The Bioscope, or Dial of Life, Explained
by Granville Penn (9780217291415)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE USE THE BIOSCOPE EXPLAINED. 1. By the use of the Bioscope is meant, not its mechanical use, which is too plain to need any explanation, but the moral, and practical use, which a regular and continued attention to its simple mechanism is abundantly able to afford. And in order to exemplify that use, and to render it familiarly apparent, I shall lay before the reader some of the reflections, which a continued observation of its indications has already suggested; leaving it to him to extend and multiply them hereafter, by the exercise of his own meditation. These reflections Ishall endeavour to detail, as they have occasionally risen in the mind; observing, at the same time, as much order in the arrangement, as the nature of the subject will permit. 2. And first: If I mistake not, the aspect of the dial alone, presented for the first time to a mind capable of any serious reflection, must awaken some new and unexpected sensations. That unfinished circle, representing to our vicar the utmost averaged measure of time in which we can have any personal concern in the affairs of this earth; sending the memory back to the beginning of life, and the imagination forward to its termination; exhibiting a dis- cernible end, and that end in immediate contact with Eternity; that aspect, alone, must of necessity work a strong effect upon any ingenuous and contemplative spirit, even before we proceed to consider the parti- fular uses to which it may be applied. For, Should not The Dial strike us as we gaze ? Portentous as the written wall which struck, . O'er midnight bowls, the proud Assyrian pale ? Like that The Dial speaks, and points to Thee: " O Man, thy kingdom is departing from Thee " Its silent language such; nor need'st thou call Thy Magi, to decipher what it means...

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