50 NATURE'S CHARMS. 



grace as well as suffer loss, we are ungrateful to 

 our Maker, and we are unworthy of ourselves. 

 Wherefore were the organs and faculties of obser- 

 vation given us if we do not use them? The 

 senses, though, as we have them without cost 

 or study, or effort on our part, and so are apt to 

 undervalue them, are, in reality, choice gifts; and 

 the productions of nature are so admirably fitted 

 for the gratification of those senses, that it is alto- 

 gether impossible for us not to perceive that the 

 one must have been made for the other. 



Why was every tint and , tone of colour so 

 mingled in the light of day as that they all come 

 out clear and perfect, and tell us not merely of 

 substance but of space? and wherefore, when the 

 sky is clouded and the blackness of darkness shades 

 the landscape, is the arch of Hope with its seven- 

 fold glory set in the rain cloud, if it be not for us 

 to look, and admire, and learn, and love ? Why 

 does the rose give forth its odour ; and the scent 

 of the lavender and of the mignionette steal view- 

 less upon the still air around us, and the blooming 

 bean and the new mown hay outscent all the pre- 

 parations of the apothecary, if it be not to wile us 

 unto the garden and the field, in order that we may 

 breathe health, and at the same time cull plea- 

 sure and instruction there ? Wherefore sings the 

 breeze in the forest, why whispers the zephyr among 

 the reeds, and how comes it that the caves and hol- 

 lows of the barren mountains give out their tones, 

 as if the earth were one musical instrument of 

 innumerable strings, if it be not to tempt us forth 

 in order to learn, how ever-fair, ever-new, and 

 ever-informing that great instructress is who speaks 

 to all the senses at one and the same instant ! 



