growing on the banks of the Nile, and the skins of animals, were its best substitutes; but how unsuited would either of these have been to supply even the present demand for books! and how utterly inadequate to meet the enormous demand, when all the world shall be filled with a reading people, and Bibles will be required to "cover the earth as the waters cover the seas !"

This invention was brought into Europe by the Crusaders in the early part of the fourteenth century.

4TH REASON. The application of STEAM to mechanical purposes (especially to the art of printing, the manufactures, and for purposes of locomotion) serves to cheapen, as well as expedite, the task of transporting the volume of inspiration to "all the ends of the earth." By the power of steam a vessel can now pass from the shores of Britain to the coast of America, in less time than a stage coach could have travelled from London to Glasgow only a century ago.*

By the intercourse of nations, brought about by the agency of steam, the bonds of brotherhood among the great families of mankind will be strengthened; their hostile feelings removed; the spirit of warfare eradicated; civilisation advanced; knowledge extended; the "wilderness and solitary places" of the globe will be cultivated and peopled; and all shall be "taught to know and fear the Lord, from the least even unto the greatest."

Steam navigation was not known till the present century. The Great Western was amongst the first steam vessels which crossed the Atlantic, A. D. 1838.

5TH REASON. Some are apt to imagine that arithmetic, geometry, trigonometry, and other branches of MATHEMATICS, can have no relation to the leading objects of religion; but if these sciences had never been cultivated, the most important discoveries of astronomy, geography, chemistry, and natural philosophy, would never have been made. Ships could not have navigated across the ocean; distant continents and the isles of the sea would have re

* Two centuries ago it took twelve months to make a voyage to America and back, but now it can be done in three and a half weeks.

mained unexplored; and many inventions of incalculable use would never have been made.

66

6TH REASON.--Some are apt to imagine there can be no connection between the grinding of an optic glass and religion; but the TELESCOPE has been like a new revelation to man of the "eternal power and godhead." It unfolds the grandeur and magnificence of the works of the Almighty; and he must be devoid of reason who can say there is no God," and yet "lift up his eyes on high," and "consider the heavens, the work of his fingers, the moon and the stars which he hath ordained !" all these declare "the glory of God" too plainly to be gainsaid; all these speak trumpet-tongued "of the glory of his kingdom, and talk of his power!"

The telescope was discovered accidentally by John Jansen, the son of a spectacle maker, of Middleburg, in Holland, A. D. 1591.

7TH REASON. The MICROSCOPE renders a similar service to natural religion. If the telescope carries our vision to objects beyond the range of unassisted sight, the microscope discovers objects in our immediate neighbourhood no less invisible to the naked eye. If the former shows us that the heavens are crowded with a host of worlds larger and more important than our own, the latter reveals no less "manifold wisdom" in every spore of flour, or drop of water, or mote of dust, or grain of sand. If the former speaks of the grandeur and power of the Almighty, the latter tells as plainly of his wisdom, his love, his providence, his omnipresence, his agency, and his eternal truth.*

Tradition ascribes the invention of the microscope to Cornelius Drebel, a Dutch chemist, about the year 1621.

SIMILES.

HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS.

These seven illustrations may suffice to prove that "Science is the handmaid of Religion," but the number can be increased almost indefinitely, and the selection varied at discretion. This subject was suggested by "The Christian Philosopher," by Thomas Dick, LL. D., to whom much of its detail is also lue.

QUOTATION The mechanical and philosophical inventions of genius are worthy of the attentive consideration of the enlightened Christian, particularly in the relation they may have to the accomplishment of religious objects.-Dr. Dick.

I first endeavoured from the works of God to know myself, and afterwards, by the same means, to show him to others; to inform them how great is His wisdom, His goodness, His power.-Galen.

