236 GENERAL VIEW OF NATURE. 



" There is a peculiar sweetness in the recollection of those hours 

 which we have spent with friends of a kindred spirit, amidst the 

 oeauties of created nature. The Christian can alone find that con- 

 geniality in associates, who not only possess a lively and cultivated 

 sense of the high beauty which landscape scenery presents to the 

 eye, but who can also see creation's God in every feature of the pros- 

 pect. The painter can imitate, the poet describe, and the tourist talk 

 with ecstacy of the sublime and beautiful objects which constitute 

 the scene before him ; but he can only be said to enjoy them aright, 

 whose talents, taste, and affections are consecrated to the glory of 

 Him by whom ' all things were made, and without whom was not 

 any thing made that was made.' When the pencil that traces the 

 rich and animated landscape of mountains, lakes, and trees, is guided 

 by a grateful heart as well as by a skilful hand, then the picture 

 becomes no less an acceptable offering to God, than a source 

 of well-directed pleasure to the mind of man. And when the poet, 

 in harmonious numbers, makes hill and dale responsive to his song, 

 happy is it if his soul be in unison with the harp of David, and if he 

 can call on all created nature to join in one universal chorus of grat- 

 itude and praise. The Christian traveller best enjoys scenes like 

 these. In every wonder he sees the hand that made it— in every 

 landscape, the beauty that adorns it — in rivers, fields, and forests, 

 the Providence that ministers to the wants of man— in every sur- 

 rounding object he sees an emblem of his own spiritual condition, 

 himself a stranger, and a pilgrim, journeying on through a country 

 of wonders and beauties; alternately investigating, admiring, and 

 praising the works of his Maker, and anticipating a holy and happy 

 eternity to be spent in the Paradise of God, where the prospects are 

 ever new, and the landscapes never fade from the sight! " 



" Oh ! for the expanded mind that soars on high, 

 Ranging afar with Meditation's eye! 

 That climbs the heights of yonder starry road, 

 Rising through nature up to nature's God. 



"Oh ! for a soul to trace a Saviour's power, 



In each sweet form that decks the blooming flower : 



And as we wander such fair scenes among, 



To make the Rose of Sharon all our song." 



Naturalists, to the great discredit of science, have formerly shown 

 an unhappy tendency to skepticism; enabled to comprehend some 

 of the great operations of nature, they presumed to set up their 

 own reason against the revelation of God, and impiously refused to 

 believe any thing which could not be explained according to the 

 principles of human science. Searching into the elements which 

 compose the human body, and observing the dispersion of the 

 same, and their incorporation into other substances, they affirmed, 

 that it was "a thing impossible for God to raise the dead." Well 

 might we, in addressing such a philosopher, say, with the Apostle, 

 "Thou fool !" Cannot he who formed all things of nothing, reani- 

 mate the sleeping dust, and recall the spirit to its own body '? Hap- 

 pily, this melancholy perversion of human learning seems to have 

 passed away, and we now see many of the most enUghtened inves- 

 tigators of the principles of science among the most humble disci- 

 ples of Jesus.* 



* In the character of Dr. Mason Good, as exhibited in his biography, written by 

 Olinthus Gregory, we find this union of science with deep and fervent piety most hap- 

 pily exemplified. 



Naturalists formerly inclined to skepcicism. 



