446 CELESTIAL SCENERY. 



Though I have treated of the moon as an object of 

 more passionate contemplation than the sun, the effects 

 of sunlight are infinitely more glorious and beautiful. 

 The sun, being too intensely bright to be viewed by the 

 naked eye, must be adored in its effects, in the beautiful 

 tintings of sunrise and sunset, in the silvery lustre of 

 the clouds at noonday, in the halo that surrounds his 

 disk and gives warning of a tempest, and in the rainbow 

 that announces the end of the storm. It is in these 

 celestial phenomena that we behold the beauty of colors 

 in their highest degree. Of all that is beautiful on 

 earth, there is nothing that equals the beauty of the 

 sun's rays upon the clouds. There is nothing so exhil- 

 arating to the mind, or that conveys such a vivid con- 

 sciousness of -the existence of something purer and more 

 divine than our life in this world. 



