the years of my pilgrimage are 130 years; few and evil have the days of the years of my life been." But, perhaps Solomon gives the fullest and clearest estimate of human life and human misery, when he says, "For what hath a man of all his labour, and of the vexation of his heart, wherein he hath laboured under the sun: for all his days are sorrows, and his travail grief." We have, secondly, in the passage, the beauty of man: he is exhibited under the emblem of a "flower." "He cometh forth like a flower." Yes, the beauty of the human form is suggested by this similitude. Few objects in nature are more lovely than flowers: their form so graceful, their colour so bright, their scent so fragrant, and their variegated tints so blended and richly diversified, that the eye is scarcely ever tired in gazing upon them: the shape of their leaves, the curious arrangement of their stamens and petals, and the variety of their hues, render them a copious magazine of delight and admiration. But after all, they are mute and inanimate matter. The pencil of heaven is visible in their lines, their tints, and their hues; but the breath of God has supplied them with no intellectual existence. Their odours are rich; but no mind breathes in their aromatic gales; no understanding flows in their painted cups. With what grateful exultation may we recollect our Lord's remark, “How much better are ye than the flowers and the fowls ?" As a flower, however, the human frame grows from a small germ of existence, unfolding by degrees its capacities, both bodily and mental, until it acquires in its progress new magnitude and beauty, and frequently attains, even in the present world, a height of excellence which proclaims in the strongest language the glory of its great Creator. A third idea contained in the motto at the head of this paper, is, the frailty of man. The flower is cut down," and the "shadow continueth not." Striking are the following words: "When thou, Lord, with rebukes dost chasten man for sin, thou makest his beauty to pass away like as it were a moth fretting a garment." The flower here mentioned is not a flourishing but a withering flower. The scythe of death mows down the human flowers, and confirms the solemn testimony of the prophet-" All flesh is grass, and the goodliness thereof as the flower of the field. The grass withereth, and the flower fadeth." Naturalists speak of a plant, in the Greek, called "Ephemeron," because it endures but one day; and a worm called " Hemerobion," because it lives but one day. Such a flower, such a worm, is man. But, as if the first figure was inadequate to express the transitory nature of the life of man, another is introduced: "He fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not." The Hebrew word is, "he standeth not;" from which it has been observed, "Man is not a pillar, but a shadow; or if he be a pillar, it is a pillar of smoke, which REFLECTIONS ON JOB xiv. 1, 2. is scattered by the wind, as a shadow is altered or scattered by the sun." We read of the "shadow of death;" and such is the life of every man, because "it continueth not." "no shadow of turning," denotes the perfection of God: to turn To have Jike a shadow, denotes the imperfection of man. Yes, we are shadows ourselves, and every thing this earth can furnish is a shadow also. "The fashion of the world passeth away" like the vapour, which, in a moist warm atmosphere, frequently for a moment irradiates the darkness of the night; so the life of man appeareth for a little while, and then vanisheth away. Let the children of the dust, as all are, attend to the serious and useful lessons which the preceding reflections are calculated to impart. 1. Is the human form full of beauty? Let the youthful readers of this article see to it that they cultivate and adorn the mind, that they may not disappoint any of those favourable impressions which an interesting outward appearance seem to indicate. What a lamentable sight it is, to behold a lovely body as merely the receptacle or cabinet of an ignorant, trifling, or wicked soul. All ignorance is not reprehensible; but most assuredly, that kind is, which arises from the neglect of the means of improvement. What multitudes of trifling and dissipated characters of both sexes are daily floating before our eyes, and living to no important purpose whatever. Their form, it may be, resembles a beautiful flower, and a thousand opportunities are afforded them of obtaining fragrance; I mean, of getting worth and dignity of soul; and shall those advantages be thrown away? Shall the soul immortal, fitted for bringing forth all the fruits of holiness, the most exquisite golden clusters: shall such produce nothing but briars and thorns? No, my young readers, you will not thus disgrace and pollute your souls. You may adorn the garden of life, (that is, while life endures,) with your vernal bloom, and delight certain of the senses with your fragrant perfumes; I mean (without a figure) by a consistent life and holy conversation. But, 2. Is the human form as frail as it is fair? Of what then are the children of the dust so proud and vain? O how soon do the fair leaves begin to curl and shrivel at the edges; the vermilion streaks fade one by one; the lovely tints vanish away: decay becomes apparent through the whole of that form which but a short time before was distinguished for fragrance and beauty. "As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.' Let the youthful Christian reader of this article look forward with high hope and joyous expectation to the period of their transplanting from an earthly soil to a fragrant garden, the "paradise of God." The air of the celestial abode will be more congenial to pious souls: there the moral flower will expand and flourish in full vigour, beauty, and perfection. The sun that shines on that blessed land is never too hot for the plant celestial. The dews that rest upon the heavenly hills only nourish, fertilize, and refresh. No blights or frosts can enter those balmy regions of ineffable delight. The throne of God and of the Lamb is there, and round it are planted in countless millions those lovely flowers which eternity will render more strong, beautiful, and fragrant.