182 WILD FLOWERS. 



its appointed office in the " course of nature " than 

 the savage, who makes the woods his abode, has 

 comprehended the manner in which the trees of the 

 forest act as chemical and mechanical preservators 

 of the balance of atmospheric purity, or as the ame- 

 liorators of climate. The doctrine of final causes 

 can never act practically on our minds while we 

 are content with the " adaption of means to end " 

 which we fancy we perceive when we see that the 

 dust which annoyed us in some summer's walk is 

 laid by the thunder-shower that fell upon the path ! 

 I speak this, not to discourage the spirit which sees, 

 and seeks to see, the hand of God in every event of 

 life, believing as I do, that the study of His works 

 is, and ever will be, inductive, leading us from the 

 less, up to the greater, even to the Creator of all ; 

 but I do so on account of the growing inclination* 

 to limit His power to the level of our conceptions ; 

 and to deem an object fulfilled, if it be but subservi- 

 ent to some trifling comfort of our own. The habit 

 is one pre-eminently tending to discontent, for it un- 

 duly exalts our personal pretensions ; and tending 

 to discontent, it too frequently leads on to disbelief. 

 If we gaze with self-complacent gratitude on the 

 shower which freshens and bedews our path, only 

 because it does so, our danger is, that when we learn 

 that the lightning flash which accompanied it laid 

 down in death some parent's only child, the late 

 spirit of petty and selfish gratulation mingling, 

 almost unconsciously, with the awe and sympathy 

 we feel, will give rise first to a questioning, then to 

 * I need not mention the works to which I allude. 



