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and the Maker of things visible and invisible, but as his Lawgiver, Judge, and Saviour. Impressed with the important truths revealed in his word, led by faith to the Redeemer, who gave his life a ransom for sinners, the Christian will receive with a higher tone of delight than the mere philosopher, the proofs of the Almighty's power, which a contemplation of his wisdom and skill in creation must call up, and rejoice to see imprinted upon every living thing the mystic writing of his all-powerful hand. He will find that nothing is superfluous; no organs are given, for which there is not an express use, no part of the organic structure is unimportant, no part independent of another, the result being a harmonious accordance of the whole; as nothing is superfluous, so nothing is defective; nothing fails for the accomplishment of the destined purpose; there is no misapplication of power; there are no errors in calculation, to use a term applicable only to human contrivances and machinery-every lever, every muscle, every blood-vessel, every nerve, every tissue is admirably arranged, and expressly adapted for the end in view. Nor is all this irrespective of beauty, delicacy, and precision. Everything

is beautiful in its construction, everything elaborately finished; whatever structure or tissue we examine by the aid of the microscope, we shall be surprised at the elaborate minuteness of its component fibres or particles, and their exquisite arrangement. The more we investigate, the more we shall wonder, admire, and praise. How inscrutable is the wisdom of the Creator! how forcibly do his works proclaim his power! Can the Christian, while he examines these wonderful proofs of design, wisdom, and power in creation, doubt his wisdom, design, and power in providence? Can we doubt that He who created the heaven and the earth, and who said, "Let there be light, and there was light," ruleth over the ways of his creatures-over the ways of man, whom he created in his own image, though that image is defaced by the entrance of sin into the world, bringing guilt and death? The very hairs of our head are numbered; and not a sparrow falls to the ground without his permission. Happy is the man who looks through nature up to the God of nature, providence, and grace, who has unfolded to us two revelations; one, of his might and majesty in the creation of suns, and moons, and stars,

of our globe, and all things upon it--the other, of his merciful designs in rescuing a fallen race from the fatal consequences of sin, through faith in the great Atonement, which breaks our fetters, and gives us the liberty of adopted children, and newness of life in the Redeemer.

Here we close our preliminary observations, and proceed to our main object—a sketch of some of the more interesting peculiarities in the structure of animal beings.

CHAPTER II.

ON THE ANTERIOR LIMBS OF QUADRUPEDS.

IN proportion to the development of the brain and nervous system of animals will be that of their general organization. Consequently, as we ascend from the lower forms to the higher, we find a progressive refinement of structure, involving endless modifications, which evince the minutest attention to necessary details. Nor is this advance produced by adding, at every step, machinery to machinery, but by the happiest and easiest alteration, so to speak, of the machinery in common use, which we may admire, but cannot imitate. Let us, way of example, trace the arm through some of its most remarkable characteristics, from that of man downwards.-The arm and the hand of man have been regarded with admiration from early antiquity, and may themselves be adduced in proof of man's position in creation.

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The end of organization in animals is to provide instruments capable of duly administering to their instincts, intelligence, or necessities; and in this view of the subject, irrespective of everything else, we have data upon which to assert the immense superiority of man above all other animals. "It is not," says Galen, "because man has a hand, that he is, therefore, the wisest of creatures, as Anaxagoras asserted; it is because he is the wisest that therefore he has a hand, as Aristotle correctly thought. For it is not the hands themselves which have taught man the arts, but reason. The hands indeed are but the instruments of the arts, as the lyre is the instrument of the musician, the pincers of the worker in iron."

All the mammalia, excepting whales, porpoises, etc., have four limbs; and in all, man excepted, these limbs are organs of locomotion, though not in all cases of locomotion exclusively; for in some, either one or both pairs are constructed for grasping, and retaining—in many they serve as destructive weapons; and in others, as scrapers, or burrowing organs. We know that the monkey has the power of grasping both with the hands and feet, the lion and tiger strike down their prey and rend

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