are added to promote their comfort, and that innumerable sources of innocent gratification are shed around us in ample measure. We know all this, and we have every reason to conclude that the same advantages are equally diffused throughout the other planets. Wonderful it is to read of them, and to consider the amazing velocity, with which they are impelled. To learn that the planet Venus, one of the nearest and most brilliant of the celestial bodies, moves at the rate of seventysix thousand miles an hour; that the planet Mercury travels with a velocity two thousand times swifter than a cannon-ball; that the planet Jupiter is more than nine hundred times the size of our earth, and that he is attended by seven moons as bright and beautiful as the one fair witness that revolves round us. We admire a fine rain-bow when it encircles the heavens with a glorious show, and recalls to mind the gracious promise of seed-time and harvest. But how stupendous must be the effect of those magnificent arches, which surround the planet Jupiter,-arches at least two hundred thousand miles in diameter, between which appear the dark heavens studded with constellations. Saturn, another of these planetary bodies, which is nearly lost in the starry effulgence, is on such a stupendous scale as to exceed in size, fourteen hundred globes of the same dimensions as our own; and though the most slowly moving of the planets, it is impelled through the regions of space at the rate of twenty-two thousand miles an hour. And what is the boundary of our solar system in which revolve those mighty worlds, and their attendant satellites? The utmost boundary of the stupendous range in which Herschel moves, is eighteen hundred millions of miles distant from the solar fountain; that great fountain which is said to be five hundred and twenty times the size of all the planetary globes, and one million three hundred thousand times larger than the earth. Yet this great fountain diffuses light, and heat, and gladness, and fertility, even to far distant Herschel; and how overwhelming is the thought, that each revolving planet carries on its surface myriads of inhabitants! The thought is indeed overpowering; but the light of science reveals even greater things than these. The stars that sparkle so gloriously at night are luminous bodies of a prodigious size, which shine not with borrowed lustre, but with their own native light. Astronomy makes known to us the distance at which some of them are stationed in the heavens from our solar system; a distance so great, as to render it impossible for them to derive any portion of their lustre from our sun. They are, therefore, suns of other systems; and we may readily conclude that each of these imparts its cheering influence to surrounding worlds. He who looks up to the clear heavens in a winter night, may reckon, at least, one thousand of those sparkling luminaries. Yet they form but a small portion of the innumerable host. The telescope discovers thousands of bright stars, where the unassisted eye can only trace a very few. Herschel speaks of regions in the most crowded part of the milky way, which contain no less than five hundred and eighty stars; and that, in one quarter of an hour, no less than one hundred and sixteen thousand stars pass across the field of vision. Even beyond these, there are doubtless fields of space, where other suns, and other systems revolve: suns, the light of which has never journeyed to our globe, and peopled worlds which the most powerful of our telescopes would be unable to discover. Astronomy is a noble science; but let him who imparts the knowledge of it to his children, ever associate with it the handmaid science, botany. They will not then fear to be over-looked amid the innumerable suns and systems that revolve in the immensity of space. For truly there is in astronomy, an overwhelming grandeur, which brings into subjection every feeling of our own importance, and awakens the most exalted sentiments of reverence and devotion. The contemplation of the starry heavens, and those flaming suns the centre of other worlds, swarming with inhabitants, seems to annihilate every thought and every pretension of human greatness, while we are ready to exclaim in the language of David, "Lord! what is man, that thou takest account of him, or the son of man that thou regardest him?" Addison, in one of his masterly essays, has finely dilated on this humbling sentiment, and pressed a farther acquaintance with the minute works of nature as an admirable counterpoise to one of the most mournful reflections that can occupy the human mind. This counterpoise is peculiarly afforded by botany. Its recent discoveries yield a beautiful and affecting illustration of the care which our Heavenly Father extends to the meanest of his works. In astronomy the feelings are overpowered: devotion of the highest description arises in the mind, but it is a devotion mingled with the most awful sentiments; while, on the contrary, the investigation of the natural objects near us, brings the Deity, if we may be allowed the expression, in a more tangible form before our eyes we see his goodness, we adore his providence; his tender care to the meanest of his works; we observe around us evidences of his presence, and we are conscious that he will not forget us. FIFTH DAY OF CREATION. And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowls that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the water brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind : and God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. THE same Almighty fiat, that rendered the round earth visible, gave existence on the fifth day of creation, to every kind of marine and winged creature. All these were formed in full maturity of structure, in all their component parts. Then broke forth the song of gladness, and of warbling voices, that were never heard before; every bush and every tree resounded with joyful harmony, and on high, sweet minstrels bore their cheerful notes, resounding through heaven's concave. The sea too, was filled with innumerable living creatures, all sportive and rejoicing in their new existence. Throughout the vast extent of creation, not a groan was heard, not a pang was felt; none were helpless, as in infancy, none were bowed down as in old age. There was freshness on every leaf, and beauty in every flower; and strength and vigour, high health, and bounding spirits in every animated thing. Our heavens are now often clouded, and our seas rough with storms, but it was not so then; and marine creatures of every kind needed not to speed from one another; for there were no evil passions among them. Sin had not then deformed the fair creation, and the general mass of waters that had been drawn from off the surface of the earth, heaved and sparkled beneath the bright warm sun, who looked down from his high station, and shed abroad, life and heat, and gladness, over the fair and beautiful creation. Beautiful too was the bed of ocean, for no vegetable decay, nor mouldering remains of mortality disfigured its tranquil surface: that bed had apparently been ruined and disordered, I say, apparently, because the circumstances of its alteration were as much directed by Divine Wisdom, as its first formation. The strata which retained their primitive position throughout a considerable portion of the globe, were here both fractured and disturbed and such innumerable fragments of broken rock, were precipitated into the abyss as formed in many places a stony bed to the new sea. On that bed, and in all the varieties of its parts, whether in its lowest depths, or on the submerged masses, marine productions of every kind were abundantly produced. Beautiful sea-weeds sprang instantaneously from the soil; coral insects began to work, and their elegant ramifications were seen in all directions; madrepores too and sea-stars, with innumerable other marine productions; while the star-fish shone * The star-fish is circular, and so beautifully luminous at night, as to resemble the full moon, surrounded by rays, |