21 



And this communion with Nature ! what more con- 

 ducive of good and greater source of pleasure and 

 instruction ? Is it not well to steal away from the 

 too absorbing cares of the busy world, to lay aside for 

 a few moments the assiduous devotion to its interests, 

 to quench the fever of excitement and passion in the 

 calm and grand repose of her studies ? What the 

 very end and pursuit of life, but that course, which 

 affords present, solid and satisfactory good and prom- 

 ises future benefit ? In a scene second only to that 

 primeval condition of the progenitors of the human 

 race,~where magnificence, beauty, order, loveliness, 

 harmony and peace are all displayed, we seem to be 

 invited and allured by every object of sense and fea- 

 ture of excellence, to commune with higher, nobler, 

 better things than those of earth. It is the inter- 

 course of spirit with Spirit. The Creator is yet 

 holding converse with His creatures through the me- 

 dium of His works. In the first vernal motion of 

 returning vital energy in the humblest moss, as in the 

 majestic structure of the mightiest vegetable form, 

 whose duration is coeval* with the present appearance 

 of the earth, in the gauze-like wings of the minutest 

 fly, which dances in the bright sunbeam, with all the 

 pleasure of simple existence, as in the noble economy 

 of the gigantic quadruped, in the comminuted parti- 

 cle of dust, as in the lofty mountains, which rise, in 

 silent, solitary and barren grandeur over the plains, 

 there is the same common voice of welcome and the 



* Individuals ofrfdansonia, of the Natural order Bombacese, are the largest 

 trees known ; their age has been computed at from 5 to 6000 years, which 

 though probably an erroneous calculation, yet they may be, as. Humboldt 

 conjectures, some of the " oldest organic monuments of our planet." 



