some remote period. It is scarcely necessary to say, that nothing we
know could live in the moon under these rapid and extreme transitions
of heat and cold, to say nothing of the want of atmospheric air." I
listened to this with wonder, and learned to be satisfied with my station.
Of what moment was it to me, in filling the destiny of the linum
usitatissimum, whether I grew in a soil a little more or a little less fertile;
whether my fibres attained the extremest fineness known to the
manufacturer, or fell a little short of this excellence. I was but a speck
among a myriad of other things produced by the hand of the Creator,
and all to conduce to his own wise ends and unequaled glory. It was my
duty to live my time, to be content, and to proclaim the praise of God
within the sphere assigned to me. Could men or plants but once elevate
their thoughts to the vast scale of creation, it would teach them their
own insignificance so plainly, would so unerringly make manifest the
futility of complaints, and the immense disparity between time and
eternity, as to render the useful lesson of contentment as inevitable as it
is important.

I remember that our astronomer, one day, spoke of the nature and
magnitude of the sun. The manner that he chose to render clear to the
imagination of his hearers some just notions of its size, though so familiar
to astronomers, produced a deep and unexpected impression on me.
"Our instruments," he said, "are now so perfect and powerful, as to
enable us to ascertain many facts of the deepest interest, with near
approaches to positive accuracy. The moon being the heavenly body
much the nearest to us, of course we see farther into its secrets than into
those of any other planet. We have calculated its distance from us at
237,000 miles. Of course by doubling this distance, and adding to it the
diameter of the earth, we get the diameter of the circle, or orbit, in
which the moon moves around the earth. In other words the diameter of