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Prelusive drops, let all their moisture flow, 
In large effusion, o’er the freshened world.” 
* * * * * 
We see 
. . . . “ Heaven descend 
In universal bounty, shedding herbs, 
And fruits and flowers on Nature’s ample lap ! 
# * # * * 
And, while the milky nutriment distils, 
Behold the kindling country colour round. 
Thus all day long the full distended clouds 
Indulge their genial stores, and well-shower’d earth 
Is deep enrich’d with vegetable life ; 
Till in the western sky the downward sun 
Looks out, effulgent, from amid the flush 
Of broken clouds, gay shifting to his beam,” 
Then 
. “ Night succeeds, 
A softened shade, and saturated earth 
Awaits the morning beams, to give to light, 
Raised through ten thousand different plastic tubes, 
The balmy treasures of the former day ! ” 
(Thomson’s Seasons Spring, p. 3.) 
14. Need I ask, are these the works and arrangements and 
operations of dead matter, without intelligence ; of chance ; of 
nothing? or of a Being, supremely good, wise, and intelligent? 
Has this rapid, and — as I feel it to be — most imperfect review of 
a few, very few, of the wonderful facts continually before our 
eyes, and a flight analysis of fhese, served, or nqt, to lead us to 
one decided and unwavering conclusion as to the Great First 
Cause? Is the r e an Atheist, is there even a sceptic, who will 
deny or can doubt that a God exists? Nay, do you not rather 
feel, that even the language of ordinary poetry is inadequate to 
express your felt convictions on the subject? Ho you not feel 
that the language of natural religion is also the truest language 
of natural philosophy ; and th^,t, after contemplating the won- 
derful works of nature, we speak most truly the convictions of 
our reasonable minds, when we directly apostrophize the Heity, 
and say, with the poet divine : — 
Thou visited the earth and blessed it \ Thou makest it very plenteous ; 
Thou waterest her furrows ; Thou sendest rain into the little valleys thereof ; 
Ihou makest it soft with the drops of rain, and blessest the increase of it. 
