. Now, our judgments concerning the connexion of effects and causes, are judgments concerning necessary truths. We do not judge that the connexion may take place, but that it must take place. These judgments, therefore, are of such a nature, as experience cannot suggest. Some persons, unwilling to admit that the world sprung from a designing cause, have pretended that everything sprung from chance, or from absolute necessity. That the world arose from accident, was strongly urged by the ancient Epicureans; and that it sprung from necessity, or absolute and undirected fate, has been insisted upon by some speculative atheists and sceptics, both in ancient and modern times. It is, however, to be remarked, that these are only forms of expression, without any clear and distinct meaning. Chance and absolute necessity are words expressing certain abstract notions; and neither the notions, nor the terms that denote them, can possibly be the causes of anything whatever. They are not active beings, capable of accomplishing any end. In common language we attribute many things to chance. If a die be thrown, we say it depends upon chance what side may turn up; and, if we draw a prize in a lottery, we JAMES HALDEN. ascribe our success to chance. We do not, however, any blind cause, by whatever name it may be called, ever mean that these effects were produced by no cause, but produce a being endued with life, sensation, intelligence, only that we are ignorant of the cause that produced them. and the power of voluntary action ? Can that which has There are mechanical causes, which determine what side itself no design or understanding, produce a wise and inof a die will cast up, as certainly as any thing else; and, telligent mind? The supposition is absurd. It is supposing if we could adjust perfectly the degree of force with which an effect to be produced by an inadequate cause; which it is thrown, and the particular direction, together with is precisely the same thing as to suppose it produced by the nature of the surface on which it passes, we could tell no cause at all. It is strange that such an opinion should precisely what side would appear. This, however, we have ever been embraced by philosophers, the folly of cannot do; and because the event depends on circum- which is manifest even to a child. An infant, if its bells stances which we cannot foresee, we ascribe it to a cause on its rattle be taken away, never dreams that they were of which we are ignorant; and to such uncertain and un- taken away by nobody, but immediately judges that they determined causes, we give the name of chance; not were removed by some person or other. Even a dog, if meaning that there is no cause, but that we cannot ascer- a stone be thrown at him, never imagines that the pain tain it. he feels arose without a cause. He either flies from the Again, when all things are ascribed to necessity, if place, that he may be exposed to no further sufferings, or those who use the term have any meaning at all, they he turns with resentment to defend himself. If an incannot mean that they sprung from no cause; they habitant of Terra del Fuego, or Lapland, who had never must only mean that the cause, whatever it was, acted seen an army, nor knew the use of fire-arms, were necessarily, and not from choice. They must conceive brought to see a regiment reviewed, would he imagine the first cause to have been actuated by some involun- that all their orderly motions and evolutions were the tary force, as a machine is moved by weights and springs, effects of blind chance? Would he not immediately perso that the effect must necessarily be produced; and ceive that they arose from design and premeditation ? cannot mean that there was no cause. If we ascribe, The motions of a single human body are much more rethen, every thing to chance, we do not exclude a cause; gular, and more various, than those of a large body of we only say we do not know what that cause is. If we soldiers upon a field-day. Why then imagine that these ascribe everything to necessity, we also admit a cause, motions are carried on without design? What then shall though a different one from what is admitted by those we say of the regularity observable in the whole human who acknowledge design. The only question then is, race, in inferior animals, in plants, in unorganised matwhether the cause admitted be a designing cause or not? ter, and through the whole extent of the universe? Or, That the universe must have proceeded from a design- what shall we say of the intelligence of that man, who ing cause, and could not possibly have proceeded from a seriously believes that the whole is produced without a cause without design and intelligence, by whatever name designing cause? it may be denominated, whether it be called chance, or necessity, or fate, is exceedingly obvious. Nothing beautiful, regular, and orderly, ever proceeded, or can proceed, from an undesigning cause. Suppose matter to have existed originally of itself, and to have been endued with motion from eternity; and suppose that motion to have been continued without diminution; there is no doubt but these materials, continually agitated, would, in the course of millions of ages, have assumed various forms; but there is no probability that ever these forms would have been regular, and much less that there should be regularity in all their revolutions, mutual connexions, and dependencies. Did ever chance form a machine so regular as a watch? Throw the different wheels, and springs, and pinions, of which a watch is composed, into one vessel, and keep the whole in motion for ages, and after all, neither the whole, nor any part of them, will ever be properly placed and adjusted. Take a case that has often been put in handling this argument. Suppose a triangular prism, with three unequal sides, and a scabbard perfectly adapted to it, to be both set in motion through empty space; grant both of them the power of altering their motions, and of flying up and down in every possible direction, it is infinity to one that they will never meet. Supposing they did meet, it is still infinity to one that they do not meet in that one particular direction in which the prism will enter its scabbard. If chance, then, cannot effectuate those simple adjustments, to which the design of a child is equal, how can it be imagined that it should adjust the innumerable parts and revolutions in the universe? There is not the slightest shadow of probability to justify such a supposition. Even though chance should sometimes have stumbled upon a regular form, after a variety of trialsin the way that Epicurus imagined men, and animals, and vegetables to have been fashioned-these forms would again have been immediately destroyed, in the same manner that the monstrous appearances that had existed before them, in infinite multitudes, were destroyed, in consequence of the motion and changes of situation which, upon that supposition, are always going on among the particles of matter. If chance never could arrange unorganised matter into those beautiful and regular forms with which we see it invested, could it, or necessity, or JAMES HALDEN had been successful and was still prospering in business, when he wooed and married Helen Gray, Old John Gray, her father, had been a steady, industrious man, and by the sweat of his brow he had brought up a family of eleven children, and given them the best education that his circumstances could afford. His excellent wife was a thrifty, managing woman, and was one of those whose children rise up to call them blessed. As the family grew up, both sons and daughters were put out to earn their bread at some useful employment, and they vied with each other in acts of kindness to their honoured and respected parents. For several years before Helen, who was the youngest, was married, the father, who was advancing in years, was persuaded by his dutiful children to retire from the employment at which he had wrought so long-he had been a customer weaver-and to occupy himself in the dressing of his garden and other odd jobs by which he would have sufficient exercise. James Halden had not been so fortunate in early life. He was left an orphan at the age of three years, and had no relation except a rich maiden aunt, who showed no kindness, and paid no attention to her only brother's only child. Elizabeth Robertson, a young woman who had been the early friend and intimate companion of his mother, could not think of seeing the sweet pet,' as she called him, left to the mercy of strangers; and although she had to depend on her own industry for her maintenance, she yet resolved to take charge of the orphan boy. Her friends endeavoured to dissuade her from this mad project, as she had enough to do to provide for herself; but her resolution could not be shaken. She said she would get up an hour or two earlier in the morning, and live on the humblest fare, in order to provide for the boy whom God had cast upon her affection. She had taken him to her home asleep on the night his mother died, and when he awoke he cried for his mammy. She told him he could not see his mammy again; and he cried the more; but after he had received from her many good things, he became more attached to her, and taking hold of her gown on the third day he had been with her, and drawing her to a neighbour who had just entered, said, |