Of that long-chained succession is so frail:
Can every part depend, and not the whole?
Yet grant it true, new difficulties rise:

I'm still quite out at sea, nor see the shore.
Whence earth, and these bright orbs ?-eternal too?-
Grant matter was eternal; still these orbs
Would want some other father.

Much design
Is seen in all their motions, all their makes.
Design implies intelligence and art;

That can't be from themselves-or man; that art
Man scarce can comprehend, could man below?
And nothing greater, yet allowed than man.—
Who, motion, foreign to the smallest grain,
Shot through vast masses of enormous weight?
Who bade brute matter's restive lump assume
Such various forms, and gave it wings to fly?
Has matter innate motion? then, each atom,
Asserting it indisputable right

To dance, would form a universe of dust.

Has matter none? then whence these glorious forms,
And boundless flights, from shapeless, and reposed?
Has matter more than motion? Has it thought,
Judgment, and genius? Is it deeply learn'd
In mathematics? Has it framed such laws,
Which, but to guess, a Newton made immortal?
If so, how each sage atom laughs at me,
Who think a clod inferior to a man!

If art, to form; and counsel to conduct..

And that with greater far than human skill,

Resides not in each block;-a GODHEAD reigns,—
And, if a God there is, that God how great!

THE BIBLE-GRIMKÉ.

The Bible is the only book which God has ever sent, the only one he ever will send into this world. All other books are frail and transient as time, since they are only the reg isters of time; but the Bible is durable as eternity, for its pages contain the records of eternity. All other books are

weak and imperfect, like their author, man; but the Bible is a transcript of infinite power and perfection. Every other volume is limited in its usefulness and influence; but the Bible came forth conquering and to conquer: rejoicing as a giant to run his course, and like the sun, "there is nothing hid from the heat thereof." The Bible only, of all the myriads of books the world has seen, is equally important and interesting to all

mankind. Its tidings, whether of peace or of woe, are the same to the poor, the ignorant, and the weak, as to the rich, the wise, and the powerful.

Among the most remarkable of its attributes, is justice; for it looks with impartial eyes on kings and on slaves, on the hero and the soldier, on philosophers and peasants, on the eloquent and the dumb. From all it exacts the same obedience to its commandments, and promises to the good, the fruits of his labors; to the evil, the reward of his hands. Nor are the purity and holiness, the wisdom, benevolence and truth of the Scriptures, less conspicuous than their justice. In sublimity and beauty, in the descriptive and pathetic, in dignity and simplicity of narrative, in power and comprehensiveness, depth and variety of thought, in purity and elevation of sentiment, the most

enthusiastic admirers of the heathen classics have conceded their inferiority to the Scriptures.

The Bible, indeed, is the only universal classic, the classic of all mankind, of every age and country, of time and eternity, more humble and simple than the primer of a child, more grand and magnificent than the epic and the oration, the ode and the drama, when genius with his chariot of fire, and his horses of fire, ascends in whirlwind into the heaven of his own invention. It is the best classic the world has ever seen, the noblest that has ever honored and dignified the language of mortals!

If you boast that the Aristotles, and the Platos, and the Tullies, of the classic age, "dipped their pens in intellect," the sacred authors dipped theirs in inspiration. If those were the "secretaries of nature," these were the secretaries of the very Author of nature. If Greece and Rome have gathered into their cabinet of curiosities the pearls of heathen poetry and eloquence, the diamonds of Pagan history and Philosophy, God himself has treasured up, in the Scriptures, the poetry and eloquence, the philosophy and history of sacred lawgivers, of prophets and apostles, of saints, evangelists, and martyrs. In vain may you seek for the pure and simple light of universal truth in the Augustan ages of antiquity. In the Bible only 18 the poet's wish fulfilled

"And like the sun be all one boundless eye."

FINIS.