reader with a few of those reasons on which we rest our belief in its final and permanent stability. It is a generally observed fact, that the works of nature are ordinarily so constructed as to give some distinct indications of their ultimate destiny. All vegetable and animal productions, even the bodies of men, are formed by the gradual accumulation and accretion of various particles of matter, in accordance with certain unchangeable laws and in obedience to a certain dynamic spiritual principle, called life. But all those forms of matter which owe their existence to the power of life, have a short or at the most a temporary duration. Death and reproduction appears to be their only mode of existence; for that living force on which they depend is constantly opposed by other forces, which operate in the kingdom of dead matter. But the earth itself consists of a vast aggregation of material particles, held together by one uniform law, to which, so far as we know, there is no successful opposition. The changes which are constantly taking place in the various forms of matter which lie on the surface of the earth, are all subordinate to the law of gravitation, or at least, they leave the uniform operation of that law undisturbed. Amidst all the various operations which are going on in the natural world, the earth continually retains every particle of matter which is used in those operations, holds that matter together in a uniform shape, and pursues with unerring certainty its long travelled path in the heavens. In regard to our own earth, this is an observed and well known fact, and the same general fact is known to be true of all the discovered planets which belong to our system. Of these there are not less than thirty, including the secondary planets, and yet not one of them has ever undergone any important physical change since its first discovery. Much less has any one of them been dissolved, or ceased to exist. This is an important fact, and one which very strongly confirms the position that our earth, in common with the other planets, was made, not to be torn to
