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 
beauties of created nature. The Christian can alone find that con- 
geniality in associates, who not only possess a hvely 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, arid the tourist talk 
with ecstacy of the subhme and t)eautiful 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 
my 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 nunjbers, makes hill and dale responsive to his song, 
fiappy 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 highj 
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 v/ander 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 afiirm.ed 
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 1" 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 enlightened 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 piely most hap- 
pily exemplified. 
Naturalists formerly inclined to skepticism. 
