188 THE CHRISTIAN NATURALIST. 



Strewn with the spoils of the tempest, with the wreck 

 of that which was once fair as beauty in its spring, 

 and bright as prosperity in its highest noon. Such 

 a spectacle bids us be solemn. Nature is now cele- 

 brating the funeral of the past year, and consigning 

 over the beautiful offspring of many months' vegeta- 

 tion to its wintry tomb. Surely there is no one of 

 our readers who does not sympathize with us in the 

 emotions which are due to the season, whose heart is 

 not now in some degree awakened to serious reflec- 

 tions, or who does not behold in the present decay of 

 the vegetable world, the type of his own mortality, 

 and fully enter into the meaning of the Prophet's 

 language, when he observes, " We all do fade as a leaf, 

 and our iniquities like the wind have taken us away.** 

 All nature is full of the types and shadows of spi- 

 ritual things. " Day unto day uttereth speech, and 

 night unto night sheweth wisdom." If man could 

 only listen with a spiritual ear, and behold -with a 

 spiritual eye, he would never want instruction. Every 

 page of the book of nature is a commentary on the 

 book of divine truth, and reminds him that there is 

 nothing unchangeable but God ; nothing permanent 

 and abiding but his promises ; nothing that can at 



