DECEMBER. 399 



little we have thought of man and his toils, and 

 anxieties, as from day to day, and month to 

 month, we have gone wandering over the glo- 

 rious face of the earth, drinking in its peaceful 

 pleasures ; and yet what a mighty sum of events 

 has been consummated ! what a tide of passions 

 and affections has flowed, what lives and 

 deaths have alternately arrived what destinies 

 have been fixed for ever, while we have loitered 

 on a violet-path, and watched the passing splen- 

 dours of the Seasons. Once more our planet 

 has completed one of those journeys in the 

 heavens which perfect all the fruitful changes 

 of its peopled surface, and mete out the few 

 stages of our existence ; and every day, every 

 hour of that progress has, in all her wide lands, 

 in all her million hearts, left traces that eternity 

 shall behold. 



Yet if we have not been burdened with man's 

 cares, we have not forgotten him, but many a 

 time have we thanked God for his bounties to 

 him, and rejoiced in the fellowship of our 

 nature. If there be a scene to stir in our souls 

 all our thankfulness to God, and all our love for 

 man, it is that of Nature. When we behold the 

 beautiful progression of the Seasons when we 

 see how leaves and flowers burst forth and 



