If we find beauty thus depicted in the inanimate, how much greater will be our admiration in the contemplation of animate creation?  If we descend into the depths of the ocean we shall find it teeming with life, from the sponge that clings to the rock, to the mighty leviathan that sports amid the bounding billows.

Or search we the air, we find it peopled with myriads of floating insects, on silken wings, each moving in its own little sphere, and then passing away.  The spotted butterfly, that flits through the air, on fairy wing, or rests its downy pinions on the bosom of the fragrant rose; the bird that carols on the spray, or warbles sweetly through the air; the mountain bee, that comes humming round the summer flower, sipping its store of sweets, and even the drowsy hum of the summer-fly, as it floats in mazy circles, are all connecting links in nature’s chain.

But where shall we stop? the spider, the cricket, the beetle, the glow-worm, with his feeble lamp, the firefly that flies twinkling through the air all the “midsummer night,” and every beast that roams the field, whether wild or tame, all—­all have their proper sphere, and are in proper order.

But we have still to contemplate the most beautiful piece of mechanism, of nature’s plastic hand, in the formation of man, for whose convenience and use, all things else seem created.  A careless observer looks upon man, and sees in the general outline a beautiful piece of mechanism, moving in grace and dignity, and standing in an exalted position upon the earth.  He, too, has his place assigned him, by the order of nature, and moves in the highest sphere of earthly being.  By the useful and interesting study of physiology, we are enabled to define the construction of his system, to delineate the muscles, nerves, veins and fibres, and the complicated mass that forms the man, with all their separate dependencies upon each other.  But the mind, the great moving spring of action that gives motion to the whole, who can analyze or delineate?  That will live forever, when the stillness of death rests upon the pulses.  That is the great connecting link between time and eternity, and doomed, by the order of nature, to live forever, and the boundless ages of eternity alone can fully develop its faculties, or define its station.

And too, there is another upon earth, whose presence is often felt, but is never seen.  The pale horse and his rider leave unmistakable evidences of their sojourn with the generations of men, They pass on, breathing upon them a chilling breath, and they are seen no more.  They go forth, conquering and to conquer, and the king, and the beggar, fall alike, before their ruthless sway.

But, there is yet the great unchanging God, for whose honor and glory all things are and were created, who “spake and it was done,” and who has taught us by revelation, that the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll, and the spirit alone remain of man.