vestigate that, which God has been pleased to put out of the reach of human comprehension, they will not believe any thing-they embrace a system of universal scepticism. So Noah's dove beheld on every side a boundless expansion of waters: and whether she rose or sunk, was equally bewildered, and found no rest for the sole of her foot. There is one point of difference, and that is, that she returned to the ark; but those whom we have described, too often are found to turn despisers, who wonder and perish. But the Christian is bold in investigating all that God has submitted to his researches, attempts every thing leaning on Almighty energy, and relies with implicit confidence upon the written word. So the eagle rises boldly into the air, keeping the sun in view, and builds her nest upon a rock.

We would not have you, with the inactive and supine, always coast the shore: nor with the infidel venture into the boundless ocean, without pilot, or compass, or ballast, or anchor: exposed equally to the quicksands, to the rocks, to the whirlpool, and to the tempest: but we are desirous that, like the Christian, you should boldly face, and patiently endure the storm, with the Bible as your compass, Hope as your anchor, God as your pilot, and Heaven as your country.

MAN A DEPENDENT CREATURE.

MAN is a needy, dependent creature, from his birth to his death. His first cry is the voice of want and helplessness; his last tear flows from the same source; and in no one intermediate period of his life, can he be pronounced independent. His eye, the moment it is opened, is turned upon another for assistance. His limbs must be sheltered from the cold his nutriment provided, and his wants supplied by the care and exertions of others: or he would perish in the hour of his birth. A few months expand his limbs; and then a new train of wants succeeds. He must be watched with incessant vigilance, and guarded with unceasing care and anxiety, against a thousand diseases which wait to precipitate him to a premature grave. The quivering flame of an existence scarcely communicated, is exposed to sudden and furious blasts, and it requires all a parent's skill to interpose a screen which may prevent its extinction ; and, alas! after all, such interpositions as human skill and tenderness can supply, are often ineffectual, and the prevailing blast extinguishes the sickly fire.

The child begins to think, and a new field of exertion is opened to the mother. He needs direction, and is dependent upon her wisdom and affection for his earliest sources of information. She watches and facilitates the dawn of reason. She teaches her child for what end he came into the world:

and in language adapted to his capacity, exhibits to the inquiring mind, and pours into the listening ear, his high and immortal destination. Oh, then with what anxiety she watches the speaking countenance! With what skill she directs the passions! With what assiduity she strives to eradicate, or at least to bring into subjection his visible propensity to evil, and the impulses of a depraved nature! Who among us cannot look back to this early period, and remember a mother's short, impressive conversation-her entreaties-her caresses-her restrictions-and her tears?

The boy advances in wisdom, and in stature, and in strength: but he is still dependent. And now he must pass into other hands. There are many things which it is necessary for him to know, and to learn, in order to his passage through life with respectability, which it is not a mother's province to teach him. Besides, it is needful that he should sojourn for a season with strangers, to prepare him for the approach of that time, when he must quit the paternal roof forever, and force his way through the wide world!

Grown up at length to manhood, he is still dependent. He lives by conferring and receiving mutual offices of kindness. It is not good for him to be alone. He links his fortunes and his interests, his hopes and his fears, his joys and his sorrows, with those of another. His duties and his responsibilities, multiply upon him. The circle is widened. He finds others dependent upon him,

while he is not himself independent. And all his difficulties and sufferings are lightened by being divided.

Behold him stretched upon the bed of death having reached the extremity of this transient existence, still a poor, dependent, needy creature! To that heart he looks for sympathy: that bosom must support his languishing head: that hand must adjust the pillow, and administer the cordial, and wipe away the dew of death, and close the extinguished eye. Into the bosom of his companion through life, or of his child, or of his friend, be breathes the last sigh!

HUMAN POWER IS LIMITED.

THE productions of human skill are grand; and we pronounce the "solemn temple" magnificent when contrasted with surrounding and inferior buildings: but when set in comparison with the temple of the sky, it is magnificent no longer-it shrinks into nothing. I see a picture of the evening: I admire the painter's art in so judiciously blending his light and his shade: a soft and sober tint overspreads the whole piece, and I pronounce it beautiful; but when I compare it with the sunset of nature, when I see the west inflamed with ethereal fire, blushing with ten thousand vivid and various splendours, while the distant mist slowly creeps along the line of the horizon, and forms a contrast to the brilliancy above it, the ef

fort of art is swallowed up in the sublimity of nature-and it is beautiful no longer. I admire the genius and the understanding of the philosopher; I reverence the superior intelligence of a Solomon; I look up humbled to a Newton, exploring the immensity of yonder firmament, reducing the apparent confusion of its orbs to order, laying the planetary system under laws, tracing their orbits, and scrutinizing their nature—and I pronounce these wise men: but I raise my eyes—and behold an higher order of creatures around the throne of God, before whom even Newton is a child; and presuming into "the heavens of heavens," I am lost in HIм, who charges even these superior beings "with folly."

The powers of the human mind are said to be large and capacious: they are so when compared with those of every other terrestrial being in the creation of God. Man walks abroad the monarch of this world. Of all the diversified tribes which the hand of Deity formed, into man alone was "breathed the breath of life, and he became a living soul." The animal soon reaches his narrow standard, and never passes it. The powers of man are in a constant state of progression; and probably in the world of spirits they will be found to be illimitable. But whatever they may be in their nature, they are at present contracted in their operations. To what do they amount when called into action? To speak a few languages: to decipher a few more in a various character: to ascer