THE CHRISTIAN NATURALIST. 3 



same smooth sea, or hearing the same sweet strain of 

 music. It is right then to understand, as well as to 

 admire, the nature of that economy by which the 

 Creator has provided us with the means of this variety. 

 Yonder sun, which enlightens us, might have shone in 

 the heavens just as we now behold him : and have rose in 

 the East, and set in the West daily, but this would not 

 have produced the Seasons and their changes. Some- 

 thing more was necessary to give us spring and summer, 

 autumn and winter; and this diversity has been 

 effected in the simplest manner by the Divine hand. 

 The sun's path through the heavens, instead of being 

 always the same, is a varied one ; he traverses in tarn 

 all the northern and southern signs of the Zodiac : or, 

 to speak more in the language of science, he appears to 

 do so by that peculiar direction or inclination which is 

 given to the earth's axis, with respect to the line of its 

 path or orbit. 



Thus it is that seed-time and harvest, summer and 

 winter, each appear at regular intervals ; and every 

 part of the world receives in turn those advantages 

 which result from the change of seasons. Men, ani- 

 mals, and vegetation, all seem alike to share in the 

 benefits of the change. Without it many parts of the 

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