ON THE WONDERS OF OUR

OWN TIMES.

A WORD or two on a few of the many wonders of our own times, for I cannot but think that they call forth too little of our regard. We cannot always keep up an excited emotion of astonishment or delight, but we may indulge in profitable reflection.

There is nothing around us, however extraordinary, that does not soon become comparatively common place. The very sun, moon, and stars, hung up in the heavens and sustained there without visible agency for thousands of years, awake not our wonder. When we take up the pen, it is true, we sometimes write about them very eloquently; and when called on to make speeches before our fellow-men, we go on sky-scraping, as though we were wondrously affected by these things; but who among us is ever found really gazing up at midday, or midnight, at the clear blue arch of heaven, with an admiring eye, and loving and grateful heart, constrained, whether he will or not, to exclaim, "When I consider thy

heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; what is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?-O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!" Psa, viii. 3-9. Such a thing is seldom known among us. These wonders are so common to us, that they cease to seem wonderful in our regard:

God writes his mighty name on every spot;

Man, thoughtless man, goes by and heeds it not.

An attempt to sum up either our spiritual or temporal mercies would, indeed, be undertaking an impossibility; their amount exceeds that of the stars of heaven: if we would number them, they are more than the hairs of our head. Let us speak a little of the discoveries of mankind. Many of the wonderful occurrences that have affected the world have taken place long ago. The invention of gunpowder, and the mariner's compass, the printing-press, and the Newtonian system are among them: we will not dwell upon them, but refer to such only as belong to our own times.

In the days of my youth, for a man to fondle with wild beasts, to endure a baking heat, or to leap from the mast-head of a ship head-foremost into the water, was altogether out of the ones tion; and yet, of late years, thousands have seer

Van Amburgh playing with his lions as though they were lambs. The human salamander, Chabert, shutting himself up in an oven, seemingly without hurt; and Scott, the diver, throwing himself, head-foremost, from a ladder erected on a lofty platform, into the water. Scott killed himself in the act. None of these feats are to be commended, but rather to be severely censured; yet still they are too extraordinary to be regarded with indifference. They set forth the wondrous powers of achievement and endurance with which man is endowed.

Some time ago a speaking automaton was exhibited, articulating syllables, words, and sentences in different languages, sufficiently distinct to be understood. I conversed with it myself many times; and though I did not see what advantages were likely to be derived from the invention, yet it did seem to me to be wonderful that a painted figure, a mere piece of mechanism, could be made to pronounce words, and talk in any degree intelligible to a human being.

In the days of our fathers before us many bold enterprises were undertaken and achieved on the earth, above the earth, and under the earth; but it was not until our times that a Brunel bored a tunnel under the Thames, and a Stephenson erected a tubular bridge over the Menai Straits.

Though the power of steam has been known for ages, yet the practical purposes to which it was applied before our times were few. The steam-engine is our own, with all its wonderworking achievements, toiling on our mountains, draining our mines, drawing up our coal, forging our iron, whirling round our spindles, printing our newspapers, and urging onward our railroad carriages and our ships. Equally on land and water it puts forth its wondrous power, and does that with ease which five hundred horses could not with an effort perform :

When thus we see machines of power

By toil and genius wrought,

The product of a thousand years

Of ever-waking thought;

When proofs of art around us rise,

That England calls her own,

Conceived and done by master minds,

And master hands alone;

ls

we cannot but admit, that in our day we have advantages that never before were enjoyed. our gratitude equal to our gifts?

Before our times there were lions in the Tower, and in travelling caravans the huge elephant might now and then be seen, with a few other wild animals; but now almost all kinds of savage creatures are congregated together. In our Zoological Gardens, amid trees and flowers, and gravelled walks, and lakes and fountains, not only

men, but women and children move about at their ease and in safety, surrounded by the savage animals of the earth. To gratify our curiosity and afford us pleasure, not only are the lion, the tiger, the spotted leopard, and the untameable hyæna forced from their lairs, but the giraffe is overtaken in the desert, the horned rhinoceros overcome in the forest, the polar bear dragged from his icebergs, the hippopotamus caught in the river, and scaly alligators and shiny serpents, of an enormous size, are made captive in the sedgy swamp. Wondrous is the power that God has delegated to man: how seldom is it dedicated to his glory!

Doubtless the sun for nearly sixty centuries has been gilding the skies, painting the flowers, and beautifying in all sorts of ways the glowing creation; but never till now have his beams been systematically exercised in painting the likenesses of mankind. By other processes miniatures may be like their originals; but by the Daguerreotype process they must be. Strengthened with knowledge and science, man says to the lightning of heaven, Come," and it cometh; and to the sunbeam, "Do this," and it doeth it.

Well may a mighty cry of thankfulness, a mingled shout of hallelujahs mount upward to the skies from the afflicted sons and daughters of