THB CHRISTIAN NATURALIST. lOl 



But in the mountains did he feel his faith, 

 Responsive to the writing, all things there 

 Breathed immortality, revolving life, 

 And greatness still revolving ; infinite ; 

 There littleness was not ; the least of things 

 Seem'd infinite ; and there his spirit shaped 

 Her prospects, nor did he believe, he saw. 

 What wonder if his being thus became 

 Sublime and comprehensive I low desires. 

 Low thoughts had there no place.* — Wordsworth^ 



This picture is well drawn, and depicts the sensations 

 which a well regulated Christian mind must derive 

 from viewing the works of God as they are exhibited 

 upon the grandest scale. It is when man climbs nearer 

 to the heavens, by these stairs which the Divine Archi- 

 tect has provided for him, that his thoughts and 

 desires begin to acquire something of the character of 

 celestial magnitude. A new sense of the vastness of 

 the works of God is opened. Standing in the midst of 

 such a scene, the sentiment of the great Origen seemi 

 to be fully experienced : ' In this solitude the air is 

 purer ; heaven nearer ; God more intimately present.* 

 Nor is the exclamation of Seneca here less appropri- 

 ate, — * O how contemptible a thing is man, unless b« 

 raises himself above human things.* The mountain top 

 does indeed seem to furnish a happy image of the pious 

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