118 LEAVES FROM THE BOOK OF NATURE. 



IV. 



C|at about f lante. 



" If we could open and unbind our eyes, 



We all, like Moses, should espy, 

 E'en in a bush, the radiant Deity. 

 But we despise these, his inferior ways, 

 (Tho 1 no less full of miracle and praise): 



Upon the flowers of heaven we gaze; 

 The stars of earth no wonder in us raise, 



Tho' these perhaps do, more than they, 



The life of mankind sway." COWLBY. 



T ONG years ago I was in the Holy Land. It was the 

 last day I was to spend near Jerusalem, and as the 

 sun sank towards the blue waters of the Mediterranean, 

 I found myself once more sitting on the banks of the 

 Jordan. The air was perfectly calm ; the tolling of a con- 

 vent bell came faintly over the plain from Bethlehem, and 

 mingled its well-beat cadences with the gentle, playful mur- 

 muring of the sacred stream at my feet. By my side sat 

 an Arab, tranquilly following with his eye the light clouds 

 of his pipe, as they gracefully rose up in the clear, blue 

 ether, but apparently buried in deep thought. I had known 



