THERE is nothing more awful than to attempt to cast a glance among the clouds and mists which hide the broken extremity of the celebrated bridge of Mirza. Yet when every day brings us nigher that termination, one would almost think our views should become clearer. Alas! it is not so: there is a curtain to be withdrawn, a veil to be rent, before we shall see things as they really are. There are few, I trust, who disbelieve the existence of a God; nay, I doubt if at all times, and in all moods, any single individual ever adopted that hideous creed, though some have professed it. With the belief of a Deity, that of the immortality of the soul and of the state of future rewards and punishments is indissolubly linked. More we are not to know; but neither are we prohibited from all attempts, however vain, to pierce the solemn, sacred gloom. The expres sions used in Scripture are doubtless metaphorical, for penal fires and heavenly melody are only applicable to beings endowed with corporeal senses; and, at least, till the period of the resurrection, the spirits of men, whether entering into the perfection of the just, or committed to the regions of punishment, are not connected with bodies. Neither is it to be supposed that the glorified bodies which shall arise in the last day will be capable of the same gross indulgences with which ours are now solaced. That the idea of Mahomet's Paradise is inconsistent with the purity of our heavenly religion, will be readily granted; and see Mark xii. 25. Harmony is obviously chosen as the least corporeal of all gratifications of the sense; and as the type of love, unity, and a state of peace and perfect happiness. But they have a poor idea of the Deity and the rewards which are destined for" the just made perfect," who can only adopt the literal sense of an eternal concert-a never-ending birthday ode. I rather suppose this should be understood as some commission from the Highest, some duty to discharge, with the applause of a satisfied conscience. That the Deity, who himself must be supposed to feel love and affection for the beings he has called into existence, should delegate a portion of those powers, I, for one, cannot conceive altogether so wrong a conjecture. We would then find reality in Milton's sublime machinery of the guardian saints or genii of kingdoms. Nay, we would approach to the Catholic idea of the employment of saints, though without approaching the absurdity of saint

worship, which degrades their religion. There would be, we must suppose, in these employments, difficulties to overcome and exertions to be made, for all which, the celestial beings employed would have certain appropriate powers. I cannot help owning that a life of active benevolence is more consistent with my ideas than an eternity of music. But it is all speculation; and it is impossible to guess what we shall do, unless we could ascertain the equally difficult previous question, What we are to be? But there is a God, and a just God, a judgment and a future life; and all who own so much, let them act according to the faith that is in them. I would not, of course, limit the range of my genii' to this confined earth; there is the universe, with all its endless extent of worlds.-SCOTT.

1. Genii, called by the eastern nations | dowed with a corporeal form, which they Genn or Gien, are a race of beings created are able to change at pleasure. Readers from fire, occupying an intermediate of the Arabian Nights' are familiar with place between man and angels, and en- Genii.

LAUNCHING INTO ETERNITY.

It was a brave attempt! adventurous he
Who in the first ship broke the unknown sea,
And, leaving his dear native shores behind,
Trusted his life to the licentious wind.

I see the surging brine; the tempest raves;
He on the pine-plank rides across the waves,
Exulting on the edge of thousand gaping graves;
He steers the winged boat, and shifts the sails,
Conquers the flood, and manages the gales.

Such is the soul that leaves this mortal land,
Fearless, when the great Master gives command.
Death is the storm; she smiles to hear it roar,
And bids the tempest waft her from the shore ;
Then with a skilful helm she sweeps the seas,
And manages the raging storm with ease

(Her faith can govern death); she spreads her wings
Wide to the wind, and as she sails she sings,
And loses by degrees the sight of mortal things.
As the shore lessens, so her joys arise,

The waves roll gentler, and the tempest dies;
Now vast eternity fills all her sight,

She floats on the broad deep with infinite delight,
The seas for ever calm, the skies for ever bright.

WATTS.

"IT IS A HAPPY WORLD AFTER ALL."

Benevolent.
Domesticated.

Abortive.
Vivacity.

Insect.
Collectively.

Gratuitous.

Articulate.

