the tracing of cause and effect, the intelligent mind comes at once to opposite conclusions. Hence

"Nature to all things fixed the limits fit,

And wisely curbed proud man's pretending wit."

If we enter the World's Workshop, having formed the resolution to acquire the mastery over any given branch in the category of its industrial resources, the wish is but rarely disappointed, and the mind, which naturally rejoices in its triumphs over intervening obstacles, is expanded and enlarged by the exertion. It cannot be too frequently urged on the attention of man, that industry and perseverance form the secret of success. Man has placed before him a cabinet stored with the most priceless jewels-a laboratory, in which there is abundance of material to prosecute the most interesting course of analyzation-an encyclopædia of the most valuable, the most amusing, the most profitable information. He is literally the student of natural philosophy, and has his wonder excited by the most entertaining of all natural magic! If we cast the eye over the roof-work under which we labour, we perceive sun, moon, and stars, regulating and enlightening the revolving machinery that surrounds us. The sun, majestic, inimitable, and illimitable, as the source and centre of light, warming, cheering, and revivifying; the moon, regulating the tides, refreshing the vegetable world, invigorating animal life by re

F

pose, and, in short, producing the grand division of day and night. Remarking such Omnipotent agency, who would refrain from exclaiming, with Thomson

"O Nature! all sufficient! over all!

Enrich me with the knowledge of thy works!
Snatch me to heaven: thy rolling wonders then,
World beyond world, in infinite extent,

Profusely scattered o'er the blue immense,

Show me; their motions, periods, and their laws,
Give me to scan."

Astronomy, as a science, although leading to the sublimest of all contemplations, is, however, but one of the numerous branches for mental inquiry, contained in the voluminous catalogue of natural wonders, opened up before the eye of man, in the vast workshop of the world. It is true, as we have said, that the architecture of the heavens presents proofs of its infinite plan, in the unalterable and undecaying glory which for ever presides over the course of revolving seasons; that the roof-work of the earth, studded, as it is, by the million stars, as so many holes through which we discover the angel onlookers of the night, fabricated by unerring wisdom, is calculated to lift the mind from "Nature up to Nature's God;" but not less glorious is the ball on which we tread-the more familiar machinery which surrounds us. The World's Workshop is carpeted on a scale of grandeur commensurate with the magnitude of the design. Than the prevailing green of this great field-fabric, what is

richer, more beautiful, or more enduring! Than with those variously-tinted flowers, scattered so profusely over the ground-work, what can be compared! The pencil of Art labours in vain to present a picture so exquisite in all its parts, so uniformly faultless, or so captivating to the eye. "Who can paint like Nature?" The landscape opened out in the vast scroll of creation is at once a wonder and a miracle, infinitely surpassing the most lofty human conception; and the regularity and accuracy beautifying the entire celestial and terrestrial system, from the world's genesis, down through the various generations of man and gradations of "times and seasons," as they stand related to the million-multiplied species in the vegetable kingdom, till the present period, the most exalted description would fail to define. Nature discourses her own arguments, by the bright beaming lights of Heaven, apostrophizing a Deity seen only in His works; while the iris-coloured flowers of earth, as her rhetoric, and the ceaseless song of the streams, illustrate the subsisting harmony in all things devised and upheld by His power, and enforce the all-apparent and deeply solemnizing fact, that "A breath may make them, as a breath has made."

Than the study of natural history, I know not one single occupation into which the mind of man will enter with a greater certainty of securing the blessings of knowledge. It is, however, an error of too general a character, to suppose that the common ob

jects which are presented to the eye, and the phenomena of local exhibition, are unworthy of research, to elucidate the primary agent in their birth or formation; for, too frequently, it may be said of us—

"Familiar with the effect, we slight the cause,

And in the constancy of Nature's course,

And regular return of genial months,
And renovation of a faded world,

See nought to wonder at."

Are there not, in the garden of Nature, fruits and flowers worth examination?—from the habits and peculiarities of the feathered inhabitants of the forest, the chorister of the cloud, and the meek musician of the flowering thorn, instruction of an invaluable kind to be gleaned? Do not the caves of earth, or its crustwork, supply material for thought of comparatively easy excavation?-or are there not, along the farsounding shore, and on the white-breasted billow of the ocean, scattered about in profusion the elements of enlightenment and enjoyment? Under this branch of mental pursuit, can a more ennobling study be pointed out than that supplied in the structure of the human frame? Is not the impress of a Divine original stamped on the stately limbs, and revealed in the nicety and adaptation of the most minute organ to its corresponding action? It is truly said, that "the proper study of mankind is man." Can we contemplate, without wonder and admiration, the ex

pression, strong and unmistakeable, of the passions, as they play over the countenance, in itself the reflex of Divinity? With the exquisite construction of the eye, whether viewed as the electric conductor of intelligence to the brain, or in the admirable provisions of Nature to protect it as the organ of vision, what achievement of Art can vie? In the circulation of the blood, too, through the multitude of cells and canals which intersect the human form, and serve as the moving power of the most intricate of its machinery, what sublime conception and construction are manifest! And then, look again to that small thermometer by which the state of the constitution is determined that precise though puny regulator of the physical mechanism-the pulse! How exact are its notations, how truthfully it performs its commission from the heart to the arm-from the situation of feeling to the source of help! Such is man universally; but there are other matters not unworthy of consideration in connexion with the same subject. The adaptation of animal life to its native climate and requirements is a matter entitled to intelligent attention. The dark-visaged Laplander, the yellow Mongolian, the flat-nosed Negro, and the coppercoloured aborigine of both Americas, has each his peculiarity of constitution, suited to the climate in which he has been placed, and a taste proportioned to the supply of productions for his wants. The various races of human beings inhabiting the earth differ in