PEEPS THROUGH THE MICROSCOPE.

WHEN contemplating the magnitude and distances of the heavenly bodies, we are overwhelmed with astonishment and awe; and, as we turn away from the glories revealed to us by the telescope, we are ready to sink into dust at the comparison of our own utter insignificance.

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Surely," we say, "such pigmy insects as we are can never occupy a moment's care from that awful Being who has framed the boundless wonders of the heavens-who has scattered, like gold-dust, throughout the immeasurable depths of space, worlds upon worlds, compared to the least of which our earth, with all its inhabitants, its "everlasting hills," its rivers and its seas, is but a speck in creation. Surely, we are tempted to say, the very existence of such a mere atom as man must be forgotten by Him whom the very heaven of heavens cannot contain. We think only of the greatness of His power: we forget the greatness of His goodness-we forget, perhaps, that weak and insignificant as we are, there are myriads of

living creatures swarming around us, each one framed with the nicest skill-each endowed with capacities of enjoyment—each having some service to perform in creation-whose very existence was unknown to us, until the microscope gave to the human eye some ten thousand times the power of vision it possessed before. By its means we find fresh proofs of that which the Book of Inspiration has already taught-proofs that the same Divine power, wisdom, and benevolence which bade to roll in glory and brightness, through myriads of ages, suns mightier far than that which illumines our sky, disdains not to contrive and to provide for the pleasures of the smallest insect that sports for an hour in the summer's light, and then dies.

"Will He not care for you, ye faithless? Say,
Is He unwise, or are we less than they?"

Yes, every tiny leaf, every drop of water, is a world in which multitudes of God's creatures are born, with frames of workmanship as curious and as wondrous as ours; and there they live and sport with evident enjoyment throughout their little day, fulfil the end of their tiny being, and then give way to new generations. Look at this cut it represents a single drop of water, such a

drop as may be hung trembling upon a pin's point—ay, one that, as it glitters in the light, seems to the naked eye pure and free from any mixture of substance in its clear fluid; and yet it swarms with life in many forms. Looking through a powerful microscope at that tiny drop, we may see creatures of shapes like those depicted there, and many more besides; but all endowed with power of motion evidently voluntary, either in frolic gambol, or in search of food. As we watch their movements, fresh forms appear and disappear to make way for new generations, which quickly perish in their turn. Even for the pleasures and the needs of beings such as these, whose universe is a drop of water, God provides; and shall He not care for us?

The microscope strikingly exhibits the superiority of the works of nature over those of art. Examined through its magic lens, the finest, the most delicate engraving looks coarse and harsh-lines meant to be smooth and accurate, appear rugged and distorted-its most carefully measured spaces are found to be grossly incorrect and unequal—the finest needle that man can make appears as rough and pointless as the kitchen poker-the most delicate tissue of silk or lace presents the appearance of an irregular and confused assemblage of rough hempen cables.