ith
the inner cones so common to all our own volcanoes, giving reason to
believe in the activity of innumerable burning hills at some remote
period. It is scarcely necessary to say, that nothing we know could
live in the moon under these rapid and extreme transitions of heat and
cold, to say nothing of the want of atmospheric air." I listened to
this with wonder, and learned to be satisfied with my station. Of what
moment was it to me, in filling the destiny of the linum usitatissimum,
whether I grew in a soil a little more or a little less fertile;
whether my fibres attained the extremest fineness known to the
manufacturer, or fell a little short of this excellence. I was but a
speck among a myriad of other things produced by the hand of the
Creator, and all to conduce to his own wise ends and unequaled glory.
It was my duty to live my time, to be content, and to proclaim the
praise of God within the sphere assigned to me. Could men or plants but
once elevate their thoughts to the vast scale of creation, it would
teach them their own insignificance so plainly, would so unerringly
make manifest the futility of complaints, and the immense disparity
between time and eternity, as to render the useful lesson of
contentment as inevitable as it is important.

I remember that our astronomer, one day, spoke of the nature and
magnitude of the sun. The manner that he chose to render clear to the
imagination of his hearers some just notions of its size, though so
familiar to astronomers, produced a deep and unexpected impression on
me. "Our instruments," he said, "are now so perfect and powerful, as to
enable us to ascertain many facts of the deepest interest, with near
approaches to positive accuracy. The moon being the heavenly body much
the nearest to us, of course we see farther into its secrets than into
those of any other planet. We have calculated its distance from us at
237,000 miles. Of course by doubling this distance, and adding to it
the diameter of the earth, we get the diameter of the circle, or orbit,
in which the moon moves around the earth. In other words the diameter
of this orbit is about 480,000 miles. Now could the sun be brought in
contact with this orbit, and had the latter solidity to mark its
circumference, it would be found that this circumference would include
but a little more than half the surface of one side of the sun, the
diameter of which orb is calculated to be 882,000 miles! The sun is one
milli