LETTER XX. 



221 



gladness, of sadness and sorrow, of awe and gratitude, 

 as of truth and beauty, of power and might and 

 majesty, of wisdom and goodness. To understand 

 their language, however, in all its fulness and variety, 

 and to hold famihar converse with them, is what few 

 are equal to. It requires perceptive and suggestive 

 faculties of a particular order, and peculiar emotional 

 susceptibilities. Yet even we, as we stand beneath 

 their shade or walk among them, though wanting in 

 those gifts, may yet catch enough to make us wiser 

 and better. The wind sweeping through them, and 

 " made vocal " in their service, may perchance waft 

 to us their morning or their evening hymn — their 

 own Jubilate Deo : — 



O be joyful in the Lord : Trees of the wood that rejoice 

 before Him ; 



It is He that hath made us ; and not we ourselves — 

 Monuments of His mind and hand, emblems of His years, 

 and channels of His love to man." — 



And the while, from the green sward on which we 

 tread, we may hear still another voice coming to us in 

 accents at once " gentle and unreproving," and saying 

 to us individually — Take thy shoes from off thy 

 feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy 

 ground." Let our response be — " Surely the Lord is 

 in this place, and I knew it not. This is none other 

 than the house of God, and this the gate of Heaven." 

 And lifting our eyes upward in this Temple of 



