SABBATH IN THE WOODS. 197 



ever of goodness and truth it had in it, will be, to 

 the holy, an eternal present. Such has been my 

 experience, in reference to religious impressions, 

 felt amid the solitude of forests. It takes more 

 than one season to analyze your emotions. The 

 mind, for a while deprived of the customary re- 

 straints and incitements of forms and ceremonies, 

 is in a chaotic state. Thoughts come and go with- 

 out order. Emotions are irregular and inconstant. 

 The Occidental cast of intellect which conceives 

 of God largely through the reason, changes slowly 

 into the Oriental. It analyzes less, but it adores 

 far more. The religion of the forest is emotional 

 and poetic. No mathematician w^as ever born amid 

 the pines. The Psalms could never have been 

 written by one not inspired by the breath of the 

 hills. The soul, when it spreads its wings for flight 

 upward, must start from the summit of moun- 

 tains. It must have the help of altitude, or no 

 movement of wings will lift it. And I dare to say 

 that he who has never passed a Sabbath amid the 

 solemn loneliness of an uninhabited region, has 

 never knelt in prayer at the base of overhanging 

 mountains, has never fallen asleep with no roof 

 above him but that of the heavens, and no protec- 

 tion from the dangers which lurk amid the dark- 

 ness of the night season save the watchful care of 

 God, can realize little the significance of these two 

 words, — Adoration and Faith. 



