beginning of the twelfth century. About that time some curious persons seem to have amused themselves by making to swim, in a basin of water, a loadstone suspended on a piece of cork; and to have remarked, that, when left at liberty, one of its extremities pointed to the north. They had also remarked, that, when a piece of iron is rubbed against the loadstone, it acquires also the property of turning toward the north, and of attracting needles and filings of iron. From one experiment to another, they proceeded to lay a needle, touched with the magnet, on two small bits of straw floating on the water, and to observe that the needle invariably turned its point toward the north. The first use they seem to have made of these experiments was to impose upon simple people by the appearance of magic. For example, a hollow swan, or the figure of a mermaid, was made to swim in a basin of water, and to follow a knife with a bit of bread upon its point which had been previously rubbed on the loadstone. The experimenter convinced them of his power, by commanding, in this way, a needle laid on the surface of the water, to turn its point from the north to the east, or in any other direction. But some genuises, of more sublime and reflective powers of mind, seizing upon these hints, at last applied these experiments to the wants of navigation, and constructed an instrument, by the help of which the mariner can now direct his course to distant lands through the vast and pathless ocean. In consequence of the discovery of this instrument, the coasts of almost every land on the surface of the globe have been explored, and a regular intercourse opened up between the remotest regions of the earth. Without the help of this noble invention, America, in all probability, would never have been discovered by the eastern nationsthe vast continent of New-Holland-the numerous and interesting islands in the Indian and Pacific oceans- -the isles of Japan, and other immense territories inhabited by human beings, would have remained as much unknown and unexplored as if they had never existed. And as the nations of Europe, and the western parts of Asia, were the sole depositaries of the records of revelation, they could never have conveyed the blessings of salvation to remote countries, and to unknown tribes of mankind, of whose existence they were entirely ignorant. Even although the whole terraqueous globe had been sketched out before them, in all its aspects and bearings, and ramifications of islands, continents, seas, and oceans, and the moral and political state of every tribe of its inhabitants displayed to view-without a guide to direct their course through the billows of the ocean, they could have afforded no light and no relief to cheer the distant nations" who sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death." Though the art of printing had been invented; though millions of Bibles were now prepared adequate to the supply of all the "kindreds of the heathen"-though ships in abundance were equipped for the enterprise, and thousands of missionaries ready to embark, and to devote their lives to the instruction of the pagan world—all would be of no avail-and the "salvation of God" could never be proclaimed to the ends of the world, unless they had a mariner's compass to guide their course through the trackless ocean. In this invention, then, we behold a proof of the agency of Divine Providence in directing the efforts of human genius to subserve the most important designs, and contemplate a striking specimen of the "manifold wisdom of God." When the pious and contemplative Israelite reflected on the declaration of the prophets, that "the glory of Jehovah would be revealed, and that all flesh would see it together," from the state of the arts which then existed he must have felt many difficulties in forming a conception of the manner in which such predictions could be realized. "The great and wide sea," now termed the Mediterranean, formed the boundary of his view, beyond which he was unable to penetrate. Of the continents, and "the isles afar off," and of the far more spacious oceans that lay between, he had no knowledge; and how "the ends of the earth" were to be reached, he could form no conception; and, in the midst of his perplexing thoughts, he could find no satisfaction only in the firm belief that "with God all things are possible." But now we are enabled not only to contemplate the grand designs of the Divine economy, but the principal means by which they shall all in due time be accomplished, in consequence of the progress of science and art, and of their consecration to the rearing and extension of the Christian Church. The two inventions to which I have now adverted may, perhaps, be considered as among the most striking instances of the connection of human art with the objects of religion. But there are many other inventions which, at first view, do not appear to bear so near a relation to the progress of Christianity, and yet have an ultimate reference to some of its grand and interesting objects. THE TELESCOPE.