The Hillsdale standard. [volume] (Hillsdale, Mich.) 1851-1909, 1857-05-26
Earth Chnnges.

"lne i6eniOu OI tuB WOTiu phssctn AWAY.
Earth is continually changing Spring bios
soms into summer; summer ripens into au-
tumn; autumn whitens into winter The
moi umcpts Of human creatures crumble;-
all, oil fade away, and the memories of the
past fit by us like shadows through the thick
falling darkness of Oblvions night.
Yet through i,s deepening gloom one lamp
brightly burns, sending its cheering rays back
to that remote period when the earth was
without form and void, and darkness was up
on the face Of the deep; when the spirit Of
God moved upon the waters, separating those
above the Ornament from those beneath; |;
when the light was separated from the dark
ness--the viciss,ndes Of day and nigh. estab
lished, and the changing seasons commenced
their mysterious round. Even the Bible
that sacred, that sublime, that holy record,
that resplendent lamp flung down from the
battlcments Of heaven, whose enlightcning
beams shine as brightly on the future ss on
the past, piercing its darkness, lighting up
with holy radiance the patn beyond the
tomb. throwing floods of glory on the portals
Of those mansions not made with hands eter-
nal in the heavens.
Of the changes that must have passed over
the pre-adamite earth before that memorable
time when the light was divided from the
darkness, and the evening and the morning
were the first day, we are entirely ignorant.
Science, indeed, strives TO pierce its gloom,
and demonstrate the progressive changes Of
those countless ages that must have elapsed
before the birth Of Time.
There wds period far, very far, remote
in the mighty cycle of eternity, when the
blue waves that now lave this pensible orb,
and encircle it with intertwsting gyres, were
gaseous vapor-when the pebbling shores and
beetling rocks, against which, when storm
vexed, they madly dash, where molten lava
lighting up the brow Of Chaos; or Huttering
insects sporting in the breath of primeval
Night. When the vast coal fields anderlay-
ing whole islands and continents, were forest
trees waving in the lurid night air-their
branches swarming with innumerable reptiles;
beneath whose shade the dying iguandon
hissed; the trilobite crawled, and 1.-the am
month"; glided along, unlinked in stony chains.
Since mans creation the same changes have
been continually going forward. Organic
and inorganic life have alternately entombed
each other. "All flesh is grassland grass
transmitted flesh. The human form divine,
"fearfully and wonderfully made" born of
dust and dews, and sunshine, is momentarily
changing it's form and elements. In sober re-
ality may we exclsim-
Our ancestors are In the corn and trees:
The living fields fertililed by Death,
The dust was human once; and every breeze
That blows around us, has boen human breath
But the soul still lives on-unchanged and
unchangeable-itsp palace wasted and renewed
its walls crushed and rebuilt-yet on it
moves rejoicing in its Immortality; and dem
onstrating BY the eternal laws Of nature and
philosophy that il is indeed born to survive
unharmcd that acute separation from its cas-
kct-that phenomena which we call Death
since it has already survived nninjured, in
Vulnerable chronic dissolu,ions Of its earthly
tenement.
THE FIRST WEDDING.
The scriptural account of the biz of our
first mother, contains not only poetic gem
Of golden thought, but also deep practical
moral. God had created the heavens and the
earth. He had rolled the beams of light to-
gcther, and ordained the sun to rule by day
and the moon by night; paved their paths
with stars, and clothed the new born earth
with grass, herbage, fruit, and flowers. At
his bidding the seas swarmed with fish, the
air with birds; and the earth brought forth
all manner of beasts and creeping thngs.-
A handful cf dust had been formed in his
image, the breath Of life breathcd into it's
nostris, and man stood erect-a living soul
"A scintillation, flashing brightly from the
sun Of Immortality. A crown had been
placed npon his brow, and sccptre put into
his hand, and dominion given unto him over
the fish of the sea and beasts If the field.
Before him God had gathered them all to.
gether. The fowls Of the air, the beasts of
the field, and all manner Of creeI ing things
as they passed in silcnt review before him
-Aiam, as God-created. King, gave names
unto all his new horn subjects; and "whatso.
ever he called every living creature, that was
the name thereof"
have often pictured to myself the birth
Of Eve, and imagined the mingled sensations
Of pleasure and astonishrncnt that must have
swept over the mind "f our first parent, rs he
awoke from that deep and death. like repose.
Beside him, all fair and beautiful. moved
radiant being it, all the majesty Of unadorned
loveliness; go like himself, and yet so unlike.
Perchance in dreams of night he had seen
her image gliding through the shadowy
realms Of deaths twin-hrother sleep. Was
she then real, living, moving, breathing,
embodiment Of flesh and blood, subject to all
the changes and accidents Of our common
mortality. Had an anrel paused for mo-
ment TO glass its form in the mirroring foun-
tain was this its reflected image; or was she
in sooth newborn angel wandering through
the bowers Of paradise, the suns fierce ays
and left the rash adventurer unable 70 regain
her native skies: But not long was he pr.
plexed. God was there, to present to his
wondering image his last best gift. As from
the melting ere the golden ingot is cast, 20
from dust man had been created; and o. the
golden ingot is again remelted, purified, and
stamped with the kingly impress ere il be-
comes the acknowledged representative of al
earthly wealth; so the rib, extracted from
the aide of Adam had been re-creatad nm