It is thus we should consider the discoveries made by those instruments, which have received their birth from an exertion of our faculties. It is to the same power, who created the objects of our admiration, that we are ultimately to refer the means of discovering them. Let no one, therefore, accuse us of prying deeper into the wonders of nature, than was intended by the great author of the universe. There is nothing we discover by their assistance, which is not a fresh source of praise; and it does not appear that our faculties can be better employed, than in finding means to investigate the works of God. From a partial consideration of these things, we are very apt to criticise what we ought to admire; to look upon as useless what perhaps we should own to be of infinite advantage to us, did we see a little farther; to be peevish where we ought to give thanks; and at the same time to ridicule those who employ their time and thoughts in examining what we were, i. e. some of us most assuredly were created and appointed to study. In short, we are too apt to treat the Almighty worse than a rational man would treat a good mechanic, whose works he would either thoroughly examine, or be ashamed to find any fault with them. This is the effect of a partial consideration of nature; but he who has candor of mind, and leisure to look farther, will be inclined to cry out: How wond’rous is this scene! where all is form’d With number, weight, and measure! all design’d For some great end! where not alone the plant Of stately growth; the herb of glorious hue, Or food-full substance! not the laboring steed, The herd, and flock that feed us; not the mine That yields us stores for elegance and use; The sea that loads our table, and conveys The wanderer man from clime to clime, with all Those rolling spheres, that from on high shed down Their kindly influence; not these alone, Which strike ev’n eyes incurious, but each moss, Each shell, each crawling insect, holds a rank Important in the plan of Him, who fram’d This scale of beings; holds a rank, which lost, Would break the chain, and leave behind a gap Which nature’s self would rue. Almighty Being, Cause and support of all things, can I view These objects of my wonder; can I feel These fine sensations, and not think of thee? Thou who dost thro’ th’ eternal round of time, Dost thro’ th’ immensity of space exist Alone, shalt thou alone excluded be From this thy universe? Shall feeble man Think it beneath his proud philosophy To call for thy assistance, and pretend To frame a world, who cannot frame a clod?-- Not to know thee, is not to know ourselves-- Is to know nothing--nothing worth the care Of man’s exalted spirit:--all becomes, Without thy ray divine, one dreary gloom, Where lurk the monsters of phantastic brains, Order bereft of thought, uncaus’d effects, Fate freely acting, and unerring chance. Where meanless matter to a chaos sinks,