And, as the arguments in splendor grow, But sum the whole in one deep, solemn strain, LESSON CVII.: EXPLANATORY NOTES.-1. GEOLOGY is the science which treats of the structure of the earth, and of the substances which compose it. 2. LABORATORY is a house or place, in which operations or experiments in chemistry or other sciences are performed. 3. VESUVIUS, the volcanic mountain near Naples, Italy, is almost constantly in a state of eruption. The first great eruption took place in the year 79, which destroyed the cities of POMPEII and HERCULANEUM. THE DISCOVERIES OF GEOLOGY CONSISTENT WITH THE SPIRIT OF RELIGION. EDWARD EVerett. 1. It has been as beautifully as truly said, that the “undevout astronomer is mad." The same remark might with equal force and justice be applied to the undevout geologist. Of all the absurdities ever started, none more extravagant can be named, than that the grand and far-reaching researches and discoveries of geology,' are hostile to the spirit of religion. They seem to us, on the very contrary, to lead the inquirer, step by step, into the more immediate presence of that tremendous POWER, which could alone produce and can alone account for the primitive convulsións of the globe, of which the proofs are graven in eternal characters, on the sides of its bare and cloud-piercing mountains, or are wrought into the very substance of the strata that compose its surface, and which are also, day by day, and hour by hour, at work, to feed the fires of the volcano, to pour forth its molten tides, or to compound the salubrious elements of the mineral fountains which spring in a thousand valleys. 2. In gazing at the starry heavens, all glorious as they are, we sink under the awe of their magnitude, the mystery of their secret and reciprocal influences, the bewildering conceptions of their distances. Sense and science are at war. The sparkling gem that glitters on the brow of night, is converted by science into a mighty orb,—the source of light and heat, the center of attraction, the sun of a system like our own. The beautiful planet* which lingers in the western sky, when . the sun has set, or heralds the approach of morning,-whose mild and lovely beams seem to shed a spirit of tranquility, not unmixed with sadness, nor far removed from devotion, into the very heart of him who wanders forth in solitude to behold it, -is, in the contemplation of science, a cloud-wrapped sphere, -a world of rugged mountains and stormy deeps. 3. We study, we reason, we calculate. We climb the giddy scaffold of induction up to the very stars. We borrow the wings of the boldest analysis, and flee to the uppermost parts of the creation, and then shutting our eyes on the radiant points that twinkle in the vault of night, the well-instructed mind sees opening before it, in mental vision, the stupendous mechanism of the heavens. Its planets swell into worlds. Its crowded stars recede, expand, become central suns, and we hear the rush of the mighty orbs that circle around them. The bands of Orion are loosed, and the sparkling rays which cross each other on his belt, are resolved into floods of light, streaming from system to system, across the illimitable pathway of the outer heavens. 4. But in the province of geology, there are some subjects, in which the senses seem, as it were, led up into the laboratory of divine power. Let a man fix his eyes upon one of the marble columns in the Capitol at Washington. He sees there a condition of the earth's surface, when the pebbles of every size, and form, and material, which compose this singular species of stone, were held suspended in the medium, in which they are now imbedded, then a liquid sea of marble, which has hardened into the solid, lustrous, and variegated mass before his eye, in the very substance of which he beholds the record of a convulsion of the globe. Let him go and stand upon the sides of the crater of Vesuvius, in the ordinary state of its * VENUS, which is alternately an evening and morning star. eruptions, and contemplate the lazy stream of molten rocks that oozes quietly at his feet, incasing the surface of the mountain, as it cools, with a most black and stygian crust, or its sides at night with streaks of lurid fire. lighting up 5. Let him consider the volcanic island which arose a few years since in the neighborhood of Malta, spouting flames from the depths of the sea;-or accompany one of our navigators from Nantucket to the Antarctic ocean, who, finding the center of a small island, to which he was in the habit of resorting, sunk in the interval of two of his voyages, sailed through an opening in its sides where the ocean had found its way, and moored his ship in the smoldering crater of a recently extinguished volcano. Or let him survey the striking phenomenon which has led us to this train of remark, a mineral fountain of salubrious qualities, of a temperature greatly above that of the surface of the earth in the region where it is found, compounded of numerous ingredients in a constant proportion, and known to have been flowing from its secret springs, as at the present day, at least for eight hundred years, unchanged, unexhausted. 6. The religious sense of the elder world, in an early stage of civilization, placed a genius or a divinity by the side of every spring that gushed from the rocks, or flowed from the bosom of the earth. Surely, it would be no weakness for a thoughtful man who should resort, for the renovation of a wasted frame, to one of those salubrious mineral fountains, if he drank in their healing waters, as a gift from one outstretched, though invisible hand, of an everywhere present and benignant POWER. LESSON CVIII. THE ANDES. 1. EARTH's tow'ring mountains own thee king, Thy head is crowned with snow, Where the condor rests his weary wing, When icy tempests blow, HINES. The lone Pacific's trembling waves, With palid cheek like that of slaves, 2. Thou ne'er hast stooped to hold commune Or cold December's birth; 3. Thy head is soaring in the sky, Thine eye, perchance, doth scan LESSON CIX. ADDRESS TO THE CONDOR. MRS. ELLETT 1. WONDROUS, majestic bird! whose mighty wing Pow'rful to soar in strength and pride on high, 2. Proud nursling of the tempest! where repose Dost thou in silence, breathless and alone, While round thee, swells of life no kindred tone, 3. The mountain's frozen peak is lone and bare, No foot of man hath ever rested there; Yet 'tis thy sport to soar Far o'er its frowning summit,-and the plain 4. The limits of thy course no daring eye Has marked; thy glorious path of light on high, The georgeous sun thy quenchless gaze may share ; Thou art, with him, alone. 5. Imperial wanderer! the storms that shake Beyond the bolt,-beyond the lightning's gleam,— Thy home-immensity! 6. And thus the soul, with upward flight like thine, May soar where cloudless beams of heavenly light, On Heaven's immortal bowers. LESSON CX. PERCEPTIONS OF THE BEAUTIFUL. L. H. SIGOURNEY. 1. NATURE, studied through her own beauties, not only humanizes and delights while that study is pursued, but extends an influence to the remoter periods of life. A true love of nature acquired in childhood, is like a sunbeam over the clouded parts of existence, and often grows more vivid with the lapse of years. 2. I have seen it in the chamber of mortal sickness, allaying |