NOTE TO THE AUTHOR’S EDITION. 
when the thoughts agree so well with one’s own. 
It is like the communion of kindred spirits, it 
makes one forget the hardships of present life, 
and, as it were, in vision transports one back to 
the old homes and old kindred. In thought, in 
feeling, we are akin, and who knows what other 
ties there are between us — ties that are, perhaps, 
lost in the obscurity of the past ! 
But to say that I feel proud that I bear the 
family name of one who can entertain millions of his 
fellow beings with ennobling thoughts of the 
beauties of Nature’s handiwork, and who has the 
power to cause these thoughts to be lifted to 
Nature’s God and to fill the minds of others with 
aspirations for communion and fellowship with 
Him and with expectations of an eternity of 
joyous adoration above — to say that I feel proud 
would be to express very tamely my feelings ! 
We have Nature dressed in her grandest 
beauties on this continent. Some of our forest 
trees are noble specimens of their kind. Our 
prairies are immense, our landscapes grand to 
awfulness, our waterfalls fearful to behold ; but 
the quiet, sweet repose of the beauties of our sea- 
o 
