canic fires, or exposed to the artillery of heaven *.

* In a book intitled Studies of Nature, written in French by M. de Saint Pierre, and translated by Dr. Hunter, minister of a Scots' church in London, it is asserted, contrary to what is here advanced, That calamities such as those here specified" are only inflicted by nature on man, when he deviates from her laws." "If storms," says the author, "sometimes ravage his orchards and his corn-fields, it is because he frequently places them where nature never intended they should grow. Storms scarcely ever injure any culture except the injudicious cultivation of man. Forests and natural meadows never suffer in the slightest degree." (Vol. ii. p. 36.) Again: "I do not believe there eyer would have been a single unwholesome spot upon the earth, if men had not put their hands to it." (Ibid. p. 40.) Any attempt to expose these passages would be quite superfluous. Surely the author, when he wrote them, must have forgot. (to name no other quarter of the world) the whole continent of America, which it is well known was found generally insalubrious, and scarcely habitable, before it had passed under the hand of the cultivator.

As the work now cited, after its vogue in France, has found its admirers in this country, a few more strictures upon it in this place, in order to guard the young and incautious reader against its illusions, will not perhaps be considered as altogether impertinent.

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Again; if we fix our view on man, we find judgment and mercy apparent through

From Pythagoras and some other ancient philosophers, the author has borrowed a notion upon which a great part of his work proceeds, and which is well suited to be wrought upon by a lively aud fanciful genius. "When two contraries (he observes) come to be blended, of whatever kind, the combination produces pleasure, beauty, and harmony. I call the instant and the point of their union harmonic expression. This is the only principle which I have been able to perceive in nature.” (Vol. ii. p. 279.) Again, "Nature opposes beings to each other in order to produce agreeable conformities.— I consider this great truth as the key of all philosophy." (Ibid. p. 275.) Among his other strange theories, his account of the tides, from the melting of the ice at the polar regions, is singularly wild and improbable.-From the schools of heresy, infidelity, and anarchism, he has collected that "Man in a state of purity [by which he here means a state of nature] has no dangerous error to fear." (Vol. v. p. 69.) "I repeat it (says he) for the consolation of the human race, moral evil is foreign to man as well as physical." (Vol. v. p. 434.) And should it be enquired how the world came to be corrupt as we now find it, he will answer, good, it is society that renders him wicked." (Vol. ii. p. 134.) Or as he elsewhere tells us, that all our vices are "the necessary results of our political institutions." (Vol. vi. p. 65, 66,) Lastly, from an Indian Paria he has

so generally Man is born

every period of his present existence. During the season of infancy, we see him subject not only to helpless weakness, but also to many pains and diseases; and we see him too at the same time sustained and cherished by the tenderness of parental affection. Amidst the dangers and difficulties which beset his advancing years, we see him furnished with reason for a guide, and happily impelled by his social instincts

learned, (as we are allowed to suppose from the whole tenor of the fiction,) that "truth is to be found only in nature." (Vol. vi. sub finem.)-Such are the principles and sentiments in the work before us. And now can we forbear to wonder when we hear the translator declare, that " he had read few performances with more complete satisfaction, and with greater improvement, than the Studies of Nature; and can we less wonder when he proceeds to demand with an air of confidence, "What work of science displays a more sublime theology, inculcates a purer morality, or breathes a more ardent or more expansive philanthropy?" (Vol. i. Pref.) This high-flown panegyric might induce a suspicion that the Doctor is not much conversant with the principles of a sound philosophy: and that in his extravagant zeal for his author, he had lost sight both of the Assembly's Catechism and of his Bible.

to unite himself with other men in friendly associations and bodies politic. Thus, by combined efforts, he is able, not barely to provide himself with a shelter from the elements, and with a scanty supply of food for his subsistence, but also, by the contrivance of fit instruments and engines, to extend his command over nature, to multiply his conveniencies and comforts, and at the same time to erect a more effectual fence against the numberless evils to which he is exposed. And if to this general co-operation, we add the relief arising from particular assistance and sympathy, from the ordinary vicissitude of the world, and from the lapse of time itself, we shall find there are few instances of human distress which are not attended with many circumstances of alleviation. And lastly, whatever be the lot of man, we see him borne up by an insuppressible hope, which affords a happy presumption, that, however his condition may be often sad and perilous, it is never absolutely desperate and irretrievable.

We may recognise the same mixed character when we look back on the conduct of providence towards the world at large, even in the most awful instances, which by impressing a conviction of the nature and consequences of sin, were suited to obstruct its progress. The instances I have here in view are, the expulsion of man from paradise; the labour and toil to which he was doomed by the curse upon the ground; lastly, the universal deluge, which probably, as the great secondary cause, by the changes it produced both in the earth itself and its surrounding atmosphere, further multiplied the evils and gradually abridged the term of human life, and thus opposed a fresh barrier to human depravity. In all this process, the attentive observer will acknowledge the Judge of the earth to be the Father of compassions, who, if his disobedient children be not reclaimed by lighter chastisements, will not spare to treat them with greater rigours, no less from a regard to their welfare than to his own dignity and just authority.