XX INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 



and has so fully expressed all that I am anxious 

 to testify of her moral influence, that I must 

 make from him one quotation. 



Nature never did betray 

 The heart that loved her ! 'Tis her privilege, 

 Through all the years of this our life, to lead 

 From joy to joy, for she can so inform 

 The mind that is within us, so impress 

 With quietness and beauty, and so feed 

 With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues, 

 Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, 

 Xor greetings where no kindness is, nor all 

 The dreary intercourse of common life 

 Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb 

 Our cheerful faith that all that we behold 

 Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon 

 Shine on thee in thy solitary walk ; 

 And let the misty mountain winds be free 

 To blow against thee ; and in after-years, 

 When these wild ecstacies shall be matured 

 Into a sober pleasure ; when thy mind 

 Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms, 

 Thy memory be a dwelling-place 

 For all sweet sounds and harmonies, oh ! then, 

 If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief, 

 Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts 

 Of tender joy wilt thou remember me, 

 And these my benedictions. 



Such is the united testimony of our greatest 

 poetical minds ; and such is my firm faith, that 

 God has not only implanted in the depths of 

 our hearts a pure and quick moral sense of his 



