or who have a rational and enlightened regard to the best interests of their fellow men. It is confessedly a vast improvement on all the systems of doctrine that have preceded it in the world; and having within it such capacities of accommodation to the future progress of the human mind, it is not easy to see-independent of its divine origin-what future system could, with advantage, be substituted in its place—or is indeed likely to equal it in the purity—and splendourand universal adaptation of the blessings it is destined to confer. If infidelity could be prevailed on fairly to make this comparison-and if, at the same time, Christianity were seen in its native simplicity and beauty-it is believed that there would be but few instances, in which it would not readily be allowed, that it has better claims than any other system that has yet been proposed or conceived, to the universal acceptation of the human race. PART THIRD. FUTURE CHANGES RELATIVE TO THE ENTIRE CONDITION OF THIS EARTH. "It is the character of the true philosopher that he hopes all things not impossible—and believes all things not unreasonable."-HERSCHELL. "Hæc et cetera hujusmodi latent in pandectis ævi sequentis, non antea discenda quam librum hunc Deus arbiter seculorum recluserit mortalibus."-KEPLER. FUTURE CHANGES RELATIVE TO THE ENTIRE CONDITION OF THIS EARTH. I. THAT THE WORLD IS YET BUT IN ITS INFANCY. THERE seems every reason to believe that men, as a race, and the earth itself, are but in the beginning of a career which, in one sense of the phrase, may be termed boundless-although it is but slowly, and in recent times, that this idea has been gained, or that mankind have attained to anything like a correct conception of their actual position amidst the immensity of the universe. It was thus for a long period the prevailing belief of men, that this earth was the only worldand that there were no other beings over whom the Creator's care was extended, but those that people this minute province of his dominions. Nor was it till astronomy had made considerable progress--and was in a condition to explore the vast |