-May every reader flourish in the rich soil of heaven for ever more! THE WORKS OF GOD DISPLAYED. ON THE STOMACH. For this necessary part of the animal economy, (the manner in which the aliment gets into the blood,) an apparatus is provided, in a great measure capable of being what anatomists call, demonstrated; that is, shewn in the dead body;-and a line or course of conveyance which we can pursue by our examinations. First, the food descends by a wide passage into the intestines, undergoing two great preparations on the way; one in the mouth, by mastication and moisture; [can it be doubted with what design the teeth were placed in the road to the stomach, or that there was choice in fixing them in this situation?] the other by digestion in the stomach itself. Of this last surprising dissolution I say nothing, because it is chemistry, and I am endeavouring to display mechanism. The figure and position of the stomach [I speak all along with a reference to the human organ] are calculated for detaining the food long enough for the action of its digestive juice. It has the shape of the pouch of a bagpipe; lies across the body; and the pylorus, or passage by which the food leaves it, is somewhat higher in the body than the cardia, or orifice by which it enters; so that it is by the contraction of the muscular coat of the stomach, that the contents, after having undergone the application of the gastric menstruum, are gradually pressed out. In dogs and cats, the action of the coats of the stomach has been displayed to the eye: it is a slow and gentle undulation, propagated from one orifice of the stomach to the other. For the same reason that I omitted, for the present, offering any observation upon the digestive fluid, I shall say nothing concerning the bile or the pancreatic juice, further than to observe upon the mechanism, viz. that from the glands in which these secretions are elaborated, pipes are laid into the first intestines, through which pipes the product of each gland flows into that bowel, VOL. XXXIX. JANUARY, 1816. *F and is there mixed with the aliment as soon almost as it passes into the stomach; adding also a remark, how grievously this same bile offends the stomach itself, yet cherishes the vessel that lies next to it. Secondly, we have now the aliment in the intestines, converted into pulp; and, though lately consisting of ten different viands, reduced to nearly a uniform substance, and to a state fitted for yielding its essence, which is called chyle, but which is milk, or more nearly resembling milk than any other liquor with which it can be compared. For the straining of this fluid from the digested aliment in the course of its long progress through the body, myriads of capillary tubes, i. e. pipes as small as hairs, open their orifices into the cavity of every part of the intestines. These tubes, which are so fine and slender as not to be visible unless when distended with the chyle, soon unite into larger branches: the pipes formed by this union, terminate in glands, from which other pipes of a still larger diameter arising, carry the chyle from all parts into a common reservoir or receptacle. This receptacle is a bag, of size enough to hold about two tablespoons full; and from this vessel a duct or main pipe proceeds, climbing up the back part of the chest, and afterwards creeping along the gullet till it reach the neck. Here it meets the river: here it discharges itself into a large vein, which soon conveys the chyle, now flowing along with the old blood, to the heart. This whole route can be exhibited to the eye; nothing is left to be supplied by imagination or conjecture. Now, beside the subserviency of this structure, collectively considered, to a manifest and necessary purpose, we may remark two or three separate particulars in it, which shew, not only the contrivance, but the perfection of it. We may remark, first, the length of the intestines, which, in the human subject, is six times that of the body. Simply for a passage, these voluminous bowels, this prolixity of gut, seems in no wise necessary; but, in order to allow time and space for the successive extraction of the chyle from the digested aliment, namely, that the chyle which escapes the lacteals of one part of the guts, may be taken up by those of some other part, the length of the canal is of evident use and conduciveness. Secondly, we must also remark their peristaltic motion; which is made up of contractions, following one another like waves upon the surface of a fluid, and not unlike what we observe in the body of an earth-worm crawling along the ground; and which is effected by the joint action of longitudinal and spiral, or rather perhaps of a great number of separate semi-circular fibres. This curious action pushes forward the grosser part of the aliment, at the same time that the more subtle parts, which we call chyle, are, by a series of gentle compressions, squeezed into the narrow orifices of the lacteal veins. Thirdly, it was necessary that these tubes, which we denominate lacteals, or their mouths at least, should be made as narrow as possible, in order to deny admission into the blood to any particle, which is of size enough to make a lodgment afterwards in the scall arteries, and thereby to obstruct the circulation: and it was also necessary that this extreme tenuity should be compensated by multitude; for a large quantity of chyle (in ordiBary constitutions, not less, it has been computed, than two or three quarts in a day) is, by some means or other, to be passed through them. Accordingly, we find the number of the lacteals. exceeding all powers of computation; and their pipes so fine and slender, as not to be visible, unless filled, to the naked eye; and their orifices, which open into the intestines, so small, as not to be discernible even by the best microscope. Fourthly, the main pipe which carries the chyle from the reservoir to the blood, viz. the thoracick duct, being fixed in an almost upright position, and wanting that advantage of propulsion which the arteries possess, is furnished with a succession of valves to check the ascending fluid, when once it has passed them, from falling back. These valves look upward, so as to leave the ascent free, but to prevent the return of the chyle, if, for want of sufficient force to push it on, its weight should at any time cause it to descend. Fifthly, the chyle enters the blood in an odd place, but perhaps the most commodious place possible, viz. at a large vein in the neck, so situated with respect to the circulation, as speedily to bring the mixture to the heart. And this seems to be a circumstance of great moment: for had the chyle entered the blood at an artery, or at a distant vein, the fluid, composed of the old and new materials, must have performed a considerable part of the circulation, before it received that churning in the lungs, which is probably necessary for the intimate and perfect union of the old blood with the recent chyle. Who could have dreamt of a communication between the cavity of the intestines and the left great vein of the neck? Who could have suspected that this communication should be the medium through which all nourishment is derived to the body? or this the place, where, by a side-inlet, the important junction is formed between the blood and the material which feeds it. SIR, (To be continued.) THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD ASSERTED. To the Editor of the Methodist Magazine. IN the department of your Magazine termed, "The Providence of God asserted," I observe that you insert accounts of |