Page:Letters on the Human Body (John Clowes).djvu/133

Rh possibly be given of the above phenomena of digestion, absorption, and secretion, which are discoverable in every living body, but by referring them to the agency of some active principle superior to the body, and superior also to nature,—thus primarily proceeding from, and in close connection with, —the alone of all life and of all activity.

But at what an interesting and edifying conclusion are we now arrived! On what high and sacred ground too do we stand, whilst contemplating the supernatural momentary operations which are transacting and presented continually to our astonished view in our own bodies! What pious mind therefore is not led, on this occasion, to adopt the language of the Patriarch of old, when awaking out of sleep, “''Surely the is in this place; and I knew it not. How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of, and this is the gate of heaven''?” [ Gen. xxviii. 16, 17.]. For is it an indisputable fact, that a chemical process is every instant carrying on in the deep centre of our corporeal frame, over which process we have no control, and which can only be accounted for by referring it to the agency of some power above ourselves? Are transmutations of solids into fluids, and their translations from one part of the body to another, continually going forward in the alembic of