earth—that “All things considered, it seems probable that God, in the beginning, formed matter in solid, massy, hard, impenetrable particles, of such sizes, figures, and with such other properties, and in such proportion to space, as most conduced to the end for which he formed them; and that these primitive particles, being solids, are incomparably harder than any porous bodies compounded of them; even so very hard as never to wear or break to pieces, no ordinary power being able to divide what God made one in the first creation.” Philosophy such as this, verified, much of it, by an induction of rigid experiments, discovers a universe of matter worthy of its author, and like him—a God, not of confusion, but of order; things framed, every one of them, according to rule and method, and all stamped with the indelible impress of utility, design and loveliness. The “unshapen” has no place in the physical world. “It is not,” continues Dr. Chalmers, “from some matter being harder than others, that we infer a God; but when we behold the harder placed where it is obviously the most effective for a beneficial end, as in the nails, and claws, and teeth of animals, in this we see evidence of a God.” Now, this is precisely what has been done in the construction and disposition of the several parts of our planet. The hardest matter is placed where it can subserve a beneficial end, on the bottom of the sea, the shores of a continent, the hills that border the valleys of a country. The framework of the globe is in itself of the most durable materials, and these materials have been all so arranged as to render the earth solid, fertile, and beautiful diversity of climate, combined with diversity of soil, moisture, and shelter. These rocks may have been molten in the depths beneath; but no innate powers of nature raised them unto mountains, and separated the hard from the soft, lifting the heavier substance into the highest places, and scooping out the hollows for the lighter. These are acts, all of them, of divine might, directed to a purpose, and what alone could render this world a fitting abode for living things. Wonderfully made are all the creatures of our earth,—every bone, sinew, and muscle in its appropriate place—and so constructed as best to perform their respective functions. But equally wonderful the adjustment and adaptation, through all its parts, of that earth on which they are domiciled, and which ministers so admirably to the various wants and requirements of its diversified tribes of plants and animals. Not more significant of design, nor more effective for a beneficial end, the bony heads and enameled scales of the finny inhabitants of the period, the cephalaspes and holoptychii of the stratified rocks, than the indurated texture of the traps as a solid casement in which their waters were to be retained, and a storehouse of well-assorted materials, whence substance and nutriment were to be extracted for the land. The