and fancy lent all the fascinations of poetry to their corrupt and irrational mythology.

But if the heathen, who lived in times of rudeness. and ignorance, were subject to condemnation for abusing their faculties and opportunities, how much more guilty are we in not seeing God in all his works? How much more worthy of punishment are we, if we turn not into their proper and legitimate channel that sympathy with external nature, and that instinctive admiration of the grand and the beautiful, with which we are endowed ? The question is not, Do we, like the heathen of ancient or modern times, believe in a polytheism, and people, with the vain creatures of our imagination, the regions of the land and the sea? for we at once, unintelligibly, perhaps, and, as it were, mechanically, assent to the received truth,-There is one God; and we also readily acquiesce in the grave lessons that may be read us by some pious student of the book of Nature. But the in

quiry to be made of our own hearts is, Do we habitually see the Creator in His works, and associate His glorious perfections with every witnessed specimen of His skill? We luxuriate in the glowing summer landscape; we there admire the universal flush of inanimate nature; we listen, with delight, to the sweet singing of birds, and the mingling murmurs of winds and streams: But do we straightway lift up our eyes to heaven in adoring gratitude, and own a God around us? or do all our feelings but minister to a luxurious sensibility, and evaporate in some poetic dream? When we survey, by night, the starry heaven, and direct our telescope to those countless worlds that there crowd upon the vision, are we lost in devout admiration of the wondrous universe of God? or do we merely resign ourselves to those emotions of sublimity that such a magnificent scene is so well fitted to awaken? We are too apt and too habituated to behold the glories of creation, without looking further. We are satisfied with a vague sentimental feeling of beauty, and think not of that Hand from which all beauty flows. We are struck with the endless adaptations of the material world, but we do not always raise our thoughts to

the great Designer. We analyze and admire the splendid machinery of the heavens, but we recognise not the matchless power of the Mechanist. We philosophize, we speculate, we declaim, on the structure of a flower, or the mechanism of a planetary system, but only talk the while of Nature and her works, as if Nature -a mere fashioned mass of inert matter-were the parent of all things, and the grand object of our worship.

Would we read the book of Nature aright, and see God in His works, we must have recourse to the book of Revelation; for these two great volumes, written by the same Hand, and for a similar purpose, cast a strong light upon each other. As the book of Nature, by the visible impress of Divinity stamped upon it, is fitted to prepare us for the more glorious display of the Divine perfections contained in the book of Revelation,—so is this latter the truest and safest guide to the profitable perusal of the former. In the Bible, the great productions and aspects of nature are always mentioned in connexion with the glory of God. They are introduced, often in strains of the boldest poetry, to teach the infinite power and goodness of Jehovah. We there find the noblest descriptions of natural objects ever penned; and one great moral runs through them all. Every masterly picture of the grand or the beautiful in nature, is but a delineation of God's wondrous attributes.

It is, therefore, a positive duty, sublimely taught us both by precept and example, to cherish a sense of the infinite skill and bounty displayed in creation. We should associate, with all that attracts the eye by its beauty, or excites our admiration by its delicate structure, the liveliest expressions of adoration and gratitude. Every survey of natural scenery, every examination of even the smallest of God's works, should be to us a devotional exercise. To a mind accustomed to consecrate all its perceptions of beauty and design to the inward worship of God, every mountain and field, every leaf and flower, teems with instruction. The tiny wing of the ephemeral insect, as well as the noblest animal form, affords food for the loftiest admiration. The man of true

piety and refined feeling, enjoys the beauties of Nature with the keenest relish; for Nature is but a pictured volume in which he reads the character of the Divinity. Every object that meets his eye, be it vast or minute, simple or complex, suggests exalted conceptions of Him "Who gives its lustre to an insect's wing,

And wheels His throne upon the rolling worlds."

