1856. A Beautiful ThougliL 477 



36 J a u t i f u 1 (E Ij n u g !j t . 



As in the light of cultivated reason, you look abroad and see a 

 wealth of beauty, a profusion of goodness in the work of Him who 

 has strewn flowers in the wilderness, and painted the bird, and enam- 

 eled the insect, in the simplicity and universality of his laws you can 

 read this lesson. An uneducated man dreams not of the common 

 sun-light which now in its splendor floods the firmament and the 

 landscape; he can not comprehend how much of the loveliness of the 

 world results from the composite character of light, and from the re- 

 flecting propensities of most physical bodies. If, instead of red, yel- 

 low and blue, which the anaylsis of the prism and experiments of ab- 

 sorption have shown to be its constituents, it had been homogeneous, 

 simple white, how changed would all have been ! The growing corn 

 and the ripe harvest, the blossom and the fruit, the fresh greenness 

 of spring and the autumn's robe of many colors, the hues of the 

 violet, the lily and the rose, the silvery foam of the rivulet, the emerald 

 of the river, and the purple of the ocean, would have been alike un- 

 known. The rainbow would have been but a pale streak in the grey 

 sky, and dull vapors would have canopied the sun instead of the 

 clouds, which, in the dyes of flaming brilliancy, curtain his rising up 

 and going down. Nay, there would have been no distinction between 

 the blood of the children, the flush of health, the paleness of decay, 

 the hectic of disease and the lividness of death. There would have 

 been an unvaried, unmeaning, leaden hue, where we now see the 

 changing and expressive countenance, the tinted earth and gorgeous 

 firmament. — Selected. 



Imports and Exports of the U. S. — The following facts and 

 figures possess unusual interest to the commercial world. It will be 

 seen that the total imports into the United States for the fiscal year 

 which has just ended, amounted in the aorsrrefrate to the enormous 

 sum of $300,617,232. The exports for the same period amounted 

 to $305,630,932. It thus appears that the exports exceeded the im- 

 ports a trifle more than $5,000,000 



