The ocean is the highway of commerce. God seems wisely and graciously to have ordained that man should not be independent, but under perpetual obligation to his fellow-man, and that distant countries should ever maintain a mutually beneficial dependence on each other. He might with ease have made every land produce every necessary and comfort of life in ample supply for its own population; in which case, considering the fallen nature of man, it is probable the only intercourse between foreign nations would have been that of mutual aggression and bloodshed. But he has ordered otherwise; and the result has been, generally, that happy intercourse of benefits which constitutes commerce. It is lamentably true that the evil passions of men have often perverted the facilities of communication for purposes of destruction; yet the sober verdict of mankind has for the most part been, that the substantial blessings of friendly commerce are preferable to the glare of martial glory. But the transport of goods of considerable bulk and weight, or of such as are of a very perishable nature, would be so difficult by land, as very materially to increase their cost; while land communication between countries many thousand miles apart, would be attended with difficulties so great as to be practically insurmountable. Add to this the natural barriers presented by lofty mountain ranges and impassable rivers, as well as the dangers arising from ferocious animals and from hostile nations, and we shall see that, with the existing power and skill of man, commerce in such a condition would be almost unknown, and man would be little removed from a state of barbarism. The ocean, however, spreading itself over three fourths of the globe, and penetrating with innumerable windings into the land, so as to bring, with the aid of the great rivers, the facilities of navigation comparatively near to every country, affords a means of transport unrivalled for safety, speed, and convenience. XCVII. - A SEA SONG. ALLAN CUNNINGHAM. [Allan Cunningham was born at Blackwood, in Scotland, December 7, 1784, and died October 4, 1842. He wrote much in prose and verse. His songs and ballads are his best productions, and many of them have great excellence.] A WET sheet and a flowing sea, A wind that follows fast, And fills the white and rustling sail, "O for a soft and gentle wind!" But give to me the roaring breeze, There's tempest in yon hornéd moon, And lightning in yon cloud; And hark the music, mariners; The lightning flashing free, XCVIII.-THE APPROACH OF DAY. E. EVERETT. [From an oration delivered at Albany, on the 28th of August, 1856, on the occasion of the inauguration of the Dudley Astronomical Observatory.] THE great object of all knowledge is to enlarge and purify the soul, to fill the mind with noble contemplations, and to furnish a refined pleasure. Considering this as the ultimate end of science, no branch of it can surely claim precedence of astronomy. No other science furnishes such a palpable embodiment of the abstractions which lie at the foundation of our intellectual system. the great ideas of time, and space, and extension, and magnitude, and number, and motion, and power. How grand the conception of the ages on ages required for several of the secular equations* of the solar system; of distances from which the light of a fixed star would not reach us in twenty millions of years; of magnitudes compared with which the earth is but a football; of starry hosts, suns like our own, numberless as the sands on the shore; of worlds and systems shooting through the infinite spaces, with a velocity compared with which the cannon ball is a wayworn, heavy-paced traveller. Much, however, as we are indebted to our observatories for elevating our conceptions of the heavenly bodies, they present, even to the unaided sight, scenes of glory which words are too feeble to describe. I had occasion, a few weeks since, to take the early train from Providence to Boston, and for this purpose rose at two o'clock in the morning. Every thing around was wrapped in darkness and hushed in silence, broken only by *The movements of the heavenly bodies are very nearly but not quite uniform. There are slight variations, which must be taken into account to secure accurate results. Some of these variations stretch over very long periods, even whole centuries. Secular equations are the corrections required by variations of this kind. Secular is derived from seculum, a Latin word, meaning an age or century. what seemed at that hour the unearthly clank and rush of the train. It was a mild, serene, midsummer's night; the sky was without a cloud; the winds were whist. The moon, then in the last quarter, had just risen, and the stars shone with a spectral lustre but little affected by her presence. Jupiter, two hours high, was the herald of the day; the Pleiades,* just above the horizon, shed their sweet influence in the east; Lyra sparkled near the zenith; Andromeda veiled her newly-discovered glories from the naked eye in the south; the steady pointers, far beneath the pole, looked meekly up from the depths of the north to their sovereign. Such was the glorious spectacle as I entered the train. As we proceeded, the timid approach of twilight became more perceptible; the intense blue of the sky began to soften; the smaller stars, like little children, went first to rest; the sisterbeams of the Pleiades soon melted together; but the bright constellations of the west and north remained unchanged. Steadily the wondrous transfiguration went on. Hands of angels hidden from mortal eyes shifted the scenery of the heavens; the glories of night dissolved into the glories of the dawn. The blue sky now turned more softly gray; the great watch-stars shut up their holy eyes; the east began to kindle. Faint streaks of purple soon blushed along the sky; the whole celestial concave was filled with the inflowing tides of the morning light, which came pouring down from above in one great ocean of radiance; till at length, as we reached the Blue Hills, a flash of purple fire blazed out from above the horizon, and turned the dewy tear-drops of flower and leaf into rubies and diamonds. In a few seconds, the everlasting gates of the morning were thrown wide open, and the lord of day, arrayed in glories too severe for the gaze of man, began his course. I do not wonder at the superstition of the ancient Magians, who in the morning of the world went up to the hill tops of Central Asia, and ignorant of the true God, adored the most * Fronounced Plc ya-deez. か! glorious work of his hand. But I a am filled with amazement, when I am told that in this enlightened age, and in the heart of the Christian world, there are persons who can witness this daily manifestation of the power and wisdom of the Creator, and yet say in their hearts, "There is no God." [Francis William Pitt Greenwood was born in Boston, February 5, 1797, and died August 2, 1843. He was the pastor of a Unitarian congregation in Boston. His writings are marked by a beautiful clearness and simplicity of style, and a fervent devotional spirit.] LET us contemplate, for a few moments, the animated scene which is presented by our spring. The earth, loosened by the victorious sun, springs from the hard dominion of winter's frost, and, no longer offering a bound-up, repulsive surface to the husbandman, invites his cultivating labors The streams are released from their icy fetters, and spring forward on their unobstructed way, full of sparkling waters, which sing and rejoice as they run on The trees of the Lord are full of sap," which now springs up into their before shrunk and empty vessels, causing the buds to swell, and the yet unclothed branches and twigs to lose their rigid appearance, and assume a fresher hue and a more rounded form. Beneath them, and in every warm and sheltered spot, the wild plants are springing Some of these are just pushing up their tender, crisp, and yet vigorous sprouts, thrusting aside the dead leaves with their folded heads and finding their sure way out into the light; while others have sent forth their delicate foliage, and hung out their buds on slender stems and others still have unfolded their flowers, which look up into the air unsuspectingly and gayly, like innocence upon an untried world. The grass is springing for the J |