xiv Prelude of Quotations. 



grandeur to the mountain and loveliness to the valley, and caused 

 the diversified landscape to strike us by its sublimity or win us 

 by its softness. It was every way worthy a benevolent Creator 

 so to construct and furnish the dwelling which he designed for 

 rational creatures, that in all its apartments there should be 

 objects which should minister to their delight ; and it further 

 well became a wise Creator to surround beings whom he meant 

 to engage in his worship with such manifestations of himself as 

 are best calculated to gain their attention and remind them of a 

 Deity. CANON HENRY MELVILL. 



Not alone the plant, 



Of stately growth, and herbs of glorious hue, 

 Which strike even eyes incurious, but each m,oss, 

 Each shell, each crawling insect, holds a rank 

 Important in the plan of him icho framed 

 The scale of beings : holds a rank, which, lost, 

 Would break the chain, and leave behind a gap, 

 Which nature's self would rue. THOMPSON. 



If we could open and unbind our eye, 

 We all, like Moses, should espy, 

 E'en in a bush, the radiant Deity. 



Upon the jlowers of heaven we wondering gaze, 

 The stars of earth no wonder in us raise, 

 Yet these perhaps do more than they 

 The human lives about us sway. COWLEY. 



Do not depreciate any pursuit which leads men to contem- 

 plate the works of their Creator. The Linncean traveller who, 

 when you look over the pages of his journal, seems to you a 

 mere botanist, has in his pursuit an object that occupies his 

 time and fills his mind and satisfies his heart. Nor is the 

 pleasure which he experiences in investigating the structure of a 

 plant less pure than that which is derived from perusing the 

 noblest productions of human genius. SOUTHEY. 



It is good for a man perplexed and lost among many thoughts 

 to come into closer intercourse with nature, and to learn her 

 ways and catch her spirit. It is no fancy to believe that if the 

 children of this generation are taught a great deal more than 

 used to be taught of nature and the ways of God in nature, 

 they will be provided with the material for far healthier and 



