which so nearly balance each other, that it is difficult to determine which country deserves the preference; and there is no one place on the surface of the globe where the bounty of God is not manifested. From our climate to the most distant zones his goodness is every where displayed. All the inhabitants of the universe experience his paternal love. None of his creatures are forgotten. All that breathe derive from him life, nourishment, joy, and happiness.

OCTOBER XVI.

ATMOSPHERE OF THE EARTH.

The air with which the earth is surrounded is not so pure and subtile as the ether, being impregnated with a multitude of particles and exhalations which are continually detached from the earth and the waters. The air thus blended forms the atmosphere. Its inferior region, or that which is next the earth, is compressed by the superior stratum of air, and is consequently more dense. The proof of this is ascertained by those people who ascend high mountains: their respiration becomes more painful and difficult in proportion to their ascent. It is impossible to determine the exact height of the atmosphere, because we cannot ascend very high in the air; neither can it be inferred with certainty, from the duration of twilight, how far the mass of air extends. Granting that the morning twilight begins and that of the evening terminates when the sun is eighteen degrees below the horizon, and that the latter twilight is produced by the rays which strike upon the earth and are reflected by the most elevated parts of the atmosphere, many difficulties will yet remain to be explained. However this may be, the atmosphere is divided into three regions. The lower region extends from the earth to that place where the air is no longer heated by the rays reflected from the earth. This region is the warmest. The middle region begins where the preceding one terminates, and reaches to the summit of the highest mountains, or even to the most elevated clouds, and is the place where rain, hail, and snow are formed. This region is much colder than the lower one, for it is only warmed by the rays which pass directly through it. The third region is still colder, and extends from the middle one to the utmost limits of the atmosphere; these boundaries, however, are not exactly ascertained.

The particles which rise from the earth into the atmosphere are of different kinds; there are aqueous, earthy, metallic, and sulphurous particles, with many others. As some of these are more abundant in certain districts than in others, there results a great diversity in the air, and the difference is evident even at a small elevation. Heavy air is more favourable to the health than that which is light. When the air is dense it is commonly serene, whilst a light air is generally accompanied with clouds, rain, or snow.

An air too dry is very injurious to the human body; but this is seldom experienced, except in sandy countries. A very moist air is equally unwholesome, by relaxing the system, and impeding the insensible perspiration. When the air is very hot, great languor and debility are produced, with copious perspiration; and when it is very cold, rigidity, obstructions, and inflammations, are the consequences. The most salubrious air is that which is in a just medium between all these extremes.

It is in the atmosphere that clouds, rain, snow, hail, dew, thunder, and various meteors are engendered. To the atmosphere we owe the morning and evening twilight; as the rays of light are refracted and reflected, and bent in different directions in this volume of air, we see them before the sun rises, and enjoy them some time after he is set. Hence those people who live under the polar circles enjoy during the winter some rays of light, even while the sun is yet below the horizon. The atmosphere is the habitation of the winds, which have so much influence upon the fertility of the earth and the health of man. If the air was to be in a state of uninterrupted serenity, cities and provinces would soon be deprived of their inhabitants, and exchange their gayety for the dreariness of a desert; if occasional storms and tempests did not sometimes rage, and by their ebullitions agitate the calm air, the whole world would become one vast sepulchre, in which every living creature would moulder into annihilation.

What great reason, then, have we to bless and to adore our heavenly Father for this happy arrangement of nature; and to acknowledge with awe and reverence that wisdom which has regulated and directed the vast machinery of the universe, for the greatest possible felicity of every being which enjoys life, reason, or instinct!

OCTOBER XVII.

PROPORTION BETWEEN BIRTHS AND DEATHS.

That God has not abandoned to blind chance the lives of men and the preservation of the human race, but that he watches over them with paternal care, is evident from the exact proportion in which, in ages and countries, men enter and quit the stage of existence; so that the earth is neither destitute nor too full of inhabitants.

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The number of births generally exceeds that of deaths; for it has been calculated that if ten persons die annually, twelve or thirteen are born. Thus the human race is continually multiplying. If this was not to be the case, and the proportion of deaths exceeded that of births, a country would be depopulated in a few centuries, particularly as the population of a country may be affected by various accidents. The principal obstacles to the increase of the human species are war, pestilence, and famine, celibacy, and crowded cities, where at least as many people die as are born.

Baptismal registers prove that more males than females are born, the proportion being nearly twenty-one to twenty; but war, death, and various accidents to which men are exposed, preserve an equality between the sexes: in towns females are even more numerous, but in the country the males preponderate.

The number of children relatively to that of families is also regulated with the greatest wisdom. In sixty-six families it is computed that only ten children are annually baptized. Out of fifty or fifty-four persons in a populous country only one marries each year, and each marriage, taking one with another, produces four children; but in large towns only thirty-five children are reckoned to ten marriages. Men capable of bearing arms generally constitute the fourth part of the inhabitants of a country.

By comparing the bills of mortality of different countries, it is found, that in those years which are not remarkable for any destructive disorder, such as an epidemic, there dies in villages, out of forty people, one; in small towns, one out of thirty-two; in middling-sized towns one in twenty-eight; in very populous towns or cities, one in twentyfour; and in a whole province, one out of thirty-six. Out of a thousand people twenty-eight annually die. Of a hundred children that yearly die, three are always stillborn; but scarcely one in two hundred dies in the birth. Of the hundred and fifteen women who die, only one dies in childbed; and out of four hundred deaths, only one happens in labour.

