SPRAT AND FOLIAGE. 139 



Beecli. It would be endless to run through the 

 ■whole forest. Nor is it necessary. The exami- 

 nation of these few principal trees will show how 

 consequential a part the spray is in fixing the 

 character of the tree. There is as much difference 

 in the spray as there is in the foliage, or in any 

 other particular. At the same time, if a painter 

 be accurate, in a certain degree, in his delineation 

 of some of the more capital trees, in others his 

 accuracy is of little consequence : nay an en- 

 deavour at precision would be stiff and pedantic. 



In the spray of the four species of trees just 

 mentioned and, I doubt not, in that of all other 

 trees, Nature seems to observe one simple prin- 

 ciple, which is, that the mode of growth in the 



Ita 

 Debemur morti nos, nostraque 



Better instructed, learn tliou a nobler lesson. Learn, that that 

 God who ■with the blast of winter shrivels the tree, and with 

 the breezes of spring restores it, offers it to thee as an emblem 

 of thy hopes. The saiije God presides over the natural and 

 moral world. His works are uniform. The truths which Nature 

 teaches,, as far as they go, are the truths of revelation also. It 

 is written' ih both these books' that that power which revives 

 the tree will revive thee also, like it, with increasing perfection. 



