PISCATAQUIS CENTRAL SOCIETY. 323 



Beauty and strength were in the sanctuary of old, and we are not 

 informed that the beauty detracted in the least degree from the 

 strength. We cannot err in copying the divine example. The 

 Psalmist had an appreciative sense of the beautiful, and prays, let 

 the beauty of the Lord be upon us, and the more modern poet has 

 said, "a thing of beauty is a joy forever." The cultivation of this 

 sense together with that regard for our environments which it will 

 stimulate, must be eminently conducive to contentment, temperance 

 and peace. 



" There 's beauty all around our pathsj 

 If but our watchful eyes 



Will trace it 'miiist familiar things, 

 And in its lowly guise." 



Another poet asks : ' 



" Why thus longing, thus forever sighing 



For the far oif, the unattained and dim, 

 When the beautiful is all around thee lying, 



Offering up its low, perpetual hymn?" 



The answer is obvious. The perception by which the beautiful 

 in nature and art is apprehended, needs cultivation. Let it be prop- 

 erly developed, and the whole creation becomes a living panorama 

 of beauty, and a perpetual psalm of thanksgiving and praise. 



The farmer especially should be at home with nature, and, sur- 

 rounded as he constantly is with her exhibitions of beauty and 

 grandeur, should be inspired with freshness of soul, newness and 

 energy of being, and enjoy real pleasure amid the placid, tranquil- 

 izing and healthful scenes of rural life. Let him particularly 

 direct his attention to neatness, and have a care both on the score of 

 health and profit, to consign to the compost heap all cast-off and 

 decaying animal and vegetable matter which so often disfigures farm 

 yards, and fills the air with pestilential miasma which must be in- 

 haled as a perpetual poison at every breath. In the farm economy 

 as well as the economy of grace, it is profitable to heed the divine 

 precept, " Gather up the fragments, that nothing be lost." Nature 

 never allows any thing to run to waste. She is never prodigal of 

 her energies. All her forces are active ones. And in the exuber- 

 ance of her strength, and the opulence of her resources, she has 

 nothing to divert from purposes of use or pleasure. Her motto is, 

 *' Ul'de diilcV^ — Mingle the useful with the agreeable. 



