204 THE CHRISTIAN NATURALIST. 



favoured Britain, and has permitted so many other of 

 the tribes of the earth to walk on still in darkness, 

 plunged, as it were, in all the horror of a polar winter. 

 Much, however, is it to be feared that Winter is a 

 season but far too descriptive of the spiritual condition 

 of many even in this land ! What is the state of their 

 hearts towards God ? Are they not cold and barren as 

 the season ? What fruits do we see adorning their 

 profession ? Or rather, it may be asked, are they not 

 like so many bare and leafless branches of the snow- 

 clad forest, through which the gusts of pride and 

 passion sweep with relentless fury, and upon which the 

 dews and showers of gospel grace produce nothing but 

 the cold icicles of vanity, sin and death ? Are there not 

 others whose profession is little better than a mantle of 

 snow, beautiful and dazzling to the eye for a short time, 

 but soon melting and vanishing away into its native ele- 

 ment ? And are there not to be found, in this as in every 

 age of the church, those whose splendid career has 

 resembled for a time that famous palace of ice built by 

 the Russian Empress, and sumptuously adorned — a 

 gorgeous fabric while it lasted, and surpassing in 

 beauty many more substanial ones — but destined to 

 play but a visionary part upon the stage for awhile, — 



