No. 216.] 537 



a new hope kindles in each breast j the extravagance of joy succeeds 

 the gloomy silence of utter misery. Help is at hand. Am-ther hour 

 and the worst is over. They shall eat and live and shall not die. 



It may be, though Heaven avert it, that we shall have wars, by 

 land and by sea. Naval battles and triumphs may again be ours, 

 our ships of war may again ride victors over the ocean; but none 

 of them, though their torn sails and battered hulls bear witness to a 

 hundred successful contests, shall attain the renown with which mercy 

 and charity have ci owned the Jamestown and the Macedonian. 



But quite apart from any accidental interest which recent events 

 have given to agriculture, it is aKva}s a subject of the highest im- 

 portance, the farthest extending relations. Its nature is grand. It 

 is connected with the sublimest of sciences; it necessarily leads to 

 the sublimest thoughts — " from Nature up to Nature's God." 



The grass and the fruits, the harvest and the flowers, though man 

 is indeed instrumental in their production, yet depend on causes so 

 far beyond his control, are due to influences inflnite and divine, that 

 they seem always to be the direct gifts of Heaven. The ever» 

 returning seasons, each bringing its peculiar blessings and delights, 

 and above all the joyous spring, when again the earth turns towards 

 the sun, are each and all new miracles. Who can say when in the 

 autumn our planet turns away from the great centre of light and 

 life, and with speed inconceivable travels oflf through space, infinite- 

 ly cold and dark, that we shall ever stop in our course, and not rush 

 unchecked on our cheerless way to " cold obstruction" and eternal 

 night? "Who can predict that the hand of Heaven may not omit or 

 forbear to direct us again towards warmth and being? And ^^hen, at 

 the proper time, we find ourselves not forgotten among the infinity 

 of worlds, and the dissolving ice and snow, and slow appearing green 

 assure us of his continued protection, what a cause of renewed grati- 

 tude and admiration it should be and is. 



That more often recurring instance of divine bounty, the morning, 

 which none so often see in all its beauty and gloty as the agricul- 

 turist, is equally glorious and equally calculated to fill the mind and 

 heart with the sublimest contemplations and most religious and ex- 

 alted thoughts. With what pleasure do we hail the morning in 

 health! With what longing do we hail it in sickness! 



