68 THE CHRISTIAN NATURALIST. 



which thus unlocks all the treasures of creation, and 

 displays its infinite resources of grandeur, beauty, 

 and fertility. If Spring is the season of expectation. 

 Summer is the season of enjoyment. Nature now 

 brings rapidly to perfection the various productions 

 of the earth, upon which the sustenance of man and 

 the inferior animals depends. The Sun has reached 

 his highest throne in the heavens, and, like the monarch 

 of all he surveys, seems to look down with the full 

 pomp and pride of his beams upon this lower world 

 which lies basking in his smiles. Whatever are the 

 other provisions which the Creator has made for man 

 in his Providence, surely all these would be worth but 

 little were it not for the animating presence of this 

 great orb of light and life. At all seasons of the year 

 we feel the benefits of this luminary, and hail his light 

 as the first-best blessing of the works of God : but 

 Summer is the season when we are most fully sensible 

 of our obligations to that degree of warmth and vitality, 

 which he sheds down upon the earth and its inhabi- 

 tants. It is now that the sublime language of the 

 Psalmist is especially verified : "He cometh forth as 

 a Bridegroom out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as 

 a giant to run his course ; his going forth is from the 



