258 Mr. Limt's Address. 



cultivated mind they address themselves in their momentary beauty, like 

 images of things more perfect in immortal loveliness. They are emblems 

 of the affinities of your moral being with whatever is complete in infinite 

 glory beyond the skies. Like the eternal stars, that, on the brow of mid- 

 night, assure us, with their unspeakable effulgence, that Heaven and its 

 hopes are yet there, so these, the stars of earth, spring upon her verdant 

 bosom, the mute memorials of an inscrutable immortality. In the humble 

 dwelling-place of the poorest laborer, in some crowded city's dim alley, 

 into which the golden light of day pours scarcely one beam of all his 

 abounding flood, you may often discern some simple flower, which indicates 

 the longing of our more spiritual being ; which recalls to the mind's eye 

 of the wearied man the green fields of his boyish days, and impresses him 

 again and again, — oh, not in vain ! — with the gentler and purer emotions of 

 his childhood. They come upon him, amidst the dust and heat, and per- 

 haps the wretchedness, of his daily lot, like outward manifestations of the 

 inner spirit-world. They are the signals of thoughts 



Commercing with the skies. 



They are like gleams of a fairer and brighter sunshine, from realms " be- 

 yond the visible diurnal sphere." 



The time does, indeed, come to all men, when they would gladly escape 

 from the crowd and confusion of common life, and 



Forth issuing on a summer's morn, to breathe 

 Among the pleasant villages and farms, 



would forget the thronging cares which have exhausted their hearts, in 

 company with the lilies of the. field, that toil not, neither do they spin. It is, 

 indeed, by influences such as these that we acquire not only fresher impul- 

 ses to duty, but far higher and nobler principles of action. Experience, it 

 is true, teaches us that the mere drudgery of rural pursuits can have little 

 effect in raising the private or social condition of the man. To turn the 

 verdant soil for the mere sustenance of life, would as little impress his mind 

 with the true sentiment of his occupation, as the gloomy grandeur of ocean 

 enters into the soul of the tempest tost and weather-worn mariner. The 

 rustic laborer might forever follow his plough upon the mountain side, and 

 trample with heedless foot upon the brightest flowers, that appealed with 

 dewy eyes in vain to his plodding sensibilities ; and the village maiden, 

 obeying those truer and nobler instincts, inseparable, I believe, from every 

 woman's heart, with every returning Spring, might gather and weave them 

 into her rustic coronal. But to fulfil their highest ministry they must have 

 become blended with their kindred associations. They must have linked 

 themselves, as they have done, with the domestic, and public and religious 

 story of the world. Their sweet and gentle names must have floated upon 

 the voice of song. They must have given language of eloquent signifi- 

 cance to the passionate impulses of the human heart. They must have 

 spoken of the fragility of life under that sweetest and most soothing of all 

 sad similitudes, — " a fading flower." They must have crowned the wine- 

 cup amidst the revels of " towered cities," and mingled with the sunny 



