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SECTION XX.

THE ORDER OF NATURE.

SEE, thro' this air, this ocean, and this earth,
All matter quick, and bursting into birth.
Above, how high progressive life may go!
Around, how wide! how deep extend below!
Vast chain of being! which from God began,
Nature ethereal, human, angel, man:
Beast, bird, fish, insect, what no eye can see,
No glass can reach; from infinite to thee
From thee to nothing. On superior pow'rs
Were we to press, inferior might on ours;
Or in the full creation leave a void,

Where, one step broken, the great scale's destroy'd:
From nature's chain whatever link you strike,
Tenth, or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.
And, if each system in gradation roll,

Alike essential to th' amazing whole,
The least confusion but in one, not all
That system only, but the whole must fall.
Let earth, unbalanc'd, from her orbit fly,
Planets and suns run lawless through the sky;
Let ruling angels from their spheres be hurl'd,
Being on being wreck'd, and world on world;
Heaven's whole foundations to their centre nod,
And nature trembles to the throne of God.
All this dread ORDER break, for whom? for thee?
Vile worm! Oh madness! pride! impiety!

What if the foot, ordain'd the dust to tread,
Or hand, to toil, aspir'd to be the head?
What if the head, the eye, or ear, repin'd
To serve mere engines to the ruling mind?
Just as absurd for any part to claim
To be another, in this gen'ral frame:
Just as absurd, to mourn the tasks or pains,
The great directing MIND OF ALL ordains.

All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body nature is, and God the soul:
That, chang'd through all, and yet in all the same,
Great in the earth, as in th' etherial frame;
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees;

Lives thro' all life, extends thro' all extent,
Speads undivided, operates unspent ;

Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part,
As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart;
As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns,
As the wrapt seraph that adores and burns;
To him no high, no low, no great, no small;
He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all.

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Cease then, nor ORDER imperfection name:
Our proper bliss depends on what we blame.
Know thy own point: this kind, this due degree
Of blindness, weakness, Heaven bestows on thee,
Submit. In this or any other sphere,
Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear:
Safe in the hand of one disposing Pow'r,
Or in the natal, or the mortal hour.
All nature is but art, unknown to thee;
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;
All discord, harmony not understood;
All partial evil, universal good:

And, spite of Pride, in erring Reason's spite,
One truth is clear, WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT.

SECTION XXI.

CONFIDENCE IN DIVINE PROTECTION.

How are thy servants blest, O Lord!

How sure is their defence !

Eternal wisdom is their guide,

Their help Omnipotence.

In foreign realms, and lands remote,
Supported by thy care,

Through burning climes I pass'd unhurt,
And breath'd in tainted air.

Thy mercy sweeten'd ev'ry soil,
Made ev'ry region please;
The hoary Alpine hills it warm'd,
And smooth'd the Tyrrhene seas.
Think, O my soul, devoutly think,
How, with affrighted eyes,

Thou saw'st the wide extended deep
In all its horrors rise!

POPE,

Confusion dwelt in ev'ry face,

And fear in ev'ry heart,

When waves on waves, and gulphs in gulphs,

O'ercame the pilot's art.

Yet then, from all my griefs, O Lord,

Thy mercy set me free;
While in the confidence of pray'r
My soul took hold on thee.

For tho' in dreadful whirls we hung
High on the broken wave,

I knew thou wert not slow to hear,
Nor impotent to save.

The storm was laid, the winds retir'd,.
Obedient to thy will;

The sea that roar'd at thy command,
At thy command was still.

In midst of dangers, fears, and deaths,
Thy goodness I'll adore ;

And praise thee for thy mercies past,
And humbly hope for more.

My life, if thou preserve my life,

Thy sacrifice shall be ;

And death, if death must be my doom,

Shall join my soul to thee.

SECTION XXL

HYMN ON A REVIEW OF THE SEASONS.

ADDISON

THESE, as they change, Almighty Father, these,
Are but the varied God. The rolling year
Is full of thee. Forth in the pleasing spring
Thy beauty walks, thy tenderness and love.
Wide flush the fields; the softening air is balm;
Echo the mountains round; the forest smiles;
And every sense, and every heart is joy.
Then comes thy glory in the summer months,
With light and heat refulgent. Then thy sun
Shoots full perfection thro' the swelling year;
And oft thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks ;.

And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve,
By brooks and groves, in hollow whisp'ring gales.
Thy boucly shares in avtumu unconfin'd,

And spreads a common fist for all that lives.
In winter awful thou with clonas and stormes
Around thee thrown, tempest o'er ten post ralf'd,
Majestic darkness! On the whiriwind'a wing,
Riding sublime, Thou bidst the world adore;
And humblest nature with thy northern blast.
Mysterious round! what skill, what force divine,
Deep felt, in these appear! a simple train,
Yet so delightful mix'd, with such kind art,
Such beauty and benificence combin'd;
Shade, unperceiv'd, so soft'ning into shade
And all so forming an harmonious whole,
That, as they still succeed, they ravish still,
But wand'ring oft, with brute unconscious gaze,
Man marks not thee, marks not the mighty hand,
That, ever busy, wheels the silent spheres;
Works in the secret deep; shoots steaming, thence
The fair profusion that o'erspreads the spring;
Flings from the sun direct the flaming day;
Feeds ev'ry creature, hurls the tempest forth;
And, as on earth this greatful change revolves,
With transport touches all the springs of life
Nature, attend! join ev'ry living soul,
Beneath the spacious temple of the sky,
In adoration join! and ardent, raise
One gen'ral song!-

Ye, chief, for whom the whole creation smiles,
At once the head, the heart, and tongue of all,
Crown the great hymn!

For me, when I forget the darling theme,
Whether the blossom blows; the summer ray
Russets the plain; inspiring autumn gleams;
Or winter rises in the black'ning east ;

Be my tongue mute, may fancy paint no more,
And dead to joy, forget my heart to beat!

Should fate command me to the farthest verge Of the green earth, to distant barb'rous climes, Rivers unknown to song; where first the sun Gilds Indian mountains, or his setting beam Flames on th' Atlantic isles; 'tis nought to me; Since God is ever present, ever felt,

In the void waste as in the city full;

And where HE vital breathes there must be joy.
When ev'n at last the solemn hour shall come,
And wing my mystic flight to future worlds,
I cheerful will obey; there, with new pow'rs,
Will rising wonders sing: I cannot go
Where UNIVERSAL LOVE not smiles around,
Sustaining all yon orbs, and all their suns;
From seeming evil still educing good,
And better thence again, and better still,
In infinite progression. But I lose
Myself in HIM, in light ineffable!

Come then, expressive silence, muse his praise.

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