VIEW OF NATURE. 325 



skilful hand, then the picture becomes no less an acceptable 

 offering to God, than it is a source of well directed pleasure to 

 the mind of man. And when the poet, in harmonious numbers, 

 makes hill and dale responsive to his song, happy is it if his 

 soul be in unison with the harp of David, and if he can call on 

 all created nature to join in one universal chorus of gratitude 

 and praise. The Christian traveller best enjoys scenes like 

 these. In every wonder he sees the hand that made it in 

 every landscape, the beauty that adorns it in rivers, fields 

 and forests, the Providence that ministers to the wants of man 

 in every surrounding object he sees an emblem of his own 

 spiritual condition, himself a stranger and a pilgrim, journeying 

 on through a country of wonders and beauties ; alternately 

 investigating, admiring, and praising the works of his Maker, 

 and anticipating a holy and happy eternity to he spent in the 

 Paradise of God, where the prospects are ever new, and the 



landscapes never fade from the sight !" 



\ 



" O ! for the expanded mind that soars on high, 

 Ranging afar with Meditation's eye ! 

 That climbs the heights of yonder starry road, 

 Rising through nature up to nature's God. 



O ! for a soul to trace a Saviour's power, 



In each sweet form that decks the blooming flower : 



And as we wander such fair scenes among, 



To make the Rose of Sharon all our song." 



Naturalists, to the great discredit of science, have formerly 

 shewn an unhappy tendency to scepticism ; enabled to compre- 

 hend some of the great operations of nature, they presumed to 

 set up their own reason against the revelation of God, and im- 

 piously refused to believe any thing which could not be ex- 

 plained according to the principles of human science. Search- 

 ing into the elements which compose the human body ; and 

 observing the dispersion of the same, and their incorporation 

 into other substances, they affirmed that it was " a thing im- 

 possible for God to raise the dead." Well might we, in ad- 

 dressing such a philosopher, say, with the Apostle, " Thou 

 fool !" Cannot He who formed all things of nothing, reani- 

 mate the sleeping dust, and recal the spirit to its own body ? 

 Happily this melancholy perversion of human learning seems 

 to have passed away, and we now see many of the most en- 

 lightened investigators of the principles of science among the 

 most humble disciples of Jesus.* 



* In the character of Dr. Mason Good, as exhibited in his biography, writ- 

 ten by Olinthus Gregory, we find this union of science with deep and fervent 

 piety most happily exemplified. 



Naturalists formerly inclined to scepticism. 



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