All our feelings and intellectual powers should be devoted to the glory of God, their Author and their End. Our purest sympathies, our liveliest sensations, our most exquisite perceptions, are due to His worship, and are all originally fitted to exalt our conception of His character. To behold the wonderful scene in which we are placed, with the eye of reason, and with feelings of elevated devotion, is both our duty and our privilege. When we contemplate, therefore, the heavens, with the sun, moon, and stars, which God has ordained, the earth, with all its array of plants and flowers, and animated beings, the sea, with its multitude of waves and living forms, let us gratefully adore the Almighty Creator, and exclaim, with the Psalmist, "O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth !" J. D.

SEVENTH WEEK-MONDAY.

REASON IN THE LOWER ANIMALS.

INSTINCT, if the definition which I have given of it in my paper of Saturday be correct, will not account for all the operations of the lower animals. Instinct is uniform. It belongs to all the species nearly in the same degree. The young possess it as soon as they are produced; or, at least, as soon as their bodily powers will enable them to employ it, in as great perfection as the old. It is not communicated by instruction; it is not

learned by experience. The young bee, for instance, the moment it leaves the cell where it has been produced and cradled, cleans its body, smooths its wings, then leaves its hive, and flies, without a guide or teacher, to the nearest flower, where, using its feelers, and inserting its proboscis, it sips the sweet nectar with which the Author of Nature has, for its use, filled so many vegetable cups, and then returns to its native roof, tracing its solitary way through the trackless air, and deposits the gleanings of its industry, to add to the hoarded treasures of the parent swarm. Then, again, it exudes the secreted wax from the rings of its body; and, still without instruction, begins to form those wonderful hexagonal cells, the scientific construction of which the mathematician has found such reason to admire. All this is instinct.

Yet, though there is wisdom here, it is not that of the animal, but of its Creator. It has been guided to these intelligent works by a blind impulse. This, however, is not the case with many of the actions of the inferior creation; and, however difficult it may be to draw the line between reason and instinct, I believe no person who has, without prejudice, studied the character and habits of the living creatures below him, will find it easy to deny them at least some glimpses of that higher faculty to which his own species has the most appropriate claim. A few well-authenticated instances will illustrate this remark.

I have the following anecdote from a gentleman* of undoubted veracity, and acute observation, in the vicinity of Dumfries. A few years ago, this gentleman had beautified his residence, by converting a morass in its neighborhood into an extensive piece of water, which he had stocked with fish; and, as places of retreat for these tenants of his lake, he had caused numerous roots of trees to be thrown in here and there, which were usually hid below the surface. In the year 1836, however, the unusually dry spring caused the necessary supply of water unexpectedly to fail, and the pond sank so low, that some

* James Lennox, Esq. of Dalscairth.

of the roots made their appearance, and on one of these, more elevated than the others, a pair of wild ducks constructed their inartificial nest; and the female had already laid some eggs, when the weather changed, and the descending rains having filled the streams by which the lake was fed, the surface gradually rose, and threatened to overwhelm the labors of this luckless pair, and to send their eggs adrift upon the waves. Here instinct had no resource. It was an unexpected occurrence, for which this faculty could not provide; but if any glimmerings of reason belonged to these fond parents, it might be expected to be exerted. And so it was. Both the duck and the drake were observed to be busily employed in collecting and depositing materials; presently the nest, which the rising waters had already reached, was seen to emerge as it were from the flood; more and more straw and grass were added, till several inches of new elevation was gained, and the nest, with its precious contents, appeared to be secure. Here the mother patiently brooded her full time; and one duckling rewarded her care; when, just as it had escaped from the shell, another torrent of rain fell, more sudden and more violent than the first; the water rose higher and higher; the nest, and remaining eggs, were swept away. emergency, the whole attention of the parents was given to the living progeny, which was safely conveyed by them to the shore, where another nest was constructed; and thus their sagacity and solicitude were finally crowned with success.

In this

An example, it should seem, of a still higher order of intelligence, is recorded by Mr. Jesse, in his 'Gleanings in Natural History,' which came under his own observation. "I was one day," says he, "feeding the poor elephant (who was so barbarously put to death at Exeter Change) with potatoes, which he took out of my hand. One of them, a round one, fell on the floor, just out of the reach of his proboscis. He leaned against his wooden bar, put out his trunk, and could just touch the potato, but could not pick it up. After several ineffectual efforts, he at last blew the potato against the