-We might be apt to think, on a slight view of the matter, that there can be no immediate relation between the grinding and polishing of an optic glass, and fitting two or more of them in a tube-and the enlargement of our views of the operation of the Eternal Mind. Yet the connection between these two objects, and the dependence of the latter upon the former, can be fairly demonstrated. The son of a spectacle-maker of Middleburg, in Holland, happening to amuse himself in his father's shop, by holding two glasses between his finger and his thumb, and varying their distance, perceived the weather-cock of the church spire opposite to him, much larger than ordinary, and apparently much nearer, and turned upside down. This new wonder exercised the amazement of the father: he adjusted two glasses on a board, rendering them movable at pleasure; and thus formed the first rude imitation of a perspective glass, by which distant objects are brought near to view. Galileo, a philosopher of Tuscany, hearing of the invention, set his mind to work in order to bring it to perfection. He fixed his glasses at the end of long organ pipes, and constructed a telescope, which he soon directed to different parts of the surrounding heavens. He discovered four moons revolving around the planet Jupiter-spots on the surface of the sun, and the rotation of that globe around its axis-mountains and valleys in the moonand numbers of fixed stars where scarcely one was visible to the naked eye. These discoveries were made about the year 1610, a short time after the first invention of the telescope. Since that period this instrument has passed through various degrees of improvement, and by means of it celestial wonders have been explored in the distant spaces of the universe, which, in former times, were altogether concealed from mortal view. By the help of telescopes, combined with the art of measuring the distances and magnitudes of the heavenly bodies, our views of the grandeur of the Almighty, of the plenitude of His power, and of the extent of His universal empire, are extended far beyond what could have been conceived in former ages. Our prospects of the range of the Divine operations are no longer confined within the limits of the world we inhabit,—we can now plainly perceive that the kingdom of God is not only "an everlasting dominion," but that it extends through the unlimited regions of space, comprehending within its vast circumference thousands of suns, and ten thousands of worlds, all ranged in majestic order, at immense distances from one another, and all supported and governed "by Him who rides on the heaven of heavens," whose greatness is unsearchable, and whose understanding is infinite. The telescope has also demonstrated to us the literal truth of those Scriptural declarations which assert that the stars are "innumerable.” Before the invention of this instrument, not more than about a thousand stars could be perceived by the unassisted eye in the clearest night. But this invention has unfolded to view not only thousands, but hundreds of thousands, and millions of those bright luminaries, which lie dispersed in every direction throughout the boundless dimensions of space. And the higher the magnifying powers of the telescope are, the more numerous those celestial orbs appear; leaving us no room to doubt, that countless myriads more lie hid in the distant regions of creation, far beyond the reach of the finest glasses that can be constructed by human skill, and which are known only to Him "who counts the number of the stars, and calls them by their names." For, In short, the telescope may be considered as serving the purpose of a vehicle for conveying us to the distant regions of space. We would consider it as a wonderful achievement, could we transport ourselves two hundred thousand miles from the earth, in the direction of the moon, in order to take a nearer view of that celestial orb. But this instrument enables us to take a much nearer inspection of that planet, than if we had actually surmounted the force of gravitation, traversed the voids of space, and left the earth 230,000 miles behind us. supposing such a journey to be accomplished, we should still be ten thousand miles distant from the orb. But a telescope which magnifies objects 240 times, can carry our views within ONE thousand miles of the moon; and a telescope, such as Dr. Herschel's 40 feet reflector, which magnifies 6,000 times, would enable us to view the mountains and vales of the moon as if we were transported to a point about 40 miles from her surface.* We can view the magnificent system of the * Though the highest magnifying power of Dr. Herschel's large telescope was estimated at six thousand times, yet it does not appear that the doctor ever applied this power with success, when viewing the moon and the planets. The deficiency of light, when using so high a power, would render the view of these objects less satisfactory than when viewed with a power of one or two thousand times. Still, it is quite certain, that if any portions of the moon's surface were viewed through an instrument of such a power, they would appear as large, (but not nearly so bright and distinct,) as if we were placed about 40 miles distant from that body. The enlargement of the angle of vision in this case, or the apparent distance at which the moon would be contemplated, is found by divid ing the moon's distance-240,000 miles by 6000, the magnifying power of the telescope, which produces a quotient of 40-the number of miles at which the moon would appear to be placed from the eye of the observer. Dr. Herschel appears to have used the highest power of his telescopes only or chiefly when planet Saturn, by means of this instrument, as distinctly as if we had performed a journey of eight hundred millions of miles in the direction of that globe, which, at the rate of 50 miles an hour, would require a period of more than eighteen hundred years to accomplish. By the telescope, we can contemplate the region of the fixed stars, their arrangement into systems, and their immense numbers, with the same distinctness and amplitude of view as if we had actually taken a flight of ten hundred thousand millions of miles into those unexplored and unexplorable regions, which could not be accomplished in several millions of years, though our motion were as rapid as a ball projected from a loaded cannon. We would justly consider it as a noble endowment for enabling us to take an extensive survey of the works of God, if we had the faculty of transporting ourselves to such immense distances from the sphere we now occupy; but, by means of the telescopic tube, we may take nearly the same ample views of the dominions of the Creator, without stirring a foot from the limits of our terrestrial abode. This instrument may therefore be considered as a providential gift, bestowed upon mankind, to serve, in the meantime, as a temporary substitute for those powers of rapid flight with which the seraphim are endowed, and for those superior faculties of motion with which man himself may be invested when he arrives at the summit of moral perfection. THE MICROSCOPE.