the living atmosphere with a solemn light; and above—about—around—
"The holy time was quiet as a nun
Breathless with adoration."
He looked forth upon the deep and ineffable stillness of the night, and indulged the reflections that it suggested.
"Ye mystic lights," said he soliloquizing: "worlds upon worlds—infinite—incalculable.—Bright defiers of rest and change, rolling for ever above our petty sea of mortality, as, wave after wave, we fret forth our little life, and sink into the black abyss;—can we look upon you, note your appointed order, and your unvarying course, and not feel that we are indeed the poorest puppets of an all-pervading and resistless destiny? Shall we see throughout creation each marvel fulfilling its pre-ordered fate—no wandering from its orbit—no variation in its seasons—and yet imagine that the Arch-ordainer will hold back the tides He has sent from their unseen source, at our miserable bidding? Shall we think that our prayers can avert a doom woven with the skein of
