"The lark, Shrill voiced and loud, the messenger of morn, Calls up the tuneful nations. And ev'ry copse Deep tangled, tree irregular, and bush Bending with dewy moisture o'er the heads Of the coy quiristers that lodge within, Are prodigal of harmony."
And then think again of this same agent confined in the earth's mass; by its sudden action laying hold on the globe with the grasp of more than ten thousand giants, upheaving the dense and mighty stratum which lies above it, shaking whole continents by its power, and burying the toppling cities with the accumulated wealth of ages under its fearful ruins; when we contemplate, I say, all these powers around us, we see our dependence on _them_, and again _their_ dependence on omnipotence. The feeling of dependence forced upon the mind, begets a spirit of devotion and trust towards the God of nature. At first, overwhelmed by the evidences of mighty power exerted around and over us, we are almost disposed to cry out in the language of holy writ, "what is man that thou shouldst be mindful of him, or the son of man that thou shouldst deign to visit him." But our confidence revives when we recollect the promise that "if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith."
This spirit of dependence, wherever felt, always begets more or less a religious spirit of devotion. It is this spirit which, in ages of ignorance and superstition, begets the worship of heroes, of statesmen, and philanthropists. It is this spirit which has added such as Hercules, Castor, Pollux, Isis, Osiris, &c. to the vast catalogue of the gods in the polytheistic religions of antiquity. It is this same spirit, which makes the subordinate officer and the soldier, look with awe and the most confident reliance on the successful military chieftain, who has so often manoeuvred them like a machine, and has gained victory after victory by those rapid combinations and skilful evolutions, which to the mind that does not comprehend, appear to be the result of inspiration rather than the effects of human wisdom. Wherever in fine, there is a system of dependence, there you will find always more or less a spirit of reverence. How intensely does this spirit manifest itself in a father or mother, who has knelt before an emperor or king, and obtained the pardon of a condemned son. Now, as I have already observed, woman feels this dependency much more strongly than man. She is the weaker vessel, and hence there is a devotional feeling excited by this dependence, which follows the chain of dependence up, link by link, until it reaches the throne of omnipotence. Woman does not feel this dependence from a contemplation of the mighty physical energies exerted around her by the great powers of nature; but it arises from her greater weakness and dependency when compared with the other sex.