Infants count by minutes; children by days; men by years; planets by revolutions of years; comets by revolutions of ages; Nature by revolutions of systems. The Eternal meditates in a perpetual present; but Time has no existence: though the mother of the body, it is not the mother of the tomb;-it is only a small imaginary portion of eternity.

III.

In regard to events-every single incident may have its retrospective, and perspective relations, as

future is not come, and the present becomes the past, even while we attempt to define it: and, like a flash of the lightning, at once exists and expires. Time is the measurer of all things, but is in itself immeasurable; and the grand discloser of all things, but is itself undisclosed. Like space, it is incomprehensible, because it has no limit, and it would be still more so, if it had. It gives wings of lightning to pleasure, but feet of lead to pain; lends expectation a curb, but gives a spur to enjoyment. It robs beauty of her charms to bestow them on her picture, and though it denies a house to merit, builds it a monument. It is the transient and deceitful flatterer of falsehood, but the tried and final friend of truth. Time is the most subtle, yet the most insatiable of depredators; and by appearing to take nothing, is permitted to take all : nor can it be satisfied, until it has stolen the world from us, and us from the world. It constantly flies, yet overcomes all things by flight; and though it is the present ally, it will be the future conqueror of Death. Time, the cradle of hope, but the grave of ambition, is the stern corrector of fools, but the salutary counsellor of the wise, bringing all they dread to the one, and all they desire to the other. But like Cassandra, it warns us with a voice, that even the sagest discredit too long, and the silliest believe too late. Wisdom walks before it, and repentance behind it; he that has made it his friend will have little to fear from its enemies; but he that has made it his enemy, will have little to hope from his friends."

far as we can tell;-and what occurred ten thousand years ago may have a relative connexion with something, which may happen a million years to come.— Doubt this, if you please ;-but, in Nature, there are many much more extraordinary things than this! and though Nature appears to suffer some of her works to decay; yet, delighting in analogical variety, and in resolving matter into new creations, she is only varying her attitudes ;—nothing being permitted actually to decay:-matter, as well as spirit, and that intermediate something between those definite and indefinite qualities, existing to eternity. For in the dunghill of putrefaction are secreted the germs of future reproduction; and from the ruins of vegetation bursts organic existence.

Ever attentive to her interests,-Nature replaces in one spot what she has displaced in another. Ever attentive to beauty,--and desirous of resolving all things into their original dependence on herself,she permits moss to creep over the prostrate column, and ivy to wave upon the lime-worn battlement.— Time, with its gradual, but incessant touch, withers the ivy, and pulverizes the battlement. But Natureever magnificent in her designs!-who conceives and executes in one and the same moment;-whose veil no one has been able to uplift;-whose progress is more swift than time, and more subtle than motion ;-and whose theatre is an orbit of incalculable diameter, and of effect so instantaneous, as to annihilate all idea of gradation;-jealous of prerogative, and

studious of her creations,-expands with one hand what she compresses with another.

Always diligent-she loses nothing. For were any particle of matter absolutely to dissolve, evaporate, and become lost, bodies would lose their connexion with each other, and a link in the grand chain be dropt. Besides-so delicately is this globe balanced, that an annihilation of the smallest particle would throw it totally out of its sphere in the universe. From the beginning of time, not one atom, in the infinite divisibility of matter, has been lost;-not the minutest particle of what we denominate element; nor one deed, word, or thought, of any of his creations have ever once escaped the knowledge; nor will ever escape the memory of the Eternal Mind-That exalted and electric mind, which knows no past, and alculates no future!

CHAPTER XI.

LET us now, my Lelius, recur to the subject of those hopes, which revelation has taught us; and which are so finely exemplified, among other analogies of Nature, in the rise and decay of the year; and which so loudly proclaim the truth of that system, which would teach, in strong and indubitable language, the certainty of future life, in the renovation and immortality of the pious and the just. This great and elevated truth is taught us in language, impossible to be misconstrued. The generation of animals; the propagation of vege

tables; the formation of shells; the reproduction of insects and fishes; the gradations of bodies; the effects, resulting from the laws of motion and attraction, elasticity and repulsion; the vastness of space; the infinite divisibility of matter; the constant connexion between cause and consequence ;-these, and a thousand other wonders, supersede all possibility of annihilation; and teach the grand, the useful, the consolatory truth, that not only spirit is immortal, but that matter is eternal also. Mind, therefore, has a permanent interest in matter; and matter a permanent interest in mind.

But, admirable as are all the works of Nature, in combination or in detail; beautiful as are the woods, streams, vales and vallies; sublime as are the rocks, the mountains and the ocean; and wonderful and various, as are all their respective inhabitants; how far inferior are they, individually or collectively, to that grand masterpiece of Nature,—MAN !

No more with reason and thyself at strife,

Give anxious cares and endless wishes room;
And through the cool, sequestered vale of life
Pursue the silent tenour of thy doom.

The thoughtless world to majesty may bow,
Exalt the brave, and idolize success;

Yet more to innocence their safety owe,

Than power or genius e'er conspir'd to bless!

Hark! how the sacred calm, that breathes around,
Bids every fierce tumultuous passion cease;
In still small accents whispering from the ground
A grateful earnest of eternal peace.

II.

Shall a Being, of such capacities for reasoning be merely a Being of yesterday and to day?-Shall the merest lump of uninformed clay exist from the beginning, and continue to eternity; and MẠN,the powerful agent in the hands of the Eternal, and in whom appear to be contracted and concentrated all the perfections of the world,-shall he cease to live at the moment, in which he begins to know the value of existence?-Is this the end for which we were designed? Are the pains and the penalties of existence created, for a no more elevated sphere than this ?-Where, then, are the uses of those finer operations of the mind, which so highly dignify our being ?-Why were all those capacities implanted in our nature, if we are not, in reality, heirs to immortality?—If not immortal, how profound the fall of human intellect !-The power of knowing the present, and of reasoning on the past, were but worthless qualities, if they are to be chained to this body, and but formed for one existence. But it is impossible, that a Being, so infinite in power and intelligence, should make man so miserably incomplete !-Horrible, indeed, were it, if such were the prospect of human destiny!-Can the Creator of intellect be a countenancer of injustice?-Yet, if there be no future existence, when the lamp of life glimmers on the grave, where shall KoSCIUSKO look for consolation?-No reparation has he received for the many injuries and misfortunes, he has endured, for the crime of fighting in his country's cause!