analogous to its internal constitution, and each has its own peculiar nourishment which gives it strength to shoot out its branches, unfold its leaves, expand its blossoms, and at the appointed season teem with fruit. And is not every flower emblematical of a Divine existence, and every kind of herb a faithful testimony that while the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest shall not cease. In vain may the most skilful artist attempt to rival the delicate tints of a simple flower, or faithfully pourtray the varied foliage of autumnal trees. Who ranges the forest in ignorant unobservance of its grace and beauty? Or who treads the valley without being enraptured with the blooming health and perfume of nature!

"Observe the rising lily's snowy grace,

Observe the various vegetable race;

They neither toil nor spin, but careless grow,

Yet see how warm they blush! how bright they glow!

What regal vestments can with them compare

What king so shining, or what queen so fair ?”

?

"Even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. If then God so clothed the grass, which is to-day in the field, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, how much more will he clothe you!" What mighty hand fixed the foundation of the mountains? or who reared the high impending and precipitous rocks? Who shall arraign

that Omnipotence which formed and fashioned the earth? Search where we may, range the bounds of science and put our invention to the rack—we shall find that the nature and formation of the earth are not only in every respect best adapted for the use and daily convenience of man, but that they are the source of our most innocent pleasures, of our chief amusements, and our essential happiShall we not then exclaim with the Psalmist, Lord what is man that thou art mindful of him that he is thus visited and regarded. O God! who is like unto Thee! The earth is full of riches." Hill and dale, mountain, plain, and valley, have their peculiar uses, and afford separate proofs of Almighty love in ministering to the happiness of man.

ness.

.6

"Mark the sable woods

That shade sublime yon mountain's nodding brow,
With what religious awe the solemn scene
Commands your steps!"

Much of the beauty of Nature consists in her rising mountains, her towering forests, and her cragged rocks. Proud specimens of desolated magnificence! their awful and abrupt precipices penetrating the impetuous torrent or unfathomed gulph, or overlooking the smooth surface of a calm lake, are alike calculated to inspire in us feelings of sublime terror; while the intermixture

of fertile valleys that lie basking at their giant feet, as if in acknowledgment of their own inferiority, appear duly regaled with the issue of their crystal waters, and produce a most imposing effect upon the imagination. Thus Nature sometimes appears to repose in awful silence, absorbed in the contemplation of her own beauty; at others, she is terrifically desperate; for the voice of the Messiah has foretold that "great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights, and great signs shall there be from heaven." We see the earth shook with her fiery volcanoes, and tremendous earthquakes often causing the most frightful devastations. The lofty rocks are rent asunder, the mighty forests are consumed, costly olives and flourishing vineyards are entirely destroyed, and the foaming waves of ocean boil with the havoc of her heaving tempests. Yet even these furious depredations are in the end efficacious; they are not the mere work of chance, nor is it improbable that the Creator, who has just and wise reasons for establishing these subterranean bodies, has ordained that these eruptions should be a means of conveying from their dark repositories a supply of nurture over immense tracts in various parts of the earth.

Even in the solitary desert we trace wonders which confound us; for although the barren wil

derness appears to have been made the ordinary receptacle of her most useless materials, the further we search, the more we become enraptured with the admirable variety of nature that continually affords us new sources of pleasure and surprise. The time shall come when "the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice, even with joy and singing: and the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it.”*

The august Creator having completed the work he had chosen for the third day, resumed the glorious manifestations of his will, by studding the sky with those orbs of beauty and brightness which illumine the azure arch of heaven, and will continue there as resplendent evidences of his majestic power till time shall be buried in eternity. "God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth : and it was so. And God made two great lights ; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of heaven, to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day, and over the night, and to divide the light

:

* * Isaiah, xxxv, 12.

from the darkness: and God saw that it was good."

Although the firmament of heaven has been represented as an ethereal curtain of exquisite texture, it was as yet unornamented, and "a shadow only of things to come." That same mass of light that on the first day had been separated from the darkness, and which was collected, modelled, and called the firmament, was now to be rendered gloriously beautiful by the magnificent appearance of those brilliant luminaries that were sumptuously created as serviceable ornaments to adorn the vaulted canopy of heaven. In the vast expanse are millions of shining orbs situated at immeasurable distances, which dart their splendid rays through the immensity of space, while the most remote of them proclaim that still beyond their spheres, "worlds on worlds," and "systems on systems," continue to multiply. And as we are no where told that the heavenly bodies were ordained to be of any assistance to the dazzling spirits of the incomparable world above, we must certainly conclude, as reasonable creatures, that they were especially created for the pleasure and advantage of mankind.

By the motion of the earth round the greater light, the sun, which is said to be a million times. larger than the globe we inhabit, are our days and nights divided, and the heat and cold of our sum