Gardening — a Refuge. 215 



In such a tame and tranquil cniplojinent can they get up suffi- 

 cient excitement to keep them alive ? Happy is that man who 

 shall have formed a taste for those simple pleasures which result 

 from rural and horticultural occupation, before the exigency in 

 question shall have arrived. So that when he shall find it expe. 

 dient to leave the counting-room, or absent himself from the busy 

 mart of commerce, he will find himself at home. There are some 

 — there are many — who have followed their money-getting trades 

 so long, and so zealously, that they seem to be rather worshippers 

 of Mammon than rational and immortal beings, having souls to 

 be cared for. Acquisition has become with them a passion and a 

 confirmed habit. The chain of servitude may have been rivetted 

 upon them imperceptibly and insidiously ; but it is an iron chain, 

 and hard to be broken. 



Now what can be said of the garden as an antidote, (or, if you 

 please,) a substitute? When a man, seeking recreation, retires to 

 his garden, he is at once in the midst of many things to please 

 and instruct. If he has a predilection for the study of Nature 

 his appetite can be gratified, and the result will be useful. Seve- 

 ral departments of physical investigation, such as Botany, Vege- 

 table Physiology, Agricultural Chemistry, and Meteorology, will 

 be called into requisition. He vvill see an additional reason why 

 these natural sciences are taiight in our schools. He will see in 

 many common things a striking illustration of the wisdom and 

 goodness of God. For instance, that the sap of a tree, although 

 nothing apparently but water, yet contains in itself all the essen- 

 tial elements to constitute all the different parts of that tree. One 

 element has a peculiar adaptation for making the bark, another 

 for the leaf, another for the solid wood, and yet another for the 

 fruit. How different must be the elements which form the seed 

 and the pulp of the grape ; or the shell proper and the husk of 

 the nut ! The one contains a large proportion of flint, the other 

 none ; and yet that flint, in an impalpable form, and in particles 

 extremely minute, ascended with the sap. \Yell did a philosopher 

 inscribe on his garden wall : " Learn to look through Nature up 

 to Nature's God." 



And then as to beauty — what can excel the well-planted and 

 well-kept garden, whether we regard the rich combination of co- 

 lors in flowers, or the blushing tints and golden hues of selected 

 fruits ? " Who can paint like Nature ?" It is not surprising that 



