INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. XV11 



Were it not that it had been fostered by our 

 inestimable literature a literature which has 

 caught its noble tone from the Christian faith, 

 there can be no doubt but that the calculating 

 spirit of trade would long ago have quenched 

 in the national heart those lofty sentiments 

 which have borne it proudly in the eyes of an 

 admiring world above all mean contamination ; 

 and that we should have sunk into that sordid 

 narrowness of soul which has regularly marked 

 commercial states. It is a spirit which, how- 

 ever, as commerce advances, becomes more and 

 more endangered by the very circumstance of 

 our population being engulphed in great towns. 

 Books can and do penetrate into every nook of 

 our most extended and crowded cities ; but 

 every day these cities and towns enlarge their 

 boundaries, and the sweet face of Nature is 

 hidden from the inhabitants. We should, there- 

 fore, not only make our books breathe into the 

 depth of every street, court, and alley, the 

 natural aliment of human hearts the love of 

 Nature but, rouse them, like a trumpet, to get 

 out at times, and renew that animating fellow- 

 ship which God designed to be maintained be- 

 tween the soul of man and the beauty of the 