-The microscope is another instrument, constructed on similar principles, which has greatly expanded our views of the "manifold wisdom of God." This instrument, which discovers to us small objects invisible to the naked eye, was invented soon after the invention and improvement of the telescope. By means of this optical contrivance we perceive a variety of wonders in almost every object in the animal, the vegetable, and the mineral kingdoms. We perceive that every particle of matter, however minute, has a determinate form-that the very scales of the skin of a haddock are all beautifully interwoven and variegated, like pieces of net-work, which no art can imitate that the points of the prickles of vegetables, though magnified a thousand times, appear as sharp and well polished as to the naked eye-that every particle of the dust on the butterfly's wing is a beautiful and regularly-organized feather-that every hair of our head is a hollow tube, with bulbs and roots, furnished with a variety of threads or filaments-and that the pores in our skin, through which the sweat and perspiration flow, are so numerous and minute that a grain of sand would cover a hundred and twenty-five thousand of them. We perceive animated beings in certain liquids, so small, that fifty thousand of them would not equal the size of a mite; and yet each of these creatures is furnished with a mouth, eyes, stomach, blood-vessels, and other organs for the performance of animal functions. In a stagnant pool, which is covered with a greenish scum, during the summer months, every drop of the water is found to be a world teeming with thousands of inhabitants. The mouldy substance which usually adheres to damp bodies exhibits a forest of trees and plants, where the viewing some very minute objects in the regions of the stars. The powers he generally used, and with which he made most of his discoveries, were 227, 460, 754, 932, and occasionally 2010, 3168, and 6450, when inspecting double and treble stars, and the more distant nebulæ. branches, leaves, and fruit can be plainly distinguished. In a word, by this admirable instrument we behold the same Almighty Hand which rounded the spacious globe on which we live, and the huge masses of the planetary orbs, and directs them in their rapid motions through the sky, employed, at the same moment, in rounding and polishing ten thousand minute transparent globes in the eye of a flyand boring and arranging veins and arteries, and forming and clasping joints and claws, for the movements of a mite! We thus learn the admirable and astonishing effects of the wisdom of God, and that the Divine care and benevolence are as much displayed in the construction of the smallest insect, as in the elephant, or the whale, or in those ponderous globes which roll around us in the sky. These, and thousands of other views which the microscope exhibits, would never have been displayed to the human mind, had they not been opened up by this admirable invention. In fine, by means of the two instruments to which I have now adverted, we behold Jehovah's empire extending to infinity on either hand. By the telescope we are presented with the most astonishing displays of His omnipotence, in the immense number, the rapid motions, and the inconceivable magnitude of the celestial globes; and, by the microscope, we behold, what is still more inconceivable, a display of His unsearchable wisdom in the Divine mechanism, by which a drop of water is peopled with myriads of inhabitants—a fact, which, were it not subject to ocular demonstration, would far exceed the limits of human conception or belief. We have thus the most striking and sensible evidence, that, from the immeasurable luminaries of heaven, and from the loftiest seraph that stands before the throne of God, down to this lower world, and to the smallest microscopic animalcula that eludes the finest glass, He is every where present-and by His power, intelligence, and agency, animates, supports, and directs the whole! Such views and contemplations naturally lead us to advert to the character of God as delineated by the sacred writers, that " He is of great power, and mighty in strength;" that "His understanding is infinite ;" that "His works are wonderful;" that "His operations are unsearchable, and past finding out ;" and they must excite the devout mind to join with fervor in the language of adoration and praise : When thy amazing works, O God! STEAM NAVIGATION.-We might have been apt to suppose that the chemical experiments that were first made to demonstrate the force of steam, as a mechanical agent, could have little relation to the objects of religion, or even to the comfort of human life and society. Yet it has now been applied to the impelling of ships and large boats along rivers and seas, in opposition to both wind and tide, and with a velocity which, at an average, exceeds that of any other conveyance. We have no reason to believe that this invention has hitherto approximated to a state of perfection: it is yet in its infancy; and may be susceptible of such improvements, both in point of expedition and of safety, as may render it the most comfortable and speedy conveyance between |