THE RIGORS OF WINTER. 273 



known operations and contrivances, too delicate and 

 mysterious to be seen, or even comprehended, by the 

 blindness, the defectibility of our nature things of 

 which we have no information, being beyond the range 

 of any of the works or the employments of mankind ! 

 We may gather our pear, be pleased with its form or its 

 flavor; we may magnify its vessels, analyze its fluids, 

 yet be no more sensible of its elaborate formation, arid 

 the multiplicity of influences and operations requisite 

 to conduct it to our use, than a wandering native of a 

 polar clime could be of the infinite number of proces- 

 ses that are necessary to furnish a loaf of bread, from 

 plowing the soil to drawing from the oven. This is but 

 an isolated instance, amidst thousands of others more 

 complicated still. How utterly inconceivable then are 

 the labors, the contrivances, the combinations, that are 

 going forward, and accomplishing, in this our dull sea- 

 son of the year, in that host of nature's productions 

 with which, shortly, we shall everywhere be sur- 

 rounded ! 



Jan. 20th. A keen frost, and the ground covered 

 with snow, present a scene of apparent suffering and 

 want to many of our poor little birds ; but the preserva- 

 tion of the fowls of the air, which sow not nor gather 

 into barns, has been beautifully instanced to us, as a 

 manifest evidence of a superintending Providence : the 

 full force of this testimony is most strongly impressed 

 upon us in a season like this, when winter rules with 

 rigor, and we marvel how the life of these beings can 

 be supported when the waters are bound up, and earth 

 and all its products hidden by a dense covering of snow 

 Many of the small birds obtain subsistence by picking 

 the refuse of our corn-stacks, by seeds scattered about 

 our homestalls and cattle-yards, but multitudes of others 

 are in no way dependent upon man for shelter or sup- 

 port, do not even approach his dweliing, but are main- 

 tained by the universal bounty of Providence ; as the 

 wood-lark, the meadow-lark, the chats, and several 

 others ; but by what means they are maintained in a 

 period like this is not quite manifest. The portion that 

 they require is probably small, yet it must be insect 



