V. 



ON THE MISTAKES OF CITIZENS IN COUNTRY LIFE. 



January, 1849. 



NO one loves the country more sincerely, or welcomes new de- 

 votees to the worship of its pure altars more warmly, than 

 ourselves. To those who bring here hearts capable of understand- 

 ing the lessons of truth and beauty, which the Good Creator has 

 written so legibly on all his works ; to those in whose nature is im- 

 planted a sentiment that interprets the tender and the loving, as well 

 as the grand and sublime lessons of the universe, what a life full of 

 joy, and beauty, and inspiration, is that of the country ; to such, 



" The deep recess of dusky groves, 



Or forest where the deer securely roves, 



The fall of waters and the song of birds, 



And hills that echo to the distant herds, 



Are luxuries, excelling all the glare 



The world can boast, and her chief fav'rites share." 



There are those who rejoice in our Anglo-Saxon inheritance of 

 the love of conquest, and the desire for boundless territory, who 

 exult in the " manifest destiny " of the race, to plant the standard 

 of the eagle or the lion in every soil, and every zone of the earth's 

 surface. We rejoice much more in the love of country life, the en- 

 joyment of nature, and the taste for rural beauty, which we also 

 inherit from our Anglo-Saxon forefathers, and to which, more than 

 all else, they owe so many of the peculiar virtues of the race. 



With us, as a people, retirement to country life, must come to 



