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tion. AVe are takeu into scenes always of great interest and often 

 of great beauty. Hill and dale, rock and meadow, not only yield 

 fresh spoils for the vasculum and the hammer, but they refresh our 

 eyes and banish from our thoughts many of those corroding cares of 

 which busy life is full. Varied as our occupations are, diflerent 

 as may be our lines of thought, here we find one pursuit in which 

 all can take interest, one pleasure which all can enjoy. Natural 

 science affords a common ground on which those can meet in pleasant 

 intercourse who might otherwise never meet at all. There is room 

 in it for the exercise of the loftiest powers of intellect ; there is 

 room also for the humbler gifts that fall to the lot of most of us. 

 None can venture to despise it as beneath him ; none need shrink 

 from it as above him. So long as "Truth" is the object the student 

 keeps stedfastly before him, he need not fear that Ms researches 

 will be idle, or his toil without reward. The practised eye, the 

 quickened ear, the keener exercise of all the faculties of observation, 

 are in themselves no small gain. Yet even this is less valuable than 

 the effect which such pursuits, — honestly and rightly followed, — 

 have upon the mind and heart. The order and harmony of outward 

 nature. — imperfectly appreciated perhaps at first — shine out upon 

 the observant eye with ever increasing clearness ; and the heart is 

 made conscious of the presence everywhere of one great beneficent 

 Power, the Author of all that beauty, the Promulgator of all those 

 marvellous laws, the Sustainer of the universal fabric. Bowing 

 before His unseai'chable IMajesty, the student is drawn upwards 

 towards Him ; low aims and mean desires, and the hurry and 

 turmoil of this world's strife and troubles, have less and less efiect 

 upon him as he traces everywhere the handiwork of the Great 

 Artificer perfect in wisdom and in goodness. 

 " Thus the men 



"VThom Nature's works can charm, with Gkxi himself 



Hold converse ; grow familiar day by day 



"With His conceptions, act upon His plan, 



And form to His, the relish of their souls." — Akenside. 



cO^^ S^ ^^^^^ 



