18 MR. newhall's address. 



he is, in producing the means of sustaining Hfe. While the artist 

 and mechanic, by their skill and ingenuity, as they operate upon 

 dead matter, can produce results in accordance with their wishes, he 

 feels that, in dealing with the vital principle, without the direct 

 smiles of Heaven upon his labors, he can produce nothing. Whea 

 the rain is withheld, and the "heavens become as brass, and the 

 earth as iron," and vegetation seems to be perishing, how often is 

 his eye directed to the horizon, that perchance he may see, as did 

 the servant of the Prophet, a cloud rising, though not larger than a 

 man's hand, and giving promise of the needful blessing. He be- 

 holds therefore with the deepest interest the progress of vegetation 

 from the opening of the vernal season to the closing autumn. When 

 the mighty forces of nature are quiescent, he sees their silent ener- 

 gy in the beaming sun and the gentle zephyr. And in their awful 

 manifestations, he recognizes in the lightning's gleam, the glance of 

 that eye, whose all-pervading sight reads the unspoken language of 

 the heart ! And in the bursting thunder, and the fearful earth- 

 quake, he hears with awe, the accents of "the voice that shakes all 

 nature's frame." 



The volume of nature is wide spread before him ; and whatever 

 may be the dogmas, which men may have derived from other sources, 

 respecting the character of the Creator, he here reads in this "elder 

 scripture" the impressive and all-subduing lesson that God is good. 

 That his paternal care is extended to every creature, and that all, 

 from man to the humblest insect, are the monuments of his exhaust- 

 less love. 



With such exhibitions daily before him, and with a knowledge of 

 the divine economy in the natural system, where every thing chang- 

 es, but nothing is lost ; where from apparent annual death, arise 

 new forms of beauty and loveliness ; — the farmer, after a life well 

 spent in the pursuit originally assigned him, bows to the law of his 

 being, wraps his mantle about him, and lies down in the sleep of 

 death, with the most unshaken faith in the accordant lessons of na- 

 ture, and of revealed religion, that he shall awake in those celestial 

 scenes, the glories of which, "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard." 