The greatest mortality among children is within the first year; out of a thousand infants, two hundred and ninety-three die before they have obtained a year's growth; but between the first and second year of their age, only eighty out of a thousand die; and in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth year, the number of deaths is so small as not to exceed two in a thousand. This, then, is the period of life in which there is least danger. It has been observed, that more women than men have attained to the age of from seventy to ninety years; but that more men than women pass their ninetieth year, and reach a hundred. At least three thousand millions of people may live at the same time upon the earth; but there is scarcely one third of that number, or, at the most, one thousand and eighty millions: of these six hundred and fifty millions are in Asia, one hundred and fifty millions in Africa, one hundred and fifty in America, and one hundred and thirty millions in Europe.

The most natural inference to be drawn from all this is, that God has the most tender solicitude for the life of man, and that he regards it as being very precious; for if the divine wisdom had not operated, how could the proportion between births and deaths be so equally maintained, and so admirably preserved at all times and in all places?

OCTOBER XVIII.

RAVAGES IN THE KINGDOM OF NATURE.

We now see that even beautiful nature, which in spring ravished our senses, and procured us so many diversified pleasures, is subjected to the law common to all created things. Its beauties begin to disappear, and every day brings new changes, each one more gloomy than the last. Such is the lot of nature, that it contains in itself the sources of the most afflicting devastations.

What ravages are occasioned by the overflowing of seas and rivers, heavy rains, and the melting of ice and snow! Whole villages inundated, fruit-trees torn up, corn-fields desolated, and flocks destroyed, present to us the sad monuments of the destructive force of the elements. A shipwreck appears to be a less fatal catastrophe! yet some new commonwealth might have been formed by the men thus entombed in the deep; and immense sums, the collection of ages, are lost in a moment. Whole families are ruined by a shipwreck. The aspect of the ocean perturbed by a storm, its billows swelling with rage, and white with foam; the piercing cries of the fear-struck mariners, and the crash of the vessel against some hidden rock, are dreadfully terrific!

The calamities occasioned by a long drought and intense heat are also very great. Herbs and plants languish, the earth is dried up, and we are nearly stifled with burning dust. The waters become putrid, and form a fatal drink for the drooping herds. Heat and putrefaction prodigiously multiply insects, which destroy every thing, eat up the produce of the fields, and if they die to-day, revive to-morrow in new generations. Famine, that terrible precursor of death, marches with hasty strides, and pestilence speedily follows. One year's barrenness, a war, or a contagious disease, may occasion all these evils.

What terrible chasms and ravages are occasioned by an earthquake! Far within the bowels of the earth, the pestilential vapours are extricated by a destructive fire, which carries with it death and dismay. Suddenly, and often at the dead of night, when nature is wrapt in sleep, the earth bellows and shakes, opens, and swallows up thousands of people, who are thus summoned, without time for repentance, before the throne of the Almighty! At the awful spectacle of nature, convulsed by earthquakes and volcanoes, we may justly say, how imperfect is every thing but the Creator himself! Many people pay that adoration to nature which they owe to God, and forget that it is he who gives every beauty and pleasure which we enjoy in nature. Let us learn the true condition of all terrestrial things, and acknowledge the advantages that the love of God has over every thing to which our hearts can be attached. To experience delight in the contemplation of his august attributes, to enjoy a portion of his grace, and to feel that he is our sovereign good, is to triumph over all the desolations of nature. What can be more proper to increase our love and

our gratitude for him than to call to mind those calamities, which his wisdom converts into blessings? These apparent deracinations of nature prevent much more fatal evils, which would certainly take place, if the destructive matters, fires, and vapours, were to remain enclosed in the bowels of the earth. Volcanoes and inundations often present to us the most terrible calamities: burning heats consume the earth in one place, whilst in another it is deluged with water. Pestilence and famine sweep off a number of wicked people from the earth; and the extraordinary mortality which sometimes prevails among men is a very wise means to preserve their number in due proportion, and to prevent their population being too great.

When we are merely spectators of the devastations which sometimes happen, and are not directly interested in them, our gratitude to the Supreme Being who has spared us should be marked by our sentiments of compassion and sympathy for the unfortunate sufferers. We should never be insensible to the misfortunes of our fellow-creatures, nor hear with indifference the recital of calamities, however remote are the people who suffered. In the immense chain of mundane events, there is not a single link with which we have not some connexion, more or less distant. Were the unfortunate people who have experienced so many disasters greater sinners than ourselves? Why are they fallen, whilst we yet remain? Are the regions we inhabit less contaminated by crimes than those countries where earthquakes and volcanoes make such extensive ravages? The final catastrophe of nature will be still more terrible to us. The world is not eternal; after having experienced a succession of every species of calamity, the period of its utter destruction will arrive. Nature now flourishes, but visibly grows older. It is only by force, industry, and labour, that we now obtain from her what she spontaneously produced to our ancestors, and what they gathered without trouble. Perish then, thou earth, the place of our pilgrimage, since to perish is thy destiny! We have here no continuing city; let us, therefore, seek and know the city which is to come, where lives the eternal God in the midst of the children of holiness.

How I mourn over you, ye cities and desolated villages! How my soul longs to fly to your assistance, to deliver you from bondage, and to divide my bread with your unfortunate inhabitants? Humble yourselves, ye afflicted, under the mighty arm of God, and bear with patience the trials to which he subjects you. Remember your brethren who have experienced similar misfortunes. They who have been your companions in misfortune have now their wounds healed, and their burned houses changed into palaces.

To destroy and to create is, and will be, to the end of time, the prerogative of God. If he never destroyed, we should not behold new creatures; we should not have occasion for acts of resignation and patience; we should not sufficiently feel the value of that religion which strengthens us in prosperity, consoles us in adversity, and makes us superior to misfortune.