196 ADVENTURES IN THE WILDERNESS. 



paper, is a hindrance rather than a help. Like a 

 glass with too narrow a field, it concentrates the 

 vision too much. It clips the wings of the imagi- 

 nation, and narrows the circle of its flight. The 

 spirit which, for the first time, perhaps, has escaped 

 the bonds of formal worship, for the first time 

 tasted of freedom and tested its capacities to soar, 

 returns regretfully to the restraint and bondage of 

 book and speech. It takes these up as an angel, 

 whose hands have once swept a heavenly harp, 

 touches again the strings of an earthly instru- 

 ment. 



This I have always observed, that the memory 

 is unusually active, and takes great delight in 

 recalling texts of Scripture and devotional hymns, 

 when brought under the influence of nature. Pas- 

 sages from the Psalms, which I do not remember 

 that I ever committed ; fragments of old and solemn 

 hymns, hewn I know not from what block, long 

 forgotten if ever learned ; snatches of holy melody, 

 — echoes awakened by what voice you cannot tell 

 come floating back upon you, or rise at the bidding 

 of the will. Often have I said to myself, " Alas ! 

 even memory is in bondage to sin." Nature, 

 through her refining and spiritualizing agencies, 

 emancipates it ; and sweet is it to think that, by 

 and by, when our grossness is entirely purged 

 away, all pure things passed by or forgotten will 

 come back to us, and the past, in reference to what- 



