36 THE HARMONIES OP NATURE. 



tracts of country are perpetually fertilised by refreshing showers 

 or copious dews ; the snow covers whole zones with his pro- 

 tecting mantle, while the pelting hail-storm generally devas- 

 tates only narrow districts. The winds are universal ventilators : 

 health and plenty sail along upon their invisible wings, and fleets 

 are unceasingly wafted by their breath from shore to shore ; but 

 the dreadful tornado is but a rare atmospherical crisis, and even 

 the ravages it causes are not unmixed with good, for many a 

 pestilential disease has been arrested by its appearance, and 

 many an insect plague has been swept away by its drenching 

 torrents. The greater violence of the tropical storms is counter- 

 balanced by a more vigorous vegetation, which effaces their 

 traces in a shorter time. 



Thus everywhere the bounty of the Creator mitigates the 

 evils resulting from the perturbation of the regular course of 

 nature ; thus everywhere His apparent anger is but the means 

 of conferring new blessings upon His creatures. 



