192 PLEASUKES OF THE SENSES. 



the feast ? Do not these very senses each lead us directly to 

 the payment of such befitting homage ? 



The eye, is it not the crystal window through which mind 

 looks out and communicates with nature, and shall intellect, 

 the eye of the spirit, be content to rest on natural things 

 without rising, by aid of its corresponding organ, to things 

 divine? Shall the ear bring us delight in the sweet har- 

 monies of spring without our hearing amidst and above them 

 all, an invocation to unite with heart and voice in the chants 

 of universal praise ? Shall we inhale the pleasant fragrance 

 dispersed by perfumes of the earth, the incense of the groves, 

 " God's first temples," and not offer therewith the more 

 acceptable incense of a grateful spirit ? Shall the feeling of 

 this reviving spring-time pervade our frames, and even lightly 

 touch upon our hearts, yet there stop short, short of that 

 inmost sanctuary where within our " heart of hearts," if a 

 fitting tabernacle, the Source of Life himself does not disdain 

 to dwell ? 



With ourselves, then, this feast of the senses should be but 

 an antepast to a banquet more refined, an avenue to higher 

 delights, a fleeting image of pleasures which abide for ever ; 

 but looking around us, we see at the same bounteous table 

 myriads of fellow-partakers, with whom the pleasures of sense 

 would seem to constitute the sum total of their happiness. 



That, among these, insects are endowed with senses like 

 our own, is now almost universally acknowledged ; and that 



