extremities, and from the extremities to the centre again. Nature was
one and homogeneous. In the most seemingly trivial, as in the most
stupendous work, everything obeyed that law; each created object
reproduced in little an exact image of that nature--the sap in the
plant, the blood in man, the orbits of the planets. He piled proof on
proof, always completing his idea by a picture musical with poetry.

And he boldly anticipated every objection. He thundered forth an
eloquent challenge to the monumental works of science and human
excrescences of knowledge, such as those which societies use the
elements of the earthly globe to produce. He asked whether our wars,
our disasters, our depravity could hinder the great movement given by
God to all the globes; and he laughed human impotence to scorn by
pointing to their efforts everywhere in ruins. He cried upon the manes
of Tyre, Carthage, and Babylon; he called upon Babel and Jerusalem to
appear; and sought, without finding them, the transient furrows made
by the ploughshare of civilization. Humanity floated on the surface of
the earth as a ship whose wake is lost in the calm level of ocean.

These were the fundamental notions set forth in Doctor Sigier's
address, all wrapped in the mystical language and strange school Latin
of the time. He had made a special study of the Scriptures, and they
supplied him with the weapons with which he came before his
contemporaries to hasten their progress. He hid his boldness under his
immense learning, as with a cloak, and his philosophical bent under a
saintly life. At this moment, after bringing his hearers face to face
with God, after packing the universe into an idea, and almost
unveiling the idea of the world, he gazed down on the silent,
throbbing mass, and scrutinized the stranger with a look. Then,
spurred on, no doubt, by the presence of this remarkable personage, he