Acquaint thyself with God, if thou wouldst taste
His works. Admitted once to His embrace
Thou shalt perceive that thou wast blind before:
Thine eye shall be instructed, and thine heart
(Made pure) shall relish with divine delight,
Till then unfelt, what hands divine have wrought.
Brutes graze the mountain-top with faces prone,
And eyes intent upon the scanty herb

It yields them, heedless of the scene outspread
Beneath, beyond, and stretching far away
From inland regions to the distant main. . . .
Not so the mind that has been touched from heaven,
And in the school of sacred wisdom taught

To read His wonders; in whose thought the world,
Fair as it is, existed ere it was.

Not for his own sake merely, but for His

Much more who-fashioned it, he gives it praise;
Praise that from earth resulting, as it ought,

To earth's acknowledged Sovereign, finds at once
Its only just proprietor in Him!

The soul that sees Him, or receives sublimed
New faculties, or learns at least to employ
More worthily the powers she owned before,
Discerns in all things what, with stupid gaze
Of ignorance, till then she overlooked,
A ray of heavenly light gilding all forms
Terrestrial in the vast and the minute;
The unambiguous footsteps of the God
Who gives its lustre to an insect's wing,
And wheels his throne upon the rolling worlds.
Cowper.

p*

Devotion! daughter of astronomy;

An undevout astronomer is mad.

True; all things speak a God; but in the small
Men trace out Him; in great He seizes man;
Seizes, and elevates, and wraps, and fills,

With new inquiries.-Dr. Young.

Whom Nature's works can charm, with God himself
Hold converse, grow familiar day by day
With his conceptions, act upon his plan,

And form to His the relish of their souls.-Cowper.
How sweet to muse upon His skill displayed-
Infinite skill! in all that He hath made;
To trace in Nature's most minute design
The signature and stamp of power Divine;
Contrivance exquisite, expressed with ease,
Where unassisted sight no beauty sees;
Th' Invisible in things scarce seen, revealed,
To whom an atom is an ample field. - Cowper.

The Christian should consider the experiments of the scientific not as a waste of time, or the gratification of mere idle curiosity, but as embodying the germs of those improvements by which civilisation, domestic comfort, knowledge, and divine truth, may be diffused among the nations of the earth.-Dr. Dick.

He who does not find in the various, beautiful, sublime, awful, and astonishing objects presented to us in creation and science, irresistible and glorious reasons for admiring, adoring, loving, and praising his Creator, has not a claim to evangelical piety.-Dr. Dwight.

Astronomy and anatomy are studies which present us with the most striking view of the wonderful attributes of the Supreme Being: the former fills the mind with an idea of his immensity, the latter astonishes us with his intelligence and art.-Dr Hunter.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.— Prov. i. 7.

Lord Bacon used to say, "that a little smattering of philosophy would lead a man to atheism, but a thorough

insight into it will lead him back again to God, the great First Cause" for (he adds) "the very first principle of right reason is religion."

Naturæ vero rerum vis atque majestas in omnibus momentis fide caret, si quis modo partes ejus ac non totam complectatur animo.-Pliny.

CONCLUSION.

THEME CVIII.

The more you
desire.

have the more you

INTRODUCTION.

1ST REASON.-Because much-having makes a man ambitious.

2ND REASON.-Success is always sanguine, and full of hope.

3RD REASON. Wants actually increase in the same proportion as the means of gratifying them increase.

4TH REASON. There is somewhat of the huntsman's and gambler's spirit in the successful speculator; the excitement of the chase or hazard is loved independent of any consideration of gain to be derived therefrom.

5TH REASON.-Attainment of much is in reality an earnest and promise of more; and few men would conclude harvest, when they have gathered in the first-fruits.

6TH REASON. As the mind is immortal, its desires are infinite: Although they begin from an almost invisible point, they ever afterwards proceed in diverging lines, as long as they are suffered to continue.

7TH REASON. He who has the means of gratifying imaginary necessities never can be satisfied, because no supply can be so complete that even imagination cannot exceed it; and, until this be the case, there will always be something to excite desires.

8TH REASON.-The impossibility of satisfying desire is a wise provision of the Almighty, to teach man the vanity