the causes that shall be brought into operation for concluding the present history of our world, there is evident probability in the supposition, that its fate will not be without some relation to the condition of higher or more distant portions of the system— or at least to the agency of causes that extend far beyond our present powers of conception. Indeed, the frame of things is apparently so constituted, that to our first view of it, each world in the vast scheme of nature is shut out from all communication with the rest-and from this arrangement, for which it is not difficult to assign sufficient reasons, we are apt to suppose, that there really exists no connection between them, except that which constitutes them members of one vast though individually independent aggregate of worlds. But wider and juster views of the powers of nature, and of the plan of its operations, cannot fail to evince the improbability of this supposition—and in all our views, therefore, respecting the duration of our world, we shall be much aided in our conceptions, by taking into account, the immensity of the system to which it belongs-and the consequent likelihood that its destined fate has a relation to the permanent provisions, and durable nature of the arrangements with which, throughout the entire compass of the system, it is in connection-and whose agency

must be employed in any great alteration which our peculiar sphere of occupation may be destined to undergo.

3. But further, it must be kept in mind, that the system of universal nature is not only connectted, but everywhere, and by mutual arrangements and influences, progressive. For it is not merely a fixed and changeless assemblage of bodies that constitutes the glorious scheme which Divine Wisdom is superintending and pervading ;-on the contrary, all nature is life, and even those parts of the system that seem to us, on a superficial view, to be the least suitable receptacles of living and intelligent existence, are yet endowed with powers which are in incessant energy, and which are constantly bringing forth forms that alter in some degree, and by a progressive effect, their nature and capacities. We thus perceive that activity is essential to all the parts of nature, whether on earth or in the higher regions of space— that nothing is in absolute repose for any one moment-that, indeed, from the very nature of existing things, such repose can never take place— because life and existence are synonymous-and wherever, therefore, there is any form of existence, even in its apparently most inert masses, there also there is activity, or the continued operation of

powers, which must continue their energies as long as such bodies or forms of existence maintain their place in nature-and the cessation of whose active and progressive properties would involve the supposition of their entire extinction from the system of things. Life and existence, we again repeat, are in this sense of the expression synonymous, and in forming, therefore, our conceptions of the course actually prescribed to any portion of the system, we must take into account the progressive and multiform character of the energies by which it is pervaded, and the vast storehouse of means that are at once instrumental to its maintenance, and working together to bring forth its appointed issues.

Now, it is apparent, that though in reference to a simpler and limited assemblage of agents, our powers of anticipation as to the coming result might be justified in assigning a termination of a comparatively proximate date-yet when we think of a system which is at once boundless in its connections and infinite in the powers of activity and of progression which it involves, our calculations as to its endurance should bear some analogy to its entire character, or should be at once commensurate with the vast extent over which the change must be effected-and with the multiplicity of

the powers, whose design must be accomplished, before the result in anticipation can be brought forth.

4. And these anticipations will be still farther confirmed, if we take into account, that, extensive as the scheme of nature is-and infinite as are the powers of living existence that are employed in conducting it-these, however, are all under the guidance of determinate laws-and pervaded by wise and never failing principles.-If, indeed, the contrary were the fact, and if the entire powers of nature, however various, and exhibited on however grand a scale, were yet left to their own undirected and wayward energies, the probability would then be, either that the system might endure for any imaginable period, or be suddenly brought to confusion, according to the chances that might be fixed on for either result. But in a system where even the minutest movements are wisely directed, and in harmony with the entire plan, our confidence in the stability of that plan is augmented by the very extent of the scale on which the operations are conducted, and by the multiplicity of the powers that are employed in harmony with each other. So that the doctrine of Divine Providence not only serves to give us confidence as to the benevolence of the result, happen when it may-but actually confirms

us in the assurance, that a system, over which unchangeable wisdom and goodness are presiding, will bear some proportion in the stability and extent of its endurance to the attributes of the Being by whom it is conducted, and to the grandeur of the scheme which he has partially revealed for the confirmation of our trust.

5. From the whole of the preceding considerations, we seem justified in concluding that the course appointed to our earth-and to the series of generations that are destined to people it, will correspond with the scale of the plan to which it belongs-with the progressive character of the principles that are employed in bringing forth its results—and with the stability and beneficence of the laws to which all its connected and progressive powers are subject. A short course for our world is the natural suggestion of limited ideas respecting its place in the universe--and respecting the vast scene on which the proceedings of providential wisdom are conducted-but as our ideas of the actual relations of things extend-so also do our hopes of what is to befal our world during the many ages that are yet to revolve while its present form is continued,-of the boundless, and it is to be hoped, even brightening years that are to bring forth the destined purposes of Divine Wisdom--