“And the fear of you, and the dread of you, shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, and upon all that moveth upon the earth.” This vesture of universal dread, which was to envelop man, though appointed from the beginning of time, has never been removed, but most signally and remarkably attaches to him still. It was ordained to be so; and so it is. In some few instances only does this awe of man subside: in extreme cases of want, for individual preservation, or when protection is required. In such cases, the fear or sensibility of pain, love of life, or a paramount duty, becomes the stronger principle, annihilating the weaker; and the dread of man’s supremacy is no more. The weakest, the very insect, then assails him, and at times becomes the victor. Does any conceivable or visible cause exist from which this awe can proceed? Does “his sublime countenance, contemplative of the heavens,” the image that he bears, or his deportment, afford any ascendent influence productive of this impression? In bodily power he is more weak and obnoxious to injury than many that shrink from a contest with him; his natural arms and means of protection are inferior often to those of the beings which he subdues; yet from an undefinable cause he is omnipotent over all. Terror in man most commonly arises from a knowledge of power, apprehension of ills from accident, or fear of the evil inclinations of another. What the fowls of the air, or the beasts of the field perceive, or are impressed with, we know not; but none of these causes can exist in a brute mind without intelligence or experience. These are the reflections of a thoughtful hour. The cause, “though a man labor to seek out, yet shall he not find it; and though a man think to know it, yet shall he not be able.” But the contemplation is not wholly an unworthy occupation of time. All ages, all people, must have perceived the admitted power and universal dread occasioned by the presence of man, but no reason, no motive, could have been assigned for it; but in these days, by revelation, we know the cause, have impressed upon our minds the immutable truth of that Being which ordained, and of that volume which has proclaimed his mandate to us. But man has the power assigned him of calling to his aid a visible object of dread, confided to him from the earliest periods; and he alone of all created beings has the agency of this terror. All the inferior orders have a fear of it, and flee from it, even when its effects could never have been known or experienced, but which appears to be innate and inseparable from all. Man alone has the knowledge, the means of calling heat into action; and though warmth is the delight, and essential to the being of most, yet, rouse it into active operation producing fire, and terror and flight succeed enjoyment and rest: it deters the approach of the most ferocious, and man and his charge abide unharmed when surrounded by the terror he has raised.