20 THE CANADIAN- NATURALIST. 
the splendour has vanished ; the crystal pageant has re- 
turned to its old sober appearance,, and is now nothing more 
than a brown leafless tree. What a figure of youthful hopes 
and prospects ! when we first enter into life how buoyant 
are our feelings^ how flattering our expectations ! everything 
promises enjoyment : life seems to be but another word for 
joy : every object appears clothed with crystal, and tinged 
with the colour of the rose. But years pass on, — 
" Time, the churl, he beckons, 
And we must away, away !" 
— the rush of years shivers the crystal tree ; years of toil, 
struggles for the means of existence, blighted hopes, inter- 
course with a cold world, destroy the illusion, and rob life 
of its poetry and romance. 
" There was a time, when meadow, grove, and stream, 
The earth, and every common sight, 
To me did seem 
Apparell'd in celestial light. 
The glory and the freshness of a dream. — 
, It is not now as it hath been of yore ; 
Turn wheresoever I may, 
B}^ night or day, 
The things which I have seen, I now can see no more." 
Yet to a well-constituted mind, a mind whose peace is 
made with God, this life is not without many unalloyed 
pleasures : though the freshness of early days is passed away, 
other joys, of a more sober character, it is true, are still of- 
fered to our grasp. Among these, not the least is the power 
of seeing God in his works, " the habit of wishing to discover 
the good and the beautiful in all that meet and surround 
us even in the minutest and humblest objects of creation. 
This taste I have long cultivated in myself, and I would 
wish to awaken it in you, that you may still have sources of 