THE world was made with a benevolent design. Nor is the design abortive. It is a happy world after all. The air, the earth, the water, teem with delighted existence. In a spring noon, or a summer evening, on whichever side I turn my eyes, myriads of happy beings crowd upon my view. "The insect youth are on the wing;" swarms of new-born flies are trying their pinions in the air. Their sportive motions, their wanton mazes, their gratuitous activity, their continual change of place without use or purpose, testify their joy, and the exultation which they feel in their lately-discovered faculties. A bee amongst the flowers in spring is one of the most cheerful objects that can be looked upon. Its life appears to be all enjoyment; so busy, so pleased; yet it is only a specimen of insect life with which, by reason of the animal being half domesticated, we happen to be better acquainted than we are with that of others. The whole winged insect tribe, it is probable, are equally intent upon their proper employments; and under every variety of constitution gratified, and perhaps equally gratified, by the offices which the Author of their nature has assigned to them. But the atmosphere is not the only scene of enjoyment for the insect race. Plants are covered with aphides, greedily sucking their juices, and constantly, as it would seem, in the act of sucking. It cannot be doubted but that this is a state of intense gratification. What else should fix them so close to their operation, and so long? Other species are running about with an alacrity in their motions, which carries with it every mark of pleasure. Large patches of ground are sometimes half covered with these brisk and sprightly natures. If we look to what the waters produce, shoals of the fry of fish frequent the marshes of rivers, of lakes, and of the sea itself. These are so happy, that they know not what to do with themselves; their attitudes, their vivacity, their leaps out of the water, their frolics in it, (which I have noticed a thousand times with equal attention and amusement,) all conduce to show their excess of spirits, and are simply the effects of that excess. Walking by the seaside on a calm evening upon a sandy shore, and with an ebbing tide, I have frequently remarked the appearance of a dark cloud, or, rather, very thick mist, hanging over the edge of the water to the height, perhaps, of half a yard, and of the breadth of two or three yards, stretching along the coast as far as the eye could reach, and always retiring with the water. When this cloud came to be examined, it proved to be nothing else than

HASTY and splenetic men have inveighed against Providence, for sending us into the world so naked of all covering, so destitute of natural clothing, so exposed to all injuries and sufferings of temperature and wet, while other animals have feathered, woolly, hairy, horny, shelly, or leathery outsides. But would any such querulous declaimers exchange their admirable skin for the hide of a beast, the scales of a crocodile, or the feathers of a turkey? Could any mind that sees, feels, or reasons, desire to have the physiognomy of a horse, an eagle, a lion, or an elephant, instead of "the human face divine," instead of its lovely complexion, its eloquent features, its attractive delicacy, and its impressive dignity? But independent of all beauty, and of all that delights the eye, the taste, and the touch, in the human skin, who would relinquish the mental advantages which we derive from its exquisite nervous sensitivity? We could not have a large portion of our sensations and ideas without it. It is the peculiar sensibility of the ends and insides of our fingers, and of our palm, which provides us with an important part of our most useful knowledge. The connection is unceasing between our mind and its delicate skin. A fine nervous expansion, proceeding from the brain, is purposely spread over the outside of our bodies, immediately under the last cuticle. That our intellect may have the benefit of this universal sensitivity, it is materially associated with our moral feelings and with our best sympathies. No small portion of the tenderness of our nature, and of our compassionate benevolences, are related to it. With the hide of a rhinoceros, or the wool of a sheep, or the shaggy coat of a bear, we should not possess the feelings of a human heart, nor the intellectual sensibility of a cultivated mind. A comparative stupidity, hardness of nature, insensibility, roughness, cruelty, or savage humour, would characterise us in such a transformation, as corresponding qualities accompany other creatures, according as their outside habiliment differs from our beautiful exterior.TURNER'S 'Sacred History.'

1. Even in man, the acuteness of the | the lips; and least in the skin of the sensibility of the cutaneous surface varies trunk, arm, and thigh. Carpenter's greatly in different parts; being greatest Physiology. at the extremities of the fingers and in

THE ORDER OF NATURE.

THE bliss of man (could pride that blessing find)
Is not to act or think beyond mankind;

No powers of body or of soul to share
But what his nature and his state can bear.
Why has not man a microscopic eye?
For this plain reason, man is not a fly.
Say what the use, were finer optics given,
To inspect a mite, not comprehend the heaven?
Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er,
To smart and agonize at every pore?

Or quick effluvia darting through the brain,
Die of a rose in aromatic pain?

If nature thundered in his opening ears,

And stunned him with the music of the spheres,

How would he wish that Heaven had left him still
The whispering zephyr and the purling rill?
Who finds not Providence all good and wise,
Alike in what it gives, and what denies ?

Far as creation's ample range extends,
The scale of sensual, mental powers ascends:
Mark how it mounts, to man's imperial race,
From the green myriads in the peopled grass:
What modes of sight betwixt each wide extreme,
The mole's dim curtain and the lynx's beam;
Of smell, the headlong lioness between,
And hound sagacious on the tainted green:
Of hearing, from the life that fills the flood,
To that which warbles through the vernal wood?
The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine!
Feels at each thread and lives along the line:
In the nice bee, what sense so subtly true
From poisonous herbs extracts the healing dew?
How instinct varies in the grovelling swine,
Compared, half-reasoning elephant, with thine!
"Twixt that and reason, what a nice barrier?
Forever separate, yet forever near!
Remembrance and reflection, how allied!
What thin partitions sense from thought divide!
And middle natures, how they long to join,
Yet never pass the insuperable line!
Without this just gradation, could they be
Subjected, these to those, or all to thee?
The powers of all subdued by thee alone,
Is not thy reason all these powers in one?-POPE.