OF THE ■i'EAH. 13 



called into action, which shall enable us to go 

 forth resisting the temptations of sin, or which 

 shall really constitute communion with God. 

 We may look on the broad landscape, smiling 

 in summer beauty, and speak with dehght of 

 the " temple of nature," and say with the poet 



" The turf shall be my fragrant shrine," 



and follow with reverence the man of science, 

 as he displays God's wisdom in the creation of 

 the universe ; and yet there may be no sense 

 of God's holiness — no true penitence for sin — 

 and no pleading of that atoning blood — with- 

 out which, prayer cannot be acceptable to the 

 majesty of God. 



But though the knowledge of eternal life is 

 not to be gathered from nature, yet we may not 

 only trace God's love in the "flower of the 

 field," but we may be reminded, by rural sights 

 and scenes, of many portions of Scripture truth. 

 Our Saviour himself bade r.s look upon this 

 material world for this object. "And thus," 

 says that pious old writer, George Herbert, 

 " our Saviour made trees and plants to teach 

 tiie people : for he was the true householder, 

 who bringeth out of his treasury things new 

 and old : the old things of philosophy, and the 

 new of grace, and maketh one to serve the 

 other. And I conceive," says he, "that our 

 Saviour did this, that, by familiar things, lie 

 might make his doctrine slip more easily into 

 the hearts even of the meanest ; and that la- 

 bouring people, whom he chiefly considered, 



