Fichte, the earnest simplicity of Irving, and the width, methodology, and circumspective criticism of Coleridgeshall, after sitting still like Emerson, till his system is rolled and rounded into harmony, at last utter it to the nations with the tumultuous power and fervor of Carlyle. Be this a dream or a legitimate hope, of this much we are certain, that, sooner or later, and by a power either transcendent or divine, it shall be seen that the "ought or duty, is the same thing with science, with beauty, and with joy." The day is coming when, to resume a former figure, Science, Literature, and Religion, already daughters of one family, shall be dwellers in one home. Science shall shade her torch, and stoop her telescope, before the throne of the Eternal. Literature shall pursue her studies, and dream her dreams, in the magic atmosphere of heaven's own day; and Religion shall take her two sisters by the hand, smile on them with the serene and majestic love of a superior nature, introduce them to the presence-chamber of the King of kings, and in a threefold cord, not easily broken, shall be united with them forever. SELECT LECTURES. X. The Age we live in. BY REV. JOHN CUMMING, D. D. DELIVERED BEFORE THE YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION, OF LONDON, IN THE WINTER COURSE OF 1847-8. X. The Age we live in. HERE have been many ages in the world. There THERE was the age of Adam, amid the bloom and beauty of Paradise, when the day had no overshadowing clouds; when the rose had no thorns; the heart no sorrows; and the body was conscious of no fatigue; the age, in short, whose rich music had intermingling with it no melancholy minor-in which the cedars, and the streams, and the woods of the earth, like so many harp-strings, all made melody to man's ear, and sung sweetness in man's heart. That age passed away, and was succeeded by a cold shadow, the commencement of the earth's aphelion, in which the rose that bloomed the day before in Paradise, withered in the hands of her that gathered it; and the winds, and the waters, and the very framework of creation began that plaintive Miserere which is not yet hushed. The flaming cherubim defended Paradise from all access to the lingering remains of Eden; and Adam and Eve went forth under the sword-glare that flashed over them, to water the barren earth with their tears, and to fertilize it with the sweat of their brows. The age of Cain succeeded. The crime of murder was then added to the calamity of the curse; and the guilt of the fratricide left its trail upon the earth he trod, and its brand upon his brow. Man's punishment upon earth was then felt to be the rebound of man's sin in Eden; and all creatures learned, what many creatures have still to learn, that to be at enmity with God is to be at war with the universe itself, and all it contains. The age of Noah followed. Man's wickedness and God's forbearance had then reached their maximum. At that day, when Noah was first forewarned of the flood, and began to forewarn others, geologists proved to the satisfaction of the age, that there was not enough of water in the sea to overflow the earth, and the antediluvian astronomers demonstrated to the satisfaction of their philosophical admirers, that no attraction or planetary force could operate adequate to disturb the relative proportions of land and water. All the wits of the day, too, the writers in the antediluvian Punch, or Charivari, drew grotesque sketches of that old fanatic Noah, and laughed right merrily at his "stupid warnings." But, if it was the age of skepticism, it was the age of demonstration also. One day the sun rose just as he had risen upon other days. It rained very heavily, but it had rained before; and the giddy and the gay, startled for a moment by the premonitory symptom, laughed the more heartily, and cried, "On with the dance." The rivers began to swell; but the bacchanalians only proposed another toast. A hollow noise of the rending and splitting earth was heard, and the suspicion showed itself upon clouded brows that all was not right. The braggadocio grew quiet; the astronomers and scientific men began to revise their calculations; the wits and Charivari to review their jokes; but ere they had composed their minds, the waters, according to the warnings at which they had laughed, were rolling knee-deep; and abandoning, the one his figures and the other his fun, they rushed to the crags and the summits of the mountains; but the fierce flood, like an avenging fiend, pursued and |