STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 87 



thus excite the ph^'sical and intellectual powers, remove the unnatural 

 inconsistency, which perverted education has establisiied between 

 study and action. It certainly never was intended that while the 

 mind is exerted, the body should suffer of inaction, nor was it any 

 part of the design of Providence, that those who live by the labor 

 of their hands, should leave their minds forever inactive and barren. 

 It seems that the studies in question reunite what man has unwisely 

 separated and are therefore best suited to our nature. The love of 

 nature seems to be born in the soul ot man ; it strengthens with his- 

 strength ; it has much power where it has never found a voice,, 

 among those who are thrown into familiar intercourse with nature. 

 Even boys, the most merciless of destroyers, have their pet animal 

 and show some humanity for their playful charge. The birds, too, not 

 only the familiar robin, but the wild oriole and the retiring 

 warbler, sing with confidence, believing that some will listen to them 

 in the rattling streets, as well as in the Sabbath stillness of the, 

 village. Who does not rejoice in the spirit-like song of the bird, 

 when he comes to assure us that spring has come ; or when he hur- 

 ries from the north, as soon as he hears afar off in the mountains 

 the first murmurs of winter storms. He seems conscious of man's 

 attachment ; he lingers long after the last leaf has fallen. 



The love of nature in life explains the fact that in our communion 

 with nature, we never feel alone. We feel solitary when we do not 

 find man among the works of man. A deserted house is one of the 

 dreariest places in the world. Bat we feel no such overpowering- 

 sense of loneliness among the works of God ; there is reverence and 

 awe indeed, when man stands on the seashore, when he gazes on the 

 expanse of the desert, or when he stands at midnight on the deck 

 of a vessel in the heart of the seas. Why is it so? Because we 

 are forced to reverence the works of Him who does all things welL 

 Then let us say with Goothe : 



"Let us walk to yonder rock. 

 Where the wMterfall l^aps in the bosom below. 

 There on the rocky shelf, under the shade of the hemlock tree? 

 Let lis rest and repose, 

 And think of the wonders here below' 

 Wrote l)y the hand of Him who knows 

 To reveal the wonders of the tuture." 



