Herald of the times. [volume] (Newport, R.I.) 1830-1846, 1835-06-04
TIE SUPREME POWER.
Faox An ELsaUEsr AnrIcLs rHE n. A. REyii
IN, ura.l Ever

\ by ward Ever IT,
alt has been as beautifully, as truly said
that the uade vout astronomers is mad" The
same remark might with equal force and JUS
tice be applied to the undevout geologist. Ol
all the absurdities ever started, none more ex-
travagant can be named, than that the grand
and tar-reachng researches and discoveries
Of geology, are hostile to the spirit of Reli-
gion. They seem to US, on the very contra
ry, to lead the inquirer, step by step, into the
more immediate presence of that tremen-
dous Power, which could alone produce
and can alone account for the primitive con-
vulsions Of the globe, of which the proofs are
craven in eternal characters, on the side OF
its bare and cloud piercing mountains, or are
wrought into the substance Of the strata, and
compose its surface, and which are also day
by day, and hour by hour, at work, to feed
the fires of the volcano, to pour forth its mol
ten tides, or to compound the salubrious ele-
ments of the mineral fountains, which spring
in thousand valleys. In gazing at the star
ry heavens, all glorious as they are, we sink
under the awe of their magnitude, the mystic
rY of their secret and reciprocal influence, the
, bewIidering conceptions of their distances.--
I Sense and Science are at war. The spark
ling gem, that gitters on the brow Of light,
is converted by Science into mighty orb
the sources Of light and heat, the centre of
attraction, the sun Of system like our own.
! The beautiful planet, which fingers in the
western sky, when the sun has gone down, or
heralds the approach of morning--whose
mild and lovely beams, seem TO shed spirit
! of tranquility, not unmiXed with sadness nor
far removed from devotion, into the very heart
Of him who wandcrs forth in solitude, to be-
hold it's in the contemplation of Science,
cloud wrapt sphere a world of rugged
mountains and stormy deeps. We study, we
reason, we calculate. We climb the giddy
scaffold Of induction up to the very stars
We borrow the wings of the boldest analysis
and flee to the uppermost parts of creation,
and then shutting our eyes on the radiant
| points that twinkle in the vault of night, the
| well instructed mind sees opening before it,
in mental vision, the stupendous mechan-
ism of the heavens. Its planets swell into
worlds Its crowded stars recede, expand,
become central suns, and we hear the rush
Of the mighty orbs, that circle around them.
Bands Of Orion are loosed, and the sparkling
rays which cross each other on his belt, are
resolved into floods of light, streaming from
system to system, across the illimitabe path
way of the outer heavens. The conclusions
which we reach, are oppresslvely grand and
sublime; the imagination sinks under them
the truth Is too vast, too remote from the
premises from which it is deducted and
man, poor frail man. sinks back to the earth,
and sighs to worship again, with the inno-
cence of child or Chaldean shepherd, the
quiet and beautiful stars, as he sees them in
the simplicity of sense.
But in the province of geology, there are
some subjects in which the senses seem, as
it were, led up into the laboratory of divine
power. Let man fix his eyes upon one of
the marble columns in the Capitol at Wash
ington. He sees there q condition of the
earth's surface, when the pebbles of every
size or form, and material which compose this
singular species of stone were held suspen-
ded in the medium, in which they are now
imbedded, then a liquid sea of marble, which
Has hardened into the solid, lustrous, and va
regated was before his eye, in the very sub
stance of which he bcholds the record Of a
convulsion of the globe.
Let him go and stand upon the side of
the crater Of Vesuvius, i'll the ordinary states
OF its cruptlons, and contemplate the lava
stream of molten rocks, that oozes quietly at
his feet, encasmg the surface OF mountain as
it cools with most black and stygian crust,
or lightning up its sides at night with streaks
of lurid fire. Let him consider the volcanic
island, which arose few years since in the
neighborhood of Malta, spouting flames from
the depth Of the sea;-or accompany one of
our navigators from Nantucket to the Antarc-
tic Ocean, who finding the centre Of small
island, to which he was in the habit of resort
ing, sunk in the interval of two of his voyages,
sailed through an opening in its sides where
the ocean had found its way, and moored his
ship, in the smouderlng crater of recently
eXtinguished volcano. Or, finally. let him SUP
vey the striking phenomenon which our at,-
thor has described, and which has led up to
this train of remark, mineral fountain of sa-
lubrious qualities, Of a temperature greatly
above that of the surface Of the earth in the
region where it is found, compounded of nu-
merous ingredients in a constant proportion,
and known TO ha We been flowing from its Sc
cret springs as at the present, at least for 800
years, unchanged and unexhausted. The re-
ligious sense Of the elder world, in an early
stage of civilization. placed genns or a
divinity by the side ofevery spring that gush-
ed from the rocks, or flowed from the bosom
of the earth. Surely it would be no weak
ness for man, who should resort to one Of
those salubrious mineral fountains, if he drank
in their healing waters as gift from the out
stretched, though invisible hand, of an every
where present and benignant Power
FLowERs-Flowers in all ages have been
made the representatives of innocence and
purity. We decorate the bride, and strew
her path with flowers; we present the unde-
filed blossoms as a smilitude Of her beauty
and untainted mind trusting that her desti-
ny through life will be like theirs, grateful
and pleasing to all We scatter them over