28 HINTS ON ANGLING. 



picturesque and beautiful; where the hills slope up from 

 the rich green-sward, and the river murmurs through the 

 verdant meadows, and the village spire peeps over the 

 trees, and the tinkling bell announces the hour of prayer; 

 where the flocks whiten the tree-less front of some green 

 promontory, and the distant mill-clack just makes itself 

 heard above the hum of bees, and song of birds, and 

 lowing of distant cattle, and the thousand soothing 

 sounds which spring up from the ongoings of the village 

 day; the mind insensibly falls into a musing train of 

 gentle thought; and images of peace, and tranquillity, and 

 gentleness, rise unbidden on the soul, fill it with a calm 

 and quiet joy a sea of gentle hopes and benevolent 

 projects and banish away all the sordid maxims and 

 ungenerous principles which are engendered in the smoky 

 town, amidst the scufnings of rival traffickers, or the heart- 

 lessnesses of the amassers of wealth. The heart becomes 

 sensible of better influences than these ; and the thoughts 

 which owe their origin to the impressions which are 

 derived from the contemplation of natural objects, are 

 generally such as religion sanctifies, and reason approves. 

 The stern and remorseless passions of our nature yield to 

 the genial suggestions ; and there must indeed be an in- 

 eradicable root of bitterness, a tenacious germ of malignity, 

 in that breast which is not softened by the calm silence of 

 eternal Nature, or filled with generous impulses of benevo- 

 lence and good-will, by the music of her persuasive 

 voice. The patriarch of old, " went out to meditate in 

 the field, at the even tide;" the Saviour himself sought 

 the sublime solitude of the still mountain, when he 

 went forth to pray; and the early Christians reared 

 their simple altars amidst the secret recesses of the 

 sanctuaries of nature, where, free from the interruptions of 



