"SARTAGE" IN FINLAND. 1(& 



With the theological views generally accepted through- 

 out Christendom we seem warranted to consider the 

 creation of man, with the foreknowledge of all that man 

 would do in seeking to create new homes, when the homes 

 of childhood became too strait for him, as a part of the pro- 

 vision made for the earth becoming what the Creator 

 designed it to be. And thus may we be led to consider 

 these primaeval forests as one of the means designed and 

 employed to prepare the soil for man's use; occupying 

 it till required, and all the while slowly but surely pre- 

 paring it for this as an important, if not also its final 

 purpose ; and which, after having subserved this end, 

 should gradually give way, and in a great measure dis- 

 appear, before man's industry and energy. 



On exposed rocks in Finland, as elsewhere, we still see, 

 as 1 have stated, the lichen, the moss, the fern, the flower- 

 since retired from the invading desert climate to the heights of the Arcadian Mountains. 

 Where are the pastures now, where are the fields around the holy citadel of Dardanus, 

 which at the foot of the richly-watered Ida supported three thousand mares ? Who can 

 talk now of the " Xanthus " with its hurrying waters ? Who would understand now the 

 " Argos feeder of horses?"' 



And Fries, of Lund, tells : 'A broad band of waste land follows gradually in the steps of 

 cultivation. If it expands, its centre and cradle dies, and on the outer borders onl}' do 

 we find green shoots. But it is not impossible, it is only difficult, for man, without 

 renouncing the advantage of culture itself, one day to make reparation for the injury 

 which he has inflicted, he is appointed lord of creation. True is it that thorns and 

 thistles, ill-favoured and poisonous plants, well named by botanists, " rubbish plants," 

 mark the track which man has proudly traversed through the earth. Before him lay 

 original nature in her wild and sublime beauty. Behind him he leaves the desert, a de- 

 formed and ruined land ; for childish desire of destruction, or thoughtless squandering 

 of vegetable treasures, have destroyed the character of nature ; and man himself flies 

 terrified from the arena of his actions, leaving the impoverished earth to barbarous 

 races or animals, so long as yet another spot in virgin beauty smiles before him. Here 

 again, in selfish pursuit of profit, consciously or unconsciously, he begins anew the work 

 of destruction. Thus did cultivation, driven out, leave the East, and the deserts per- 

 haps previously robbed of their coverings ; like the wild hordes of old over beautiful 

 Greece, thus rolls this conquest with fearful rapidity from east to west through America, 

 and the planter often now leaves the already exhausted land, the eastern climate 

 become infertile through the demolition of the forests, to introduce a similar revolution 

 into the far west. But we see, too, that the nobler races, or truly cultivated men, even 

 now raise their warning voices, put their small hand to the mighty work of restoring 

 to nature her strength and fullness in a yet higher stage than that of wild nature ; one 

 dependent on the law of purpose given by man, arranged according to plans which are 

 copied from the development of manhood itself. All this, indeed, remains at present 

 but a powerlesss, and for the whole, an insignificantly small enterprise, but it preserves 

 the faith in the vocation of man, and his power to fulfil it. In future times he will and 

 must, when he rules, leads, and protects the whole, free nature from the tyrannous 

 slavery to which he now abases her, and in which he can only keep her by restless giant 

 struggles against the eternally resisting. We see in the gray cloudy distance of the 

 future a realm of peace and beauty on the earth and in nature, but to reach it must 

 man long study in the school of nature, and, before aU, free himself from the bonds of 

 that exclusive selfishness by which he is actuated.' 



