e galaxy; in thy brain the geometry of the
city of God; in thy heart the power of love and the realms of right and
wrong." "Man was sent into the world to be a growing and exhaustless
force," says Chapin; "the world was spread out around him to be seized
and conquered. Realms of infinite truth burst open above him, inviting
him to to tread those shining coasts along which Newton dropped his
plummet, and Herschel sailed,

A COLUMBUS OF THE SKIES."

"Man," says Carlyle, "has reflected his two-fold nature in history. 'He
is of earth,' but his thoughts are with the stars. Mean and petty his
wants and his desires; yet they serve a soul exalted with grand,
glorious aims, with immortal longings, with thoughts which sweep the
heavens and 'wander through eternity.' A pigmy standing on the outward
crust of this small planet, his far-reaching spirit stretches outward to
the infinite, and there finds rest." Then turning to the combined
effects of individual lives, the same great writer says: "History is a
reflex of this double life. Every epoch has two aspects--one calm, broad
and solemn--looking towards eternity; the other agitated, petty,
vehement, and confused looking towards time." "Man," says Sir William
Hamilton, one of the greatest of true philosophers, "is not an organism:
he is an intelligence, served by organs." Says Whately: "The heavens do
indeed 'declare the glory of God,' and the human body is 'fearfully and
wonderfully made;' but man, considered, not merely as an organized
being, but as a rational agent, and as a member of society, is perhaps
the most wonderfully contrived, and to us the most interesting, specimen
of divine wisdom that we have any knowledge of."

MAN'S FAULTS.

So much in compliment of mankind. Now this same marvelous creature, man,
has a critical spirit. He is endued with a quality of progression. The
motive power in this progression is dissatisfaction. Let us listen to
the sages when they drop eulogy and become out of conceit with
themselves.

"MAN IS IMPROVABLE,"

says Horace Mann. "Some think he is only a machine, and that the only
difference between a man and a mill is, that one is carried by blood and
the other by water." Says Pascal: "What a chimera is man! what a
singular phenomenon! what a chaos! what a scene of contrariety! A judge
of all things yet a feeble worm; the shrine of truth, yet a mass of
doubt and uncertainty; at once the glory and the scorn of the universe.
If he b