A dialogue about it.

men are in it, and that I should go away in it to my home, and leave this gloomy island for ever."

"Oh, no! Sir, you are mistaken. There are no marks of design about that thing. It is all the work of chance. No mind ever planned it."

"But I see masts and shrouds, the bow-sprit and the yards!"

Yes, but it is all the work of chance!

It grew so by chance!"

"But I hear music, and know those to be the tunes of my own dear country!"

"No! that is the wind whistling through the ropes, and by chance it strikes the ropes so as to give the sound of the drum, the fife, and the bugle; and then the wind changes a little, and

Conclusion of the story.

another tune follows. But it is all by chance! Those flags, with stars and stripes on them, are all the work of chance!"

"Now, don't try to make me believe that any longer. I know that to be a ship, built by men, rigged and managed by men, just as well as if I had seen every stick of her timbers hewed, and every plank laid. There is no chance about it!"

And yet, such men pretend that men who can build the ship;-the wood and iron of which she is built, the waters on which she sails, and the winds which move her, are all the work of chance! Do not even these children see how weak and foolish this is?

But suppose you go with one of these

Beautiful house

.....

Steps.. Windows

Walls.

.....

believers in chance, on some pleasant day. He tells you that he is now going to show you what chance can do.

You follow him up stairs, into a long and a high room. As you go up the steps, he begins to talk to you.

"Do you see these beautiful stone steps? They were all laid so by chance! No, not laid so, but happened to be so. This long room was made by chance. These windows happened so, and they are very convenient. These walls, you see, are all hung round with paintings and pictures ;-no-not hung round,— for that means design, but the walls are covered with colors, all thrown on by chance. How beautiful! Now let me point out, and show you what wonders chance can do! Do you see that corner?"

Paintings

Not done by chance.

"Yes," you say, "I see a beautiful likeness of Washington."

66

Well, do you see that?"

"Yes, I see a picture of Buonaparte, by the side of one of George III. And along yonder, I see the likeness of all the Presidents of the United States. There is a child with a fawn.

There is

a landscape!-there a shipwreck ;-and there a harvest-field full of reapers! What a beautiful gallery of paintings! Who did paint all these?"

"Paint all these! Why I tell you nobody. No mind ever made these! They are all the work of blind chance! You know that colors must exist somewhere ;-no-I do not mean must, but they do exist somewhere and somehow, and so they happened by chance to take

Homer

His poems.

these forms, and make these pictures! Can you not believe this?"

"No, no," you say, "no human being can believe this story."

Now, how can any one ever pretend, that the mind of man, which could paint all these things, and that these things, which are here only copied in this room, could be made by chance?

There was a man who lived a great while ago, whose name was Homer. He wrote several long poems. We have these poems now, all printed; and to print them correctly, we must use more than nine millions of letters and characters. Each one of these nine million must be just in its place, or there is a mistake. Now suppose you should pick up these poems in a field, far away