or
nations? You may call it plague, or cholera, or small pox, miasma,
contagion, particles of matter floating in the air surcharged with
disease, or any thing else. It matters not what you call it. It is
sufficient to our present purpose to know that it has the ability to put
forth a prodigious power in the production of consequences, which the
highest skill of man is yet unable to prevent.

I might pursue this point to an indefinite length, and trace the secret
powers possessed by all created things, as exhibited in the influence
they exert in various ways, both as regards themselves and surrounding
objects. But you will at once perceive my object, and the truth of the
positions I assume. A common power pervades all creation, operating by
pure and perfect laws, regulated by the Great First Cause, the Moving
Principle, which guides, governs, and controls the whole.[11]

Degrading indeed must be those sentiments which limit all action to the
animal frame as an organized body, moved by a living principle. Ours is
a sublimer duty; to trace the operations of the Divine Wisdom which acts
thro out all creation, in the minutest particle of dust which _keeps_
its _position_ secure, till moved by some superior power; or in the
_needle_ which points with unerring skill to its fixed point, and
_guides_ the vessel, freighted with a hundred lives, safe thro the
midnight storm, to its destined haven; tho rocked by the waves and
driven by the winds, it remains uninfluenced, and tremblingly alive to
the important duties entrusted to its charge, continues its faithful
service, and is watched with the most implicit confidence by all on
board, as the only guide to safety. The same Wisdom is displayed thro
out all creation; in the beauty, order, and harmony of the universe; in
the planets which float in the azure vault of heaven; in the glow worm
that glitters in the dust; in the fish which cuts the liquid element; in
the pearl which sparkles in the bottom of the ocean; in every thing
that lives, moves, or has a being; but more distinctly in man, created
in the moral image of his Maker, possessed of a heart to feel, and a
mind to understand--the third in the rank of intelligent beings.

I cannot refuse to favor you with a quotation from that inimitable poem,
Pope's Essay on Man. It is rife with sentiment of the purest and most
exalted character. It is direct to our purpose. You may have heard it a
thousand times; but I am